Defining Key Figures

Characteristics (like cost center, business partner, and so on) are business reference objects that are used to analyze Key Figures. Key Figures provide values to be calculated or evaluated (like invoiced quantity, sales revenue, and so on).

If you choose Amount as theKey Figure Type, you must assign a currency to this Key Figure.

You can choose between a fixed currency and a variable currency:

• Fixed Currency: if you know your whole business or just one measurement is always in a consistent currency, you choose a fixed currency value, for example EUR.

• Currency InfoObject: if you want to maintain values of the key figure in multiple currencies, you can choose a variable currency, for example by selecting InfoObject 0CURRENCY.

If you choose Quantity as the Key Figure Type, you must assign a quantity unit to this Key Figure. For the Quantity Key Figure Type, you can choose between a fixed quantity unit such as KG, or a variable quantity unit (for example, by selecting InfoObject 0UNIT).

The properties in the BI Clients area are used to control the behavior when the Key Figure is used in reporting, with settings related to:

• Display
• Description
• Decimal Places

As you have learned, Key Figures can be used in a master data relationship (for example gross weight of a material). In our scenario, we only use Key Figures in relationship to transactional data. We could use Key Figure 0AMOUNT, because it meets all requirements, but we'll create a new one (U##AMOUNT), for learning purposes. It is created in this lesson, but we use it later in our scenario when objects for transactional data are modeled (DataStore Objects (advanced)).