SAP S4HANA MM

MATERIAL MASTER FOR BEGINNERS

Table Of Content
Chapter 1: Master Data

1. Introduc on to Master Data

2. How to Create Material master data
3. How to Change Material Master
4. How to Copy Material Master
5. Mass Crea on of Material Master
6. Material Master Views – Ul mate Guide!

Chapter 2: Purchasing

1. Introduc on to Purchasing and purchase requisi on

2. How to create a purchase info record
3. How to Change a Purchase Info Record
4. How to create a purchase requisi on
5. How to convert Purchase Requisi on to Purchase Order

Chapter 3: Quota ons

1. Overview of Quota ons. How to create RFQ

2. How to Create Quota ons
3. How to compare price for different Quota ons
4. How to select or reject a Quota on

Chapter 4: Purchase Order

1. How to Create a Source List

2. How to Create a Purchase Order
3. How to create Purchase Order with Reference
4. How to change a Purchase Order

Chapter 5: Invoice

1. How to Post Goods receipt

 2. How to perform Invoice Verifica on
3. How to Release an Invoice
4. Service Purchase Order
5. All About Outline agreement
6. Release procedures for purchasing documents

Chapter 6: Pricing

1. Overview of Pricing Procedure

2. How to Define Access Sequence & Condi on Table
3. A How to Define condi on types
4. How To Define Calcula on Schema
5. How to Define Schema Group
6. Define Schema Determina on

Chapter 7: Inventory Management

1. Overview of Inventory Management

2. How to create Goods Receipt
3. How To Cancel Goods Receipt
4. Reserva on of Inventory
5. How to issue goods
6. Transfer Pos ng of Goods
7. All About Physical Inventory
8. Special stock and Special procurement
Chapter 1: Master Data
Introduc on to Master Data
What is Master Data?

Master data in SAP is used as a base for any transac on. If you
are producing, transferring stock, selling, purchasing, doing
physical inventory, whatever your ac vity may be , it requires
certain master data to be maintained. We have material
master data, customer master data, vendor master data,
pricing/condi ons master data, warehouse management
master data (storage bin master data) etc.
The ones we will focus in MM module are material master
and purchase info record.

Material Master: What you should know about

material master?

Material in SAP is a logical representa on of certain goods or

service that is an object of produc on, sales, purchasing,
inventory management etc. It can be a car, a car part,
gasoline, transporta on service or consul ng service, for
example.
InInIn All the informa on for all materials on their poten al
use and characteris cs in SAP are called material master. This
is considered to be the most important master data in SAP
(there are also customer master data, vendor master data,
condi ons/pricing master data etc), and all the processing of
the materials are influenced by material master. That is why
it’s crucial to have a precise and well maintained material
master.
In order to be confident in your ac ons you need to
understand material master views and its implica ons on
processes in other modules, business transac ons and a few
more helpful informa on like tables that store material
master data, transac ons for mass material maintenance (for
changing certain characteris cs for a large number of
materials at once).

Material types

In SAP ERP, every material has a characteris c called “material

type” which is used throughout the system for various
purposes.

Why is it essen al to differen ate between material

types and what does that characteris c represent?

1. It can represent a type of origin and usage – like a

finished product (produced goods ready for sale),
semifinished product (used as a part of a finished
product), trading goods (for resale), raw materials (used
for produc on of semifinished and finished products)
etc. These are some of the predefined SAP material types
among others like food, beverages, service and many
others.
2. We can define our custom material types if any of
standard ones doesn’t fulfill our need.

Most used material types in standard SAP installa on

What can be configured on material type level

(possible differences between types)?

1. Material master views: It defines the views associated

with a Material Type. For example, if we have a material
type “FERT” assigned to our material Product 1000 – we
don’t want to have Purchasing based views for that
 material because we don’t need to purchase our own
product – it is configured on material type level.
2. Default price control: we can set this control to standard
or moving average price (covered later in detail), but this
can be changed in material master to override the
default se ngs.
3. Default Item category group: used to determine item
category in sales documents. It can be changed in
material master to override the default se ngs.
4. internal/external purchase orders, special material types
indicators, and few more.

Offered material types in MM01 transac on

So material type is assigned to materials that have the same
basic se ngs for material master views, price control, item
category group and few other. Material Type can be assigned
during the crea on of the material in t-code MM01 (covered
in detail later)

Where can we find a complete list of materials with

their respec ve material type?

There are numerous transac ons for this. The raw data itself
is stored in MARA table
(you can view table contents with t-code SE16 or SE16N –
newest version of the transac on), but in some systems these
t-codes aren’t allowed for a standard user. In such cases, we
can easily acquire the list with t-code MM60 (Material list).
MM60 is used par cularly o en as it displays a lot of basic
material characteris cs.
Selec on screen – you can enter only the material number:

Selec on screen for MM60 transac o

We can see that material 10410446 in plant AR01 is of type
FERT (finished product).

MM60 report results with the export bu on highlighted

Using the toolbar bu on highlighted on screen, we can export
the list of materials we have selected on screen.

Material group

Another characteris c SAP material is assigned during it’s

crea on is “material group”, which can represent a group or
subgroup of materials based on certain criteria.

Which criteria can be used to create material groups?

