Explaining the Impact of Enterprise Structures to Master Data and Documents

Welcome to Lesson 4

During this lesson we will look at the meaning and usage of master data, transactional data and documents. From the previous lesson we will use the enterprise structures and describe the impact on these objects.

After we have worked closely with the enterprise structure, we will briefly examine two other objects that are used system-wide, namely master data and transactional data.

Each of us knows the following situation:

You order a product from a retailer on the internet for the first time and are given the choice to create a customer account during the ordering process. In addition to our name and address, you store alternative delivery addresses, payment information such as credit card or bank data, and register for a product newsletter.

As soon as we log on with our customer account to make another purchase, the information we provided previously is populated automatically - so we do not have to enter it again.

This is the purpose of master data:

• The system holds all the essential information needed to map processes in a system and remain unchanged over a longer period

• A complete maintenance of master data considerably reduces the processing time required for transactions, because the system can automatically propose the master data in the corresponding fields of the business transactions

What is the relationship between the enterprise structure and the master data in an SAP system?

Let us look again at our Bike Company. The same bikes will be manufactured in each of the four Production Plants. This raises the question whether certain product master data cannot be maintained centrally for all Plants. On the other hand, we want to maintain different data for different Plants, for example different goods receipt processing time. This enables us to have differentiated data by enterprise structures.

The following animation uses the example of the product master record to show how the enterprise structure organizes and supports master data maintenance.

Transactional data records single process steps in the SAP system. Compared to master data, they are of a rather short-lived nature. Typical examples for creating transactional data are entering a sales order, an incoming and outgoing invoice, or a purchase order for a supplier.

The data for a process step like the sales order creation is stored as a result by a document. The stored documents are also used for evaluations. This means that the sales totals with a customer are made up of its sales-relevant documents.

While creating a document, the document is always assigned to one or more enterprise structures.

The following example shows you the interaction between Transactional Data, Master Data and the Enterprise Structure.

• Have all the essential information required to map processes in a system

• Remain unchanged over a long period

• Are maintained with a reference to the enterprise structure

• Examples:

  • Product master data (material master)

  • Customer or vendor master data

  • G/L accounts

  • Cost center

  • Employee master data

• Records single process steps in the SAP system

• Short-lived nature

• Examples:

  • Create sales order

  • Post vendor invoice

  • Create production order

• Documents are always assigned to one or more enterprise structures