In Costing based Profitability analysis you define costing keys. A costing key is a set of access parameters which are used in valuation to determine which data in Product cost planning should be read. In the costing key you attach the costing variant.

In the costing key you specify whether the system should read the current standard cost estimate, the previous standard cost estimate or the future standard cost estimate or a saved cost estimate.
The configuration settings to determine this costing key is as follows:

1. Assign costing keys to the products – Three costing keys can be attached to a single product for a specific point of valuation, record type, plan version.
2. Assign costing keys to Material types
3. Assign costing keys to any characteristics – You can use your own strategy to determine the costing keys. This is through user defined assignment tables.