Any criteria that suit your needs for repor ng purposes is
right for your system. You may group materials by the type of
raw material used to produce it (different kinds of plas cs
used in the produc on process), or you can divide all services
into consul ng services (with different materials for SAP
consul ng, IT consul ng, financial consul ng etc),
transporta on services (internal transport, interna onal
transport), you can also group by produc on technique
(materials created by welding, materials created by extrusion,
materials created by injec on etc). Grouping depends mainly
on the approach your management chooses as appropriate,
and it’s mainly done during the implementa on, rarely
changes in a produc ve environment.

Assigned material group in material master

In addi on, there is a material hierarchy (used mostly in sales
& distribu on) that can also be used for grouping, but it’s
defined almost always according to sales needs as it is used
for defining sales condi ons (standard discounts for
customers, addi onal discounts, special offers).
On the other hand, material group is mainly used in PP and
MM module.
If you need to display material groups for mul ple materials,
you can use already men oned t-code MM60.You just need to
select more materials in selec on criteria.

Material group in report MM60

Material group is easily subject to mass maintenance via
transac on MM17. More on that in the material master
edi ng sec on.
How to Create Material
master data
When we want to use a new material in SAP, we have to
define it’s characteris cs, in order to control it’s behaviour in
all of the transac ons. Every material is created in the either
of these two ways:

1. By calling transac on MM01 (mostly used in a produc ve

environment)
2. Mass crea on (mainly used only once on transi on of
materials from the previous system into SAP ERP)

We will focus now on transac on MM01, and leave the mass

crea on for later since it is an advanced tool. We will discuss
it a er you have enough knowledge about material master
views and organiza onal levels.
Step 1) Transac on that is used for the crea on of material
master record, as stated above is MM01. The execu on of the
transac on brings us to the ini al screen, which consists of
few fields that contain the basic informa on on our material.

1. Enter Industry sector (mostly used: M-Mechanical

engineering)
2. Enter Material type, (it can be FERT, ROH, HALB, HAWA -
the appropriate material type for current material)
Note: Material number (alphanumerical key uniquly
iden fying material in SAP system) can be generated
automa cally or assigned manually – it depends on material
type. For material type HAWA for example, you can have
manual number assignment, while for FERT you can have
automa c number assignment. These se ngs are supposed
to be done by MM consultant in customizing during the
implementa on.
Step 2) We can choose which master data to create.

1. We can click on Select View(s) to choose which views we

need to create for the material.
2. Select Basic Data 1
3. Select Sales Org Data 1. You can always extend the
material master data later if you forgot to choose all
needed views.
4. Select the Check Mark. You can see an op on bu on
marked in blue on the screen below for selec ng all
views (rarely used in a produc ve environment).
Note: Selec on of views that can be maintained for material
depends on material type. In most of the systems some views
are disabled for certain material types ( for example MRP
views might be disabled for trading goods).

Step 3) In the next screen

1. Enter Organiza onal levels for the views we selected in

the previous step.For example, those could be Plant,
Storage Loca on, Sales Organiza on and Distribu on
Channel etc.
2. Click the Check Bu on
Below you can find a complete reference of organiza onal
levels needed for crea ng material master views.

Material Master View Organiza onal Levels

Basic data (1 & 2) None

Classifica on None

Plant, Sales Organiza on, Distribu on

Sales organiza on data (1 & 2)
Channel

Sales General Plant

Foreign Trade – Export data Plant

Purchasing Plant

MRP Views Plant, Storage Loca on, MRP Profile

Forecas ng Plant, Forecas ng Profile

Work Scheduling Plant

General Plant Data (Storage 1 &

Plant, Storage Loca on
2)

Warehouse Management 1 Plant, Warehouse Number

Warehouse Management 2 Plant, Warehouse Number, Storage Type

Quality Management Plant

Accoun ng (1 & 2) Plant

Cos ng (1 & 2) Plant

Table of material master views connec on to organiza onal

levels
IMPORTANT: You need to maintain materials in all of your
organiza onal levels in which they are going to be used. If you
have more than one plant than you have to repeat MM01
transac on in order to extend your materials for both plants.
If you have more than one combina on of Sales
organiza on/Distribu on channel you also have to repeat the
process in MM01 for all of the combina ons.
How to Change Material
Master
It may be needed to change certain op on in our material
master (due to the organiza onal changes, or changes in
processes). We cannot use MM01 as that is the transac on
code used only for crea ng views that are not maintained for
certain material. In this case, we need to use MM02 and
MM03 transac on codes.
In SAP transac ons ending with 01 are for crea ng, ending
with 02 for edi ng/changing, and the ones ending in 03 are
used for viewing data without possibility to change it.

Process to change Material Master

Step 1)

1. Enter transac on code MMO2 in the command prompt

2. Enter the material number whose material master data
we want to change.

Step 2)
 1. The next step is choosing the views for which data is to
be changed. For example, we will choose sales
organiza on data 2 view. You can choose one or more
organiza onal levels for change.
2. Click on Organiza onal Levels

3. Organiza onal level selec on

Step 3)

1. Maker the desired changes.

2. Click the check bu on.
Step 4) A er you have made the changes , you can check the
changes in the corresponding view

Step 5) Click the save bu on , to save the changes NOTE:You

can use transac on MM03 to display Material Master Data. In
MM03, we can only display data without the possibility to
change it (fields are greyed out).
How to Copy Material Master
In this tutorial we will go throught the process of copying an
exis ng material master data into new material
Step 1) In transac on MM01

1. Enter material number that you want to create.

2. Enter our exis ng material from which we want to copy
the data.
3. Click on Select Views bu on.

Step 2)

1. Select the views you need to copy to new material

2. Click Org levels
Step 3)

1. You can choose which organiza onal levels will be

created for our new material.
2. And from which organiza onal levels of reference
material master data should be copied.
3. Confirm.
Step 4) You are presented a screen for view maintenance. You
can select any view and change data to a value that differs
from the reference material.For example, weight and
descrip on.

