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| Cost Element | Identifier number, does not need to match the account number in financial accounting. | 
| Description | Description of cost element. | 
| Assignment | 
| ■Wage: Direct wage costs,  ■Material: Direct material ■Volume of sales  ■No |  | 
| Direct/distributed | Determines whether this cost element should be booked directly to the cost center or distributed using a key or defined automatically . If it is distributed using a key, this can be selected here. An appropriate key must be defined first in Distribution Keys. | 
| Distribution key | Enter the distribution key master number for the cost distribution of this cost element. The name from the key master record is displayed. | 
| Budget distribution | Identification code of a table to distribute the annual budget to the months. These tables are administered in Cost allocation. If the field remains empty, the annual value is divided into twelve equal parts. | 
| planned=actual | planned costs = actual costs  Defines whether cost differences between budget and actual values will be displayed. | 
| Annual budget (only Distribution) | Annual budget available for this cost element when distributed using a key. Budgets which can be distributed directly are assigned to appropriate cost centers using the “Budget direct” function. | 
| Show budget | Selection: Budgets to be displayed. | 
| Default fix/var. % | Defines the defaults occurring while registering fixed and variable shares per cost center. |