A PCL is a concept in Advanced Business Planning which defines the lowest level data entity within the application. It is made up of three independent yet related components:

1. Product (P): The item the company is selling
2. Customer (C): Who the Company is selling the Product to
3. Location (L):  Where the company is shipping the Product from to the Customer

The table that ties these elements together is the sales history in your ERP - the record of who bought what when, how much, and from where.

This in turn sets the planning hierarchy for the business of which the most basic is Company > Customer > Item > Location. Customers may add additional "planning levels" against all three of the entities to help establish the context to which item forecasts are generated and demand plans managed.

The PCL is also  called the base planning entity in Advanced Business Planning. It is a critical component in the planning process because it not only carries the entire sales history but the forecast and all the related demand plan edits.