1. Changing material descrip on as this is our 24” model

not 40”.
2. Changing gross weight.
3. Changing net weight.
You should check all the other view and change the material
specific data.You should go through the addi onal data
(descrip ons for other languages, units of measure) as this
data should be different for our new material.
Step 5) Click the save bu on. Material is created
Mass Crea on of Material
Master
In order to create mul ple materials at once, you should have
access to a func on like

1. eCa tool
2. LSMW(Legacy System Migra on Workbench)
3. BDC (Batch Data Communica on) recordings
4. BAPI (Business Applica on Programing Interface)

You can also use mass maintenance transac on MM17 to

create views in some cases. But you must keep in mind that
not all of the organiza onal levels should contain the same
data (MM17 requires that all data for the materials and
organiza onal levels you select should be the same).
Mass crea on is never considered to be end users
responsibility.But as a module specialist you may need to
work on MM17 . In case of LSMW, BDC or BAPI, it is
considered to be developers or consultants work. So you do
not have to understand in detail, you just have to know the
concept, and that there is this kind of possibility for mass data
maintenance.

You can use MM17 for mass changing of material master data
(if something can’t be accomplished by this transac on it can
be done using LSMW, BDC or BAPI).
Step 1)

1. Enter transac on MM17

2. Select the data type you need to change, for example,
we need to change a field in general data.
3. Execute.
Step 2)

1. Enter the material range or list for which we want to

change the data
2. Execute

Step 3)

1. When clicking on the bu on shown below – you will get

the Select fields screen.
2. Check the appropriate field (we are changing base unit of
measure for our two materials).
3. Click the arrow poin ng to the le to add the selected
field to the list of fields to be changed.
4. Click the OK bu on.
Step 4) Now we are presented with the next screen where we
can input our value to be transferred. Let’s say we have
maintained PAL – pallet as the base unit of measure for our
TV sets of 24” and 32” and we need to change that to PCS –
pieces.

1. Enter the value you want to copy in the box.

2. Click on the column heading.
3. Select the bu on, to overwrite the old values by “PCS”.
4. Execute.

Now your se ngs are saved, and your material master data is
changed.
Material Master Views –
Ul mate Guide!
In this sec on, we will cover all the MM views with the
implica on on vital processes in standard SAP system. You will
see how each of the views is created, its obligatory data,
op onal fields, and how its crea on reflects the system. This
tutorial is 7000 words+. For easy reference , we have created
a clickable index below , which will take you to various
sec ons of the tutorial

Basic Views

Basic views are views with general informa on about our

material. Obligatory fields you need to insert in order to save
changes are

1. Material descrip on: LCD TV 40” – this can be

maintained in various languages.
2. Base unit of measure (o en referred to as Base UOM):
PCS – this is the unit of measure in which material stock
is managed. For a TV set, it’s natural to be a piece. You
can also use meter, kilogram, or any other unit you have
defined and is suitable for material.
3. Division: 10 – Division for the material, you could create
divisions 10, 20, 30, 40 for finished goods, trading goods,
services, and other materials, so you can categorize them
in this way. We have selected division 10 for our material
since it is finished goods.
4. General Item category group: NORM – Standard item.
Used throughout the system, this indicator has an effect
on sales and stock transfer processing as it is used in
item category determina on.
5. Weight unit: Kg – unit in which product weight is
entered.
 6. Gross weight: 26,988 – gross weight of 1 unit of product
in weight unit. Net weight: 24,651 – net weight of 1 unit
of product in weight unit

Basic data - op onal fields

Material group – you can enter material group here Product
hierarchy – this field is used in sales and distribu on and is
maintained in Sales organiza on 1 view. EAN/UPC – Material
EAN code, besides usage in bar coding, it is par cularly
u lized in Warehouse management as a unique iden fier for
material and package combina on. One material can have
several bar codes. One for the base unit of measure. Every
alterna ve unit of measure can also have it’s EAN, but it’s not
a requirement, it’s an op on. Other fields are
op onal. NOTE:In the upper part, (marked in green) you can
see views that are possible to maintain for current material.
You can navigate by clicking on the appropriate view name.
Classifica on View

Materials can be classified in order to be found later by their

class, batch characteris cs etc. Let’s say we have a lot of TV
sets with different dimensions colors etc. You can create two
classes: dimension and color. Later you can use it to find all
the black TV sets, or TV sets of a certain dimension.

