Creating Material Types

Using a material type is a way of grouping materials that have the same basic properties, such as raw materials, semi-finished products, or finished products. When you create a material master record, you have to assign the material to a material type. The material type belongs to the general data of the material and controls important processes in individual applications. For example:  In Customizing for Production Planning (PP), you can specify the material types for which you want to allow or exclude the creation of bills of material and routings in your company.

• Whether the material is intended for a certain purpose (for example, manufacturer part)
• Whether the material number assignment is internal or external
• From which number range interval the material number is to be assigned
• Which screens appear during material master maintenance, and in what order
• The field selection
• Which user department data can be entered
• Which procurement type(s) the material can have
• Which product type group (material or service) the material type has

The user departments (maintenance status) defined for a certain material type determine which views can be maintained for a material of this type. The user departments also determine which applications can use the material.

Using the entries for external and internal orders, you specify how materials of a certain type can be procured. In addition, material status and special procurement keys in the material master record can be used to restrict the procurement type for each material and plant.

With the product type group, you can define that a material type is to be used for service materials. In standard, material type SERV is provided for service materials. Using material type SERV, you can create service entry sheets in a corresponding SAP Fiori app without the need of a purchase order with item category Service and a service master.

The type of inventory management (quantity-based and value-based, or only quantity-based) for a material type can be defined depending on the valuation area.

The indicator for price control (standard price or moving average price) can be set as a default value or as a mandatory preset value.

The system assigns the stock and consumption accounts using the valuation classes. The account category reference establishes the link between valuation classes and the material type.

Intervals can only be assigned to one group. However, every group can have an internal as well as an external interval.

You can manually change the current number range status of an interval.

Select the External no. assignment w/o check checkbox for a material type to specify whether the system has to check if the material number belongs to a specific number range in the case of external number assignment. If you do not want the system to check the material number, ensure that every externally assigned material number (for this material type) is alphanumeric. In this case, you do not need to assign an external number range interval for a group of this material type.

The standard system uses a buffering system for number assignment of material master records. There are 10 numbers in the buffer. As a result of buffering and the assignment of the material number before the system saves a new material master record, gaps in number assignment might occur. If you reset the current number range status of an interval to the starting value of zero, the gaps are closed when new materials are created.

To interpret numeric material numbers as labels instead of numbers, select the lexicographical format. You must specify the format before you create the first material master record.