In this activity, you maintain derivation rules to specify which costing key should be used to access the relevant material cost estimate.
You can derive a costing key from the one of the following source fields, or a combination of them.
By combining these source fields, you can determine a sequence of derivation steps. To do this, enter Edit -> Choose or Edit -> Create Step
Under Goto -> Maintain rule values you can maintain several derivation rules per derivation step, which the system will process in succession. As soon as a default profit center is found for a derivation rule, the system will add this profit center and will cease processing derivation rules.
It is possible that not all characteristics are set in all postings. If the system does not find a default for a posting in any of the rule values contained in the derivation step, it skips to the next derivation step.
You assign the costing key I01 to the representative material ABC in plant 001.
You have already defined the corresponding costing keys in Customizing, under Define Keys for Accessing Material Cost Estimates .
If you have activated the key figure Display error message for a derivation step under Edit -> Choose on the tab page characteristics, a warning will appear if no rule value is maintained for the current posting. The derivation step will then be ended, and other existing derivation steps will cease to process. To avoid this, enter a rule value for every combination of source values you use.
On the same tab page, you can make a setting so that rule values can be naintained with validity date. This allows you, for example, to deactivate values temporarily for testing purposes without having to delete them.
For more information about maintenance of derivation rules, see the section Profitability analysis (CO-PA) in the R/3 library, under Characteristic derivation.
You have to transport derivation rules manually. Choose Extras -> Transport.