Class types available in standard SAP

By choosing Material Class – 001 you are extending material
for this class type. Now we have to add a class we want to use
for our material. A class called General could consist of
two characteris cs: Color and Dimension, or anything that
you might need while categorizing materials or searching
them in MM module, or other modules. A er class
assignment to the material, you can maintain characteris cs
that this class contains. In our case, we have a class
named General that contains
characteris cs Color and Dimension. We can populate the
appropriate fields.
 Assigning a class and maintaining values for characteris cs
It is a good prac ce to include the color of your product in
material descrip on as well; it is extremely useful to other
users. For example while crea ng sales orders in SD, for
picking and putaway processes in warehouse management,
purchasing department, produc on planning etc. You can now
save your changes.
 Saving Classifica on view

Sales Organiza on Data 1

When you choose this view, a screen with organiza onal

levels will appear. Here, you can choose for which Plant, Sales
organiza on and Distribu on channel you want to extend
your material.
A er confirming Organiza onal Levels, you are presented a
screen which contains the data regarding sales ac vi es. The
only mandatory field is the delivery unit. Others are op onal,
but they might be needed in order to use some advanced
features. For example, if you want to use dynamic rounding
profile (must be customized by SD consultant), you have to
maintain field Rounding profile. Let’s find out what are the
most important fields in sales views. The most crucial thing
about sales views is that they are open. When we do that
people from SD module can sell our material through that
Sales Organiza on / Channel. So essen ally you would only
have to populate the Delivery unit field and save the data, and
immediately material becomes available to be used. To get a
be er understanding of Sales organiza on, think of it as an
office that sells your products. In this office, you have people
that sell products in your home country – they are using
distribu on channel 01, and you can have people selling
abroad, export department that would be channel 02. On the
screen below, you can see all of the fields from Sales
organiza on 1 View.
Tax category/indicator: For internal sales, we will have to
define a full tax indicator since the tax is applied for sales
inside the country. For export, (using division 02 for example)
we would set this to 0 – No Tax. It actually depends on the tax
policy of your country, but most of the countries have this
prac ce I men oned. Delivery unit: in most cases it’s first
alterna ve unit of measure (box, pallet, something else). You
can see that here we will define 1 PAL – pallet as a delivery
unit, but that doesn’t mean that we can sell only en re pallet.
We will also be able to sell a single piece of this material, and
the system will indicate to sales person that this material is
meant to be delivered as 12 pieces on a pallet. Base unit of
measure: this is grayed out field as it is already defined in
Basic Data view 1 and cannot be changed
a erwards. Division: this is the division we have just selected
in our organiza onal levels screen before current
screen. Sales unit: If the field does not contain an entry, the
system will assume that the unit of measure is the base unit
of measure. If you don’t want to use pieces as a default sales
unit of measure, you can enter the appropriate unit of
measure in this field. It will reflect sales documents in this
way: - Sales unit is not defined. Sales person enters quan ty
of 4 without specifying unit of measure. System will assume
that the required quan ty is 4 pieces - Sales unit is defined as
pallet. System will assume that the required quan ty is 4
pallets Sales unit not variable: this check box is used in cases
when we require the material to be sold only in sales unit. If
you set the sales unit to PAL, and check this box, sales person
will only be able to sell this material using the PAL alterna ve
unit of measure. This is being used rarely. Unit of measure
group: Used mainly in conjunc on with dynamic rounding
profile, this is an indicator which represents a group of units
of measure that can be used for this material. Material group:
material group we discussed during the Basic Data
view. Min.order qty: This is a minimal order quan ty
accepted for this material. Min.dely. Qty: This is a minimal
delivery quan ty accepted for this material.Rounding profile:
Here you can choose a specific rounding profile for material.
SD consultant has to create the profiles to be shown as
possible entries in this field.

Sales Organiza on Data 2

With same Organiza onal Levels, we can create the sales

organiza on data 2 View and maintain its data. Mostly
sta s cal and grouping data are subject of this view.
Important Sales Organiza on Data 2 View fields

Material sta s cs group: This is an indicator used to

specify if this material is to be included in sta s cal
transac on in SD module MCSI. It is most used to set this
indicator to 1 in most systems.
General item category group: default item category
group for this material based on material type se ngs.
You cannot change it.
Product hierarchy: This hierarchy is used for repor ng
purposes so that sales management can analyze sales
data based on this hierarchy. It consists of two levels. For
example, first level of hierarchy could be LCD TVs. Inside
the first hierarchy level, we can find more than one
second level, and in our case, we can have LCD TV 40”,
LCD TV 32”, LCD TV 26” inside our first level which is LCD
TV. Another level would be Plasma TV. In this first level,
we can maintain Plasma TV 22”, Plasma TC 32”, Plasma
TV 40”. Every first level of hierarchy contains unique
second level hierarchies.
Account assignment group: this field represents the
accoun ng requirements for the material. O en different
types of materials require different accoun ng
requirements (finished goods, trading goods, services
aren’t accounted in the same way). This is a point of
integra on with FI/CO modules.
Item category group: it’s copied from 2- General item
cat.grp field, but this is the category group that is
assigned to specific distribu on channel. It can be
changed as opposed to the field no.2, and with this field
you can manage how will the same material will be used
in sales in different channels. For example, you might
want a material to have different item category in foreign
sales ac vi es than the default. It is changed mainly
under direc ves from SD team. Product hierarchy –
choosing the appropriate hierarchy from a predefined
list: You have probably already thought how product
hierarchy is hard to maintain. You only see a bunch of
numbers. It’s hard to know which numbers are
appropriate fo par cular material. Besides the fact that
this is the informa on that sales & distribu on team
should supply to you, there is an easy way of browsing
through all of the hierarchies. When you push the bu on
that shows you possible entries for a field you get to this
screen:
 First level of hierarchy
A er selec ng the appropriate first level, you should click on
Next level bu on just as on the above screen. You will be
taken to the screen with possible entries for second level of
hierarchy. As you can see in the header of this screen, there is
an indica on that this second level of hierarchy is for a first
level 00100 – LCD TV:
 Second level of hierarchy
Final result is as on the screen below:

