Recommendations for using the COPA Types

• It is strongly recommended, however, that you do not activate both types of CO-PA.
• The major reason being is that you will have significant table size impacts.
• You must be careful with account based CO-PA as this creates additional line items in the existing CO tables of COEP (actual), COEJ (plan), COSP & COSS (summary records).
• Hence if you want to do any cost center reporting, say, from any of these existing tables you will run the risk that performance will be degraded by these additional and unnecessary records.
• The only advantage of account based over costing based CO-PA is it's ability to
  automatically reconcile back to FI, in much the same manner as you would reconcile
  cost center accounting back to FI.
• However you don't have the flexibility in account based CO-PA to perform valuations using product cost estimates etc. as you do in costing based CO-PA.
• If the reason you were advised to turn on account based CO-PA as well as costing based was to facilitate reconciliation, it is suggested that you look at alternatives that won't have the same negative impacts that turning on account based would have. In addition to the serious table space issues, it is not that easy to turn on and off account based at will (especially in production).
  
• Instead what you should look at doing is creating a series of reports that enable you to
  reconcile costing based CO-PA back to CCA/PCA and FI, if this is required.
• The complexity of the costing based functionality you have used will determine the complexity of the reports that will be needed to reconcile back, but it can be done without turning on
  account based CO-PA.

Costing Based COPA Vs A/c Based COPA

Two forms of Profitability Analysis are supported: costing-based and account-based.

* Costing-based Profitability Analysis is the form of profitability analysis that groups costs and revenues according to value fields and costing-based valuation approaches, both of which you can define yourself. It guarantees you access at all times to a complete, short-term profitability report.

* Account-based Profitability Analysis is a form of profitability analysis organized in accounts and using an account-based valuation approach.
The distinguishing characteristic of this form is its use of cost and revenue elements.
It provides you with a profitability report that is permanently reconciled with financial accounting.
You can also use both of these types of CO-PA simultaneously.