The following records are part of the most important data in the procurement process:

 The vendor master record

 The material master record

 The purchasing info record

The purchasing info record is a connection between vendors and materials and is discussed later in this
enablement. When purchasing documents are created, data is transferred by default from existing
master records to the purchasing documents. This reduces the effort required to enter the data. Other
data, such as units of measure, material short text, and the PO text, is also integrated from the material
master record for the new document.

The data in the vendor master record includes address data and payment data. You can store vendor-
specific data for a certain material, such as delivery time and purchase price, in purchasing info records.

The vendor master data includes information about the vendors of a company. This information is
stored in the individual vendor master records.
Data in the vendor master record is subdivided into various categories as follows:

 General data

General data is valid for a single client. General data includes the vendor’s address, control data, bank
details, communication, and contact persons.

 Company code data

Company code data is maintained at the company code level. Company code data includes the number
of the reconciliation account, correspondence, withholding tax, and the payment methods for automatic
payment transactions.

 Purchasing organization data

Purchasing organization data is maintained for each purchasing organization. Purchasing organization
data includes the purchase order currency, Incoterms, partner roles, purchasing data, and various
controls pertaining to the vendor. You can also maintain different data for specific plants or for vendor
subranges
You decide whether to maintain vendor master records in a central location (all data is maintained
together) or on a decentralized basis (each department maintains its own data)

Among other tasks, the account group performs the following functions:

 Determines the type of number assignment, such as internal or external

 Determines the number range. The system identifies the account number from this number
range to be assigned to the vendor

 Determines the field selection, such as which fields are ready for input, which fields must be
maintained, and which fields are hidden

 Determines the valid partner schema

 Determines the vendor’s status, for example, if the vendor is a one-time vendor or a permanent
vendor

Unlike other master records, you can use a one-time vendor master record for several different vendors.
For this reason, no vendor-specific data, such as an address or bank details, are stored for one-time
vendors. This data is recorded only in the relevant document.

When you create a purchasing or invoice document for a one-time vendor, the system automatically
opens an additional data screen, where you can enter specific data, such as the vendor’s name, address,
and bank details.
When you create a vendor master record, you need a unique number for the vendor, or creditor. This
number is assigned either automatically by the system or manually by the administrator, depending on
the account group. The creditor number is also used as the subsidiary ledger number in financial
accounting. In subledger accounting, the total liabilities are updated for each vendor.

When creating a vendor master record, youmust also create a reconciliation account. This account is a
General Ledger (G/L) account in G/L accounting. A reconciliation account depicts a company’s liabilities
to numerous vendors in G/L accounting. When entering invoices, you enter the vendor and the system
produces the reconciliation account from the vendor master record.

The maintenance of partner roles in the vendor master record allows you to distribute one or more of
these roles to different vendors. For example, using the partner role function, you can define a different
creditor as a freight forwarder for a certain vendor.

You can decide whether the vendor is to be blocked for just one purchasing organization, or for all
purchasing organizations.

You also have the option of setting the Block for quality reasons checkbox. The Block for quality reasons
checkbox is effective only for materials for which quality management is active in procurement. The
blocking function used here determines which procurement function, such as RFQ or purchase order, is
to be blocked for quality reasons.
The material master record is a company’s central source of material-specific data. It is used in all areas
of logistics. The integration of all material data in a single database object eliminates the problem of
data redundancy. All areas, such as purchasing, inventory management, materials planning, and invoice
verification, can jointly use the stored data

The data screens in material master record maintenance are subdivided into the following types:

 Main work level

These are the screens for the individual user departments, such as basic data, materials planning, and so
on.
  Additional data level

On these screens you find additional information, such as alternative units of measure, material short
descriptions, and consumption values.

The data retained within a view may be valid for different organizational levels

Some material data is valid for all organizational levels, while some material data is valid only for certain
levels. To ensure that the material data can be administered centrally, without unnecessary load on the
database due to redundant information, the material master is organized to reflect the structure of a
company.

Material data is distinguised in the structure in the following ways:

 Data at client level

General material data that is valid for the whole company is stored at client level.

 Data at plant level

All data that is valid within a plant and for all storage locations belonging to it is stored at plant level.

 Data at storage location level

All data that is valid for a particular storage location is stored at storage location level.
These organizational levels are relevant for the external procurement process. Client, plant, and storage
location matter when you enter data for purchasing, inventory management, and accounting. Other
organizational levels can be relevant for other departments. For example, the sales and distribution data
is entered depending on the sales organization and the distribution channel. For the warehouse
management data, youmustspecify a warehouse number and storage type.

Material data is structured by user department and organizational level and is also evident in material
master record maintenance. When processing material master records, youhaveto pass through several
dialog screens before you start to add or change data.
On the initial screen, you will see two successive dialog boxes. In the first dialog box, specify the views
that you want to process. In the second dialog box, specify the relevant organization levels. Next, you
will see the data screens. You can influence the default screen sequence by configuring the presettings.

The material type controls the following functions:

 The type of number assignment (internal or external)

 The permissible number range intervals

 The user department-specific view that is proposed for entry

 The procurement type that is allowed for a material (that is, whether the material is produced
in-house, procured externally, or both)

Along with the plant, the material type determines the way a material is maintained in inventory
management. This includes updating either the quantity changes in the material master record or the
value changes in the stock accounts of financial accounting, or both.