Product hierarchy on Sales Organiza on Data 2 View

Other fields in Sales organiza on Data 2 View Volume rebate
group: group used for rebate se lement, can be set to
maximum rebate, low rebate, depends on se ngs in SD
module, this informa on is supposed to be provided by SD
team. Pricing Reference Material: material master record that
should be used as a reference for pricing
purposes. Commission group: you can assign the same
commission group to more material as long as the
commission is the same for both (for example 5%). Material
pricing group: used to group the material with the same
pricing procedures. Later in SD condi on record can be
created based on this field, apart from standard ones (product
hierarchy). You can combine material pricing group with the
customer number to create a condi on. Product a ributes:
you can assign various product a ributes to a material and
check if the customer accepts this product a ribute.

Sales General / Plant View

This view contains informa on about general sales

characteris cs of material. It is maintained on Plant level.

Mandatory fields

Availability check: very essen al a ribute, used to

define the stock availability check method. These
methods are defined by customizing team, and can
include stock on storage loca ons, can be also set up to
include quan es on process and produc on orders,
planned orders, quan es in the transfer towards the
plant from which sales is being processed, etc.
Loading group: extremely significant field as it is used in
shipping point determina on. Op onal fields in Sales -
General / Plant View Replacement part: defines if this
material is a replacement part or not.Material freight
group: used for grouping materials in order to be
classified according to freight code and class. Batch
management: Indicates if material is managed in batches
or not. Approved batch record required: determines if
batch approval must be submi ed before the batch can
be transferred from restricted to unrestricted
stock. Transporta on group: a way of grouping materials
with same transporta on needs. It is used in SD module
for route scheduling in sales orders and deliveries.
Example: when you have materials that require to be
transported carefully as they are fragile, and others are
not.Setup me, Process me, Base quan ty: these three
fields are used to calculate me consumed for shipping
the material, the first is me in which you will set up
devices for shipping, second is processing me per base
quan ty (third). Material Group - Packaging Materials:
this field is used for grouping the materials with similar
packaging materials requirements. Nega ve stocks: If
you check this box you will allow nega ve stocks for this
material in this plant. This requires also a se ng by your
MM consultant on storage loca on level (in
customizing). Profit center: assign an adequate profit
center for the material for controlling module purposes.
This means that profit made from this material will be
assigned to the profit center set in this field. For example
if this is a finished product that makes a profit by sales
you might want to choose a profit center for sales
revenues. It also depends on management decision.
Management might prefer to use some other key for
profit center accoun ng. Serial number
profile and Serializa on level: these control serializa on
of product (if you have it ac ve), a profile used for the
serial number, and serializa on level that could be by
material number etc. Distribu on profile: signals where
 the incoming (procured) merchandise will be distributed
in our plant.

Foreign Trade / Export View

This view contains informa on about freight, foreign trade,

expor ng of materials.

Mandatory fields in this view are:

1. Commodity Code/Import Code Number for Foreign

Trade: This field contains either a commodity code or a
tariff number. It is a unique standardised coding value for
a certain type of goods.
2. Export import group: system can use export/import
groups to propose an export procedure for
export/import processes in SAP.
3. Country of origin: it represents the country where this
material has been produced. If it’s finished goods
produced in-house you will enter your country code here
 (in our example it is DE - Germany). Other fieldsAll the
characteris cs for sales views are supposed to be
provided by the sales department (sales, freight), the
role of a material master specialist/user is only to
maintain them accurately. Some other informa on you
can be given by your sales department to maintain in
material master: CAS number: this field is only used for
pharmaceu cal products. PRODCOM no. – used only in
EU countries for sta s cal purposes in
produc on. Control code: Consump on tax control code
in foreign trade. Region of origin: Besides country you
can define a region in the country (for ex. Bavaria,
Hessen etc.) CAP product list no. – this is the number of
the material in the EU market products group list – if
applicable. CAP product group: indicates a product group
from CAP product list. Exemp on cer ficate: indica ng if
the material has been issued a cer ficate that states that
this material doesn’t need a license for
export. Exemp on cert. Number: Number of the
exemp on cer ficate. Issuing date of exempt.cert. –
Issuing date for an exemp on cer ficate. Military goods:
a check box indica ng if the material is mainly used in
military purposes.

Sales Text View

You can define a sales item text for this material for various
languages to be used in the sales documents. This could be
some general explana on about the material, or explana on
maintained on distribu on channel level. If you maintain this
text it will show up on the item level in all sales documents,
and also in the prin ng version of sales documents.
MRP View 1

MRP views are maintained mostly for produc on purposes.

This informa on is supplied by the appropriate MRP
controller or someone else from produc on planning team.
The only mandatory field in MRP 1 View is Planning type. We
will cover the most important fields used in a produc ve
environment in more detail.
Purchasing group: this field is used to indicate which
purchasing group is the default for purchasing this material.
We haven’t maintained it yet as this is a finished product of
our company, we don’t need it to be purchased at any me.
We will set up this field for another material that needs to be
purchased.

