The operating concern represents the highest level at which CO-PA reporting can take place. An operating concern can have one or several controlling areas assigned to it. Many companies define just one operating concern to be able to link all market segments with one another and to evaluate them. It is possible to set up a single operating concern if all controlling areas and company codes in your company use the same fiscal year variant.

Characteristics represent the dimensions to be analyzed in CO-PA. They define which objects can be evaluated in the information system. Alongside the fixed characteristics that are present automatically in every operating concern, you can define up to another 50 characteristics. As a rule, you should be able to cover the specific requirements with 10 to 20 characteristics in Profitability Analysis.

In costing-based CO-PA, values and quantities are stored in value fields. In general, value fields represent sales-related figures such as revenues, sales deductions and costs. In contrast to characteristics, there are no fixed value fields that are contained in every operating concern. As a rule, between 20 and 60 value fields are required for an operating concern. However, you can create a maximum of 120 value fields per operating concern.

In costing-based CO-PA, all values and quantities are stored in base key figures according to the revenue and cost elements. This type of Profitability Analysis enables you to reconcile cost and financial accounting using accounts.

In IDES, account-based CO-PA is set up in the system but the processes are limited to the costing-based form. This means that the account-based process is not explained at length.