Furthermore, the material type determines which accounts are updated when a receipt is posted to or
an issue is posted from the warehouse for a material.

Various types of material are available for use in the standard SAP system. If your company needs
additional material types, you can define these according to your requirements in Customizing.
In Customizing, you can define new industry sectors and maintain the field reference for field selection
control according to your company-specific requirements. You can maintain most of the data in the
material master record directly. However, some information is automatically updated by the system.
When you enter goods movements, for example, the system updates the stock and consumption data.
You can choose Information on material, to find the statistical information, such as the date of original
creation and the date of the last change.

Some data in the material master is used for information purposes only, for example, description, size,
and dimensions. Other material data has a control function in an application. For example, the valuation
class determines what G/L accounts will be posted to.

Once a department has created data for a material, the material master record exists in the database. If
a user from another department wishes to enter data later, they do not have to create the material
master record from the beginning, but only have to extend the existing record by adding the information
from their department. The material master is also extended when data pertaining to the material is
extended to further organizational levels.

Any changes you make to data in a material master record, such as creating or changing are logged in a
change document. This means that you can trace the change history at any time.

The transfer of information from the existing vendor depends on the following factors:
  When only copying data that is not vendor-specific, the address and the blocking indicator are
not copied.

 When displaying data that you have already entered for your vendor, the saved data is not
overwritten by the reference data.

 When you specify the areas to be transferred from the reference, you define the area that
needs to be copied from the reference. For example, if you do not specify a purchasing
organization, the system does not transfer the purchasing data.

The following are the two scenarios occurring during system transfer of data:

 General data created

This depends on whether you have already created the general data, which includes name, address, and
phone number. Only the company code data is transferred when you specify the reference company
code. When you create the data for the purchasing organization, the system transfers only this
corresponding data from the reference.

 General data not created

Only the language and country from the reference address data is transferred.
Entry Aids in Material Master Maintenance – Settings, Reference Material, and Profiles

An audio clip is played with this screen. To view the audio text, select Transcript.

Settings

In Create Material (transaction MM01), choose Defaults → Industry Sector to specify the industry sector
and then hide this field.

Reference Material

To copy the purchasing data for a material, determine the following:

 That you only want to copy the purchasing data valid for a single client reference. In this case,
do not enter a plant for the reference.

 That the plant-specific data also needs to be copied from the reference. In this case, you specify
the plant for which the reference material has been created.

Profiles

To automatically plan or forecast a material, you must first create data for it in the material master
record. To simplify entry of this data, you can use MRP and forecast profiles. Profiles are used to store
MRP or forecast parameters independently of the material master record. A profile is a collection of
information for the default values of a material master record. The information stored in a profile is
standard information required for maintaining different materials repeatedly in the same or a similar
group.

If you create MRP or forecast data for a material, you can enter the profiles in the Organizational
Levels dialog box.

Use presettings to avoid entering or selecting the same data more than once. You can preset the screen
views that you frequently manage in the Select Viewsdialog box. You can preset the dialog box to display
only if you specifically request it. Similar presettings are possible for the Organizational Levelsdialog box.

When you create a material master record, you can also copy the data from an existing master record.
On the initial screen, enter the number of the reference material in the corresponding field. Then, a
dialog box allows you to specify the organizational levels of the reference material in the additional
fields.

The information stored in a profile is standard information required for maintaining different materials
repeatedly in the same or a similar group.
The capabilities of the mass maintenance tool for data objects are as follows:

 You can change the data in the material master records quickly and easily in one simple step.
For example, you have the option of changing the purchasing group or adjusting the Goods
receipt (GR) processing time in several materials all at once.
 You can perform mass maintenance online or in the background. If you want to change many
objects at the same time, choose background mode to avoid overloading the system. Upon
completion, the system issues a log showing the executed changes and any errors that occurred.

 The system performs a consistency check for the changed data. The system does not make any
changes that would lead to data inconsistencies. It flags these entries in the log.

The steps to execute mass maintenance (1) are as follows:

 Select the Object Typefield. The system displays the relevant tables and fields.

 Choose (Execute).

 Select the tables in which you want to change data. Select several tables if you want to make the
changes in all the tables at the same time for data consistency. Otherwise, edit the tables one at
a time to avoid poor system performance.

 Choose (Execute).
 The steps to execute mass maintenance (2) are as follows:

1. Choose (Select fields) to select further fields.

2. Enter the data records to be changed in the Purchasing Group field.

3. Choose (Execute) to start the selection of data records.

Note: To limit the number of objects to change, enter the required selection criteria. Depending
on the number of selected data records, the system asks if you want to execute the changes
online or in the background.
 The steps to execute mass maintenance (3) are as follows:

1. Choose (Select fields) to select the fields you want to change and enter the new values in the
corresponding columns.

2. Select the column header and the data records to be changed.

3. Choose the Carry Out a Mass Changepushbutton to execute a mass change.

You also have the option of changing a field entry only when it has a particular value. To do this,
choose the Restrictionspushbutton and enter the new value in the first line and the value to be
replaced in the second line.

4. Save your entries. The system performs a consistency check.