ABC indicator: This is an indicator showing the

importance of the material in terms of stock availability.
Most of the companies use several ABC values, but most
common are: A – the most important materials, they
need to be available for sales in every moment customer
requests it, B – less important materials that are o en
supposed to be available but the lack of this material can
happen and is allowed, C – Least important materials.
There can also be few more categories, N – new, material
not yet tested on the market, so we don’t actually know
if it’s going to be A, B or C yet. S – material that is
produced only on customer request, and D – same as S
with the difference that it has a certain quan ty on stock
just in case someone needs it ASAP, in produc on
planning it is called a material safety stock.
MRP type: there are various types of MRP that can be
u lized. In this case, our MRP controller signalled that it
should be PD – default MRP for most of the SAP
installa ons.
MRP controller: MRP controller responsible for
produc on of this material, he manages all the data in
these MRP views, along with the MRP results itself,
produc on planning for this material etc. It is usual that
the MRP controller provides the data for MRP views, or
even in some organiza onal structures MRP controllers
are maintaining these views on their own.
Lot size: defines the procedure used by the system in
order to calculate the procurement or produc on
quan ty of the material. Other fields in this view MRP
group: this se ng is used to group materials with same
MRP control parameters which are, for example, the
strategy group, the consump on mode, etc. If this field is
not maintained, the system will use material group from
Basic Data 1 when performing the MRP.Plant-Specific
Material Status: If set, this indicates the usability of
material in special func ons, for example, material can
be used for tes ng or is going to be discon nued, so the
MRP doesn’t take it into account when it runs. This
se ng could restrict the use of material in a par cular
func on. Reorder Point: indicates at which stock level
MRP should create a new order (either procurement or
produc on order).Planning cycle: cycle of planning, it is
defined in customizing and assigned to a material, it can
represent a day on which the planning is
performed. Minimum and Maximum lot size, Fixed lot
size: used to indicate the boundaries for lot size, or a
fixed quan ty to be used. Ordering costs: fixed cost per
order in company code currency, used to calculate the
op mal lot size. Rounding Profile and Unit of Measure
Group: like the fields in sales views, these are the same
 fields you can populate with rounding type to purchasing
or produc on (if applicable). Rounding value: it is used in
procurement for rounding the procurement quan ty to a
value of mul ple of the number entered here.

MRP View 2

MRP view 2 contains data about Procurement, Scheduling,

and Net requirements calcula on.

Procurement type: here you can choose if your material

has internal produc on (our case), external
procurement, or both types of procurements are
possible. It also mightn’t have procurement at all.
Produc on storage loca on: here you will maintain the
storage loca on that is copied throughout the
produc on documents. If this is a produc on component
this marks the loca on from which the goods issue is
posted, or if it’s produced material it annotates a
loca on to which the material receipt is posted.
 Goods Receipt Processing Time in Days: you can set up
this value that represents needed me in days for goods
to be inspected and placed into appropriate storage
loca on.
Schedule margin key: this represents a key used for
determina on of the floats required for scheduling an
order. It is defined in customizing and is supplied by your
MRP controller or PP administrator. Other fields in this
view Special procurement: used to override the
procurement type. Batch entry: indicates when the
batch determina on should be executed. Default supply
area: if you define it this will be a proposed supply area
for the material, it’s mostly used for KANBAN type of
materials. Backflush: determines if backflush indicator is
to be set in the produc on order. Storage loca on for
external procurement: storage loca on to be proposed
in the purchase requisi on. Stock determina on group:
this indicator along with the stock determina on rule
create a key for the stock determina on strategy Co-
product: if checked, indicates that this material can also
be used as a co-product. Bulk material: this iden fies a
bill of materials item as a bulk material. This is important
as requirements of bulk materials are not relevant for
the MRP. Safety stock: quan ty in base UOM to use as a
safety stock. Minimum safety stock: Safety stock in
never allowed to drop below this value.

MRP View 3

MRP view 3 contains several valuable fields mostly used by

planning func ons.
Period indicator: indicates if material is to be
planned/forecast monthly, weekly, yearly, daily etc. This
is in most cases set to monthly.
Strategy group: used for grouping the planning
strategies, for example, this can be set to Make to Order,
Make to Stock etc. There are a number of op ons, and
this must be defined by the produc on planning
management. In most cases, material types and/or
material ABC classifica on influences the decision which
strategy group material should be assigned.
Consump on mode: this controls how system will
consume requirements. In backward mode sales, orders,
dependent requirements or material reserva ons
consume planned independent requirements that
liebefore the requirements date while in forward mode
they consume planned independent requirements that
lie a er the requirements date.
Forward consump on period: number of day used as a
consump on threshold in forward consump on mode.
 Can be set from 1 to 999 days but usually not longer than
several days. We are using 0 since we are u lizing
backward consump on mode for this material.
Backward consump on period: Same as previous except
it is used for backward consump on mode.
Mixed MRP: defines if material is available for
subassembly planning and gross requirements planning.

Other fields in MRP 3 View Planning material: Only for use

with planning strategy “planning with planning material”.

