Defining Key Figures

Characteristics (like cost center, business partner, et cetera) 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, et cetera).

When you define a Key Figure, you can define settings like Key Figure Type, Currency/Unit and BI Clients.

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

When currency or unit is variable, you assign a field to hold whatever currency a specific transaction is in. If you know your whole business or just one measurement is always in a consistent currency, there is no reason to have a variable field.

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)).