A storage location and a company code are two organizational units that are directly linked to a plant. A plant is an organizational unit that represents a physical location where goods and services are produced, stored, or sold. A storage location is a subunit of a plant that represents a specific area where goods are stored, such as a warehouse, a bin, or a shelf. A company code is an organizational unit that represents an independent legal entity that is required for external reporting, such as balance sheet or income statement. A plant can belong to only one company code, and a storage location can belong to only one plant.

Realignment in Profitability Analysis (CO-PA) enables changes to master data flowing into characteristic derivation to be made retrospectively. In this way, the characteristic values in data already posted are changed2. Realignment does not affect the posted general ledger accounts, the exchange rate valuation, or the derived value fields.