MRP 4 View

This is the only MRP view that is maintained on Plant /

Storage loca on organiza onal level. It doesn’t contain as
much valuable fields as previous, but there are three handy
indicators that can be used to op mize processes in some
modules.
Selec on method: if you are using BOMs (Bill Of
Materials) for your produc on, you could govern with
the selec on of alterna ve BOMs with this field. You can
set selec on type by order quan ty, produc on version,
explosion date.
Discon nued indicator: you can select the indicator for
discon nued part as per requirements.
SLoc MRP indicator: this is the most powerful indicator
on this view. It tells us if our storage loca on (that we
used in organiza onal levels screen – in this example
0001 – Lager 0001) is relevant for MRP. That is highly
significant as it can reflect not only MRP but also ATP
(available to promise) quan es. For example, if we use
the default value (empty field), it means that our storage
loca on is taken into account in our MRP runs. It is also
taken into account in ATP so sales department can see
the stock on this loca on available for sales ac vi es. On
the other hand, if you choose indicator 1 – Storage
loca on stock excluded from MRP, this stock will not be
taken into account for the MRP run, as well as it won’t be
available to promise (ATP) to the customer, so it couldn’t
be sold. If you choose indicator 2 - Manage storage
loca on separately, it means that you want to manage
this loca ons stock separately from plant stock (useful in
some rare cases). The most obvious example for usage of
this func on is rejects storage loca on. When our LCD TV
40” comes out of the produc on line it can be fully
func onal, or it might have a flaw. If it is ready for sales
we will transfer it to our 0001 loca on and sales
department will see that quan ty available to be sold.
Let’s say we produced 3000 TV sets. Out of that quan ty
there is 10 TV sets with some problems and our quality
control department chooses that those cannot be sold,
so these are sent to our loca on 0003 for rejects. In MRP
4 view, we have to maintain the indicator 1 for our
rejects loca on 0003 as we don’t want sales department
to see the stock as available. We only want the other
2900 pieces available that are on the 0001 loca on, for
 which we maintain empty field for this indicator (include
in MRP/ATP).

Work Scheduling View

This view is used by the produc on to control the scheduling

of produc on and process orders. A produc on schedule
determines how capacity requirements are calculated for all
the materials during a scheduling run. Here, you can also
ac vate batch management if material is to be handled in
batches (certain quan es of material with slightly different
characteris cs). Batch management can be ac vated in
several other views.

Produc on schedule profile: define how the process will

flow in PP or PP-PI, some addi onal controls about
automa c goods receipt etc. Customized by your PP
consultant.
Underdelivery tolerance: define allowed percentage of
quan ty to be underdelivered.
 Overdelivery tolerance: allowed percentage for quan ty
exceding for produc on or process order. For
overdelivering, you can check the unlimited box – in that
case we are allowing unlimited over delivery.
Setup me: me needed to setup and teardown work
center resources (lot size independent).
Processing me: processing me for the base quan ty.
Base quan ty: used for processing and inhouse
produc on me. In our case, processing me is the me
needed to process 48 pieces of our material.

Plant data – Storage 1 View

Warehouse administra on team should supply the data for

maintenance of this view. These are mostly storage data valid
on the plant level. Let’s go through all the essen al fields for
this view.

Unit of issue: this is the unit in which material is issued

from any storage loca on within the plant (except for the
warehouse managed loca ons which have a se ng that
overrides this field value).
 Temperature condi ons: temperature (and atmospheric)
condi ons in which the material must be stored.
Storage condi ons: storage condi ons required by
material.
Container requirements: type, and condi ons in the
container in which the material is shipped.
Max.storage period: maximum period of me for which
a material can be stored.
Minimum remaining shelf life: minimum remaining me
for the material to be allowed to be stored (in case the
remaining me is shorter than minimum – system will
deny goods receipt).
Period indicator for SLED: used as a unit of me for
Minimum remaining shell life. If this field contains D,
than minimum remaining shelf life is maintained in days.
Indicator M is for months etc.

Plant data – Storage 2 View

These fields are repea ng from Basic view 1 (Weight/Volume

sec on), and Sales – General (General Plant parameters
sec on), we had described them when we covered those
views.

Warehouse Management 1 View

This view is maintainable on Plant / Warehouse number
organiza onal level. Warehouse number is the top hierarchy
level in warehouse management in SAP. You can see posi ons
1 & 2 in the picture below represen ng Plant and Warehouse
Number for which we are extending the material. Informa on
for maintaining this view should be supplied by warehouse
management administra on team.

Plant: organiza onal level

Warehouse number: organiza onal level
WM unit: unit that is used throughout the warehouse
management. Every document in WM uses this unit of
measure, no ma er what is the original document UOM.
For example, if you create delivery for 12 pieces of LCD
TV 40” and we have defined in warehouse management
view that WM unit is PAL, in transfer orders (WM
document for stock management) 1 PAL will be shown
instead of 12 PCS as the original document (delivery)item
was created.
Unit of issue: it is already covered in Plant Data – Storage
1 View.
Proposed UoM for material: this indicator determines
which unit of measure should be used in warehouse
 management in conjunc on with WM unit. This indicator
can be set to use Unit of Issue (defined here in material
master), Order unit (unit in which the original document
was created – sales order, delivery, reserva on etc.), WM
unit of measure, base unit of measure, and some
addi onal condi onal possibili es (for example, if no
other unit is specified use base unit of measure).
Stock removal strategy: to be used, a stock removal
strategy suitable for this material has to be defined in
customizing. For example, strategy for our material could
be: first try to remove stock from high rack storage, and
if there is no stock there try picking from the bulk storage
area. Used when we have to pick some quan ty for
customer (delivery) or reserva on.
Stock placement strategy: same as above with opposite
direc on, when we want to place our stock from
produc on to our warehouse, we want the system to
search different storage types (areas) for placement in
the warehouse. We want the system to search in the
right order for this material so we can set up the
appropriate strategy.
Storage sec on indicator: when using indicators for
stock removal and placement, we might encounter a
problem that in the same storage type, we could have
storage bins that are smaller than usual and our material
cannot be placed there. That is where we can use
storage sec on indicator, to instruct the system not to
place our material in storage bins of certain sec on
(smaller bins).
Bulk storage indicator: this is used to indicate a special
case for using up a bulk storage type capacity. * Other
fields include some special indicators, like special
movement indicator, two step picking, allowing adding to
exis ng stock in the storage bin already containing this
material.

