Setting Up the Enterprise Structure in Sales and Distribution

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to set up a new sales area in SAP S/4HANA Sales

Enterprise Structures in Sales and Distribution

All business processes in SAP S/4HANA Sales are based on the structure of an enterprise organization and represented in organizational units. These units correspond to the legal and/or organizational units of an enterprise.

Note

You can recap the concept of organizational units in SAP S/4HANA Sales in the following lesson of the beginner course: Identifying Organizational Units in SAP S/4HANA Sales.

As an application consultant, be aware of the objectives of organizational structures in the SAP system:

  • Achieve flexibility in representing complex corporate structures
  • Adapt to changes in the corporate structure
  • Distinguish between views in logistics (sales and distribution, purchasing, and so on), cost accounting, and financial accounting
  • Process data across company codes

Organizational Units in Sales

Listen to Liv's explanation how the organizational structures in SAP S/4HANA are used.

Integration into Financial Accounting

From a financial accounting perspective, all organizational units within a client are subject to one business control. A client can thus be considered to be a synonym for a group. It is a self-contained technical unit. General data and tables that are used for several organizational structures are stored at this level. You can use the company code to represent a group from a financial accounting perspective.

As illustrated in the figure below, it is possible to create several company codes for each client to be able to carry out financial accounting for several independent companies simultaneously. At least one company code must be created. Each company code represents an independent accounting unit. Several company codes can use the same chart of accounts.

Figures shows that you can create several company codes for each client to be able to carry out financial accounting for several independent companies simultaneously

The Plant

Materials management is primarily concerned with the flow of materials within a company. Production facilities and locations for storing stock must therefore be defined in the system. The terms used in the system for these entities are plant and storage location. Material stocks can be described in detail at the level of different storage locations within a plant.

A plant can either be a location for production and material requirements planning (MRP) or it may simply represent one or more material stock locations in close proximity to one another. As illustrated in the figure below, each plant is assigned to a unique company code.

The figure illustrates that each plant is assigned to a unique company code

In SAP Customizing, a plant to deliver goods to customers must be configured as a delivery plant. During the sales process, the delivering plants are first used to verify the stocks, and later to supply the goods the customer ordered.

As illustrated in the figure below, the delivery plants from which a sales department delivers the materials must be assigned to a sales organization and a distribution channel (distribution chain).

Figures illustrates that the delivery plants from which a sales department delivers the materials must be assigned to a sales organization and a distribution channel (distribution chain)

By making the plant dependent on the distribution channel, you can differentiate further between plants within a sales organization for sales. This would allow the distribution channel "direct sales" for certain plants in a sales organization but not for others.

One plant can be assigned to several distribution chains as the delivering plant. It can also be assigned to several sales organizations. It is possible for the delivering plant of a distribution chain to belong to a different independent company in the corporate group (that is, the plant belongs to a different company code to the sales organization). This is known as Cross-Company Sales.

How to Configure a Sales Area in the SAP Enterprise Structure

In the following simulation you learn how to set up a sales area in the SAP enterprise structure of the IMG (customizing environment).

Note

If you have access to the SAP practice system, you can now do the exercise Utilize Enterprise Structures in Sales and Distribution.

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