The Technical Setup of Profitability Analysis in SAP S/4HANA

The technical setup describes the data structure behind the two types of profitability analysis in SAP S/4HANA.

The insight into the technical setup might help you better understand the functionalities and reconciliation challenges for costing-based profitability analysis. Let’s explore.

Technical Setup of Costing-Based Profitability Analysis

With SAP S/4HANA Finance, the current data model for costing-based profitability analysis stays the same as in SAP ERP. This section provides an overview of the tables in which the documents of costing-based profitability analysis are stored. The costing-based profitability analysis table structure hasn’t been modified in SAP S/4HANA Finance. The costing-based profitability analysis documents aren’t included in the Universal Journal, so the reconciliation of financial accounting with costing-based profitability analysis is a huge challenge.

The table below lists the individual table names and their description. The system generates these tables in the background when the operating concern for costing-based profitability analysis is created. The xxxx in the table are replaced with the technical name of the operating concern.

Migration from SAP ERP to SAP S/4HANA

SAP doesn’t provide any tool for transferring costing-based profitability analysis historical data into SAP S/4HANA. If you want to migrate to SAP S/4HANA Finance during the fiscal year and have already activated costing-based profitability analysis but want to use account-based profitability analysis in the future, costing-based profitability analysis should remain activated until the end of the year for reconciliation purposes and for analyses of historical data. You can then deactivate costing-based profitability analysis and continue to use account-based profitability analysis only.

Learn more about margin analysis and how it differs from classic, costing-based CO-PA in this post.

Technical Setup of Margin Analysis

In SAP S/4HANA, many finance and controlling tables have been consolidated into the Universal Journal (table ACDOCA). The figure below illustrates the consolidation of the tables from SAP ERP FI, CO-PA, CO, Asset Accounting (AA), and material ledger in the Universal Journal.

All characteristics of the line-item table are transferred to the Universal Journal. Table BKPF for the document header (Document Header for Accounting) is still available in SAP S/4HANA. All other tables that are replaced by the Universal Journal are kept as views to ensure that the standard reports and standard transactions function properly.

Table Structure in Margin Analysis

In SAP S/4HANA, the account-based profitability analysis data and the margin analysis data are stored in the Universal Journal (table ACDOCA) in real time. The integration of margin analysis into the Universal Journal table provides many advantages, such as adding further characteristics to the Universal Journal, storing data in real time, and providing simplified reconciliation with financial accounting.

In the next figure, you can see an extract of the Universal Journal (table ACDOCA) showing some actual line items for profitability segments (Profit. segment column). You can see that various characteristics are derived in the line item such as Customer, Plant, and so on.

The integration of margin analysis in the Universal Journal improves the processes by making accurate transaction data for the value chain available in one source. The single source of truth also improves analytical capabilities as all information is stored in one table.

Editor’s note: This post has been adapted from a section of the book Margin Analysis with SAP S/4HANA by Kathrin Schmalzing. Kathrin is a partner at PwC who specializes in financials and controlling software implementations, business process analysis and transformation, and value flow analysis.

This post was originally published in 9/2025.