These se ngs are very complex and require more in-depth

knowledge of Warehouse Management.
Warehouse Management 2 View

This view is maintainable on one more level than the previous

view. Here are located palle za on data (quan es of
material and types of pallets used) in the first sec on which
isn’t maintained on storage type level but like previous view
on warehouse number level. Lower sec on of the screen
shows several fields that are storage type related se ngs.

Storage type: the storage type for which we are

extending/maintaining our material. In this case, we
want our LCD TV to be stored at shelf storage (we have
already selected this strategy in WM 1 View).
Palle za on data: this is informa on about how our
material is packed onto different storage unit types. For
example, our material is packed 12 pieces on Euro pallet
1m high (defined as E1 in our system).
Storage bin: if we wanted to store our material in a
predefined storage bin we would maintain this field. In
this case, we want a system to propose a bin for our
material every me we are execu ng putaway.
Maximum bin quan ty: this is usually a number that is
maintained in palle za on data, in our case 12 PCS. Used
 in check while placing the stock, system will not allow
more than 12 PCS to be stored in one bin. Warehouse
Management 2 View in material master
Minimum bin quan ty: this should be maintained only if
replenishment is ac ve for the storage type (mostly used
in fixed bin storage types). In our case, if storage bin
stock falls below 1 (no more TVs in the storage bin)
system would request replenishment to be made, to fill
the storage bin with another pallet. This is a very
complex topic and requires more in-depth knowledge of
warehouse management system in SAP.
Picking area: like storage sec ons are grouping bins
together in putaway process, picking areas group storage
bins for picking process.
Control quan ty: for certain strategies (min/max
quan ty) u lized on storage type level, this is the
quan ty that signals the system that if the requested
quan ty for picking is higher than defined in this field,
system should skip this storage type and move on to the
next in our stock removal strategy. This is used in cases
where we want to pick small quan es of material from
one type of storage, and large quan es from another
storage type.
Replenishment quan ty: when system determines that
replenishment of our bin is needed it will replenish with
quan ty in this field. We have defined that we want
replenishment when stock falls to zero, and we want it to
be replenished by en re pallet – 12 pieces.

Quality management View

This view is used for material se ngs for quality inspec on

processes in Quality Management module. Administrators of
that module are responsible for providing the informa on for
maintenance of this view.

Inspec on setup: this indicates if at least one inspec on

type has been set up. In the setup itself, you can choose
 the inspec on type you want to use for this material.
Setup types have to be predefined by you QM
consultant. Step A: Click the Inspec on setup bu on;
Step B: choose the appropriate inspec on type
predefined by QM team; Step C: confirm changes.

Choosing the inspec on type on a subscreen of Quality

Management view

Post to inspec on stock: specify if the material is subject

to quality inspec on. If this is checked, an inspec on lot
will be created for the inspec on type assigned.
Material authoriza on group: you can define
authoriza ons for QM users based on the authoriza on
group, for example if you want some materials inspected
by some users, and other materials by other users.
Inspec on interval (in days): interval between recurring
inspec ons for the same batch.
QM in Procurement ac ve: ac va ng Quality
management for material in the procurement process.
QM control key: used to define condi ons in quality
inspec on in procurement. You can set a delivery block,
invoice block and other types of blocks un l material
 inspec on is done. Possible entries are predefined in
customizing by the consultant.
Cer ficate type: quality cer ficate type (possible entries
are predefined in customizing by QM consultant).
Target QM system: Required QM system by vendor. We
specify if vendor needs to have ISO 9001 or other types
of QM systems implemented and cer fied.

Accoun ng 1 View

Data entered in this view determines the way that accoun ng

will be processed for this material. Data is supplied by your
FI/CO team, and background customizing by your FI/CO
consultant.
Valua on class: depending on your system se ngs, but
valua on class is in most mes influenced by material
type, so you will have a valua on class for finished
goods, and another for trading goods. In our case
valua on class, 7920 is SAP default class for finished
goods. For HALB, this class is 7900 by default, and for
ROH we can use 3000.
Valua on Class for sales order stock: you can assign a
valua on class for sales order stock to override the
default valua on class defined in field 1 - Valua on Class.
Not recommended.
Price control: this indicated which type of internal price
will be used for the material. It can be set to S – standard
cost, or V moving average price (variable price). In most
cases, S is used for finished goods while V is used for
trading goods, but the se ngs depend on your SD/FI/CO
teams preference.
Moving price: you can populate this field if price control
is set to V.
Standard price: you can populate this field if price
control is set to S. Your controlling team can use
transac ons for genera ng these prices based on the