characteristic
The characteristics in Profitability Analysis represent those criteria according to which you analyze your operating results and your sales and profit plan. Valid values of these characteristics are combined to form profitability segments. You can use concepts that already exist in the R/3 System, such as "Customer" and "Sales organization", to define characteristics. In addition, you can manually define your own characteristics when you customize your system.
profitability segment
Object within Profitability Analysis to which costs and revenues are assigned.
A profitability segment corresponds to a market segment. You can calculate the profitability of a profitability segment by setting off its sales revenues against its costs.
A profitability segment in an operating concern is defined by a combination of characteristic values. Characteristics can be concepts that already exist in the R/3 System (customer, product, sales organization, and so on), or you can define your own concepts (such as "order size class").
Eg.
Profitability segment 1: Product "Prod-1132"/ Customer "100267
Profitability segment 2: Industry "Chemicals"/ Country "USA"/ Product group "Laboratory instruments"
How to display all characteristics in system?
Controlling->Profitability Analysis->Structures->Define Operating Concern->Maintain Characteristics
How to get values?
BAPI_COPACHARACT_GETVALUES
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