To create a material in SAP, you must be aware of the following general information:
When creating the first view for each material, you must define the following:
- Material number
- Industry sector
- Material type
- Unit of measure
- Description
Material Type Determination
Materials with similar characteristics are divided into groups and are assigned to a material type. This helps you manage different materials as per the company’s standard requirements.
When you Create a Material, the Material Type Determines the Following:
- Which departments can maintain the material
- Whether the material number is assigned internally or externally
- Which number range interval the material number comes from
- Which screens appear and in which sequence
- Which department-specific data you have to enter
- Whether quantity changes in the material are updated
- Whether value changes to financial accounting stock accounts are updated
- Whether the material is produced in-house, procured externally, or both
- Which accounts are posted when a material enters or leaves the warehouse
Additionally, the material type defines the procurement type. You can decide whether the material is an in-house production, whether you have to create purchase orders, or both scenarios are possible.
Predefined Material Types
SAP delivers some predefined material types:
Finished products (FERT):
Finished products are produced in-house. Since they cannot be ordered by Purchasing, a material of this material type does not contain purchasing data.
Raw materials (ROH):
Raw materials are always procured externally and then processed. A material of this type contains purchasing data, but not sales data since they cannot be sold.
Semifinished products (HALB):
Semifinished products can be procured externally and manufactured in-house. They are then processed by the company. A material of this material type can contain both purchasing and work scheduling data.
Services (DIEN):
Services can be performed internally or procured externally (outsourced).They cannot be stored or transported.
Configurable materials (KMAT):
Configurable materials are materials that can have different variants. For example, an automobile can have different types of paintwork, trim, and engine. The Material is configurable indicator is already set for this material type in Customizing.
Intra materials (INTR):
Intra materials exist only temporarily between two processing steps. A material of this material type contains not purchasing or sales data.
Production resources/tools (FHMI):
Production resources/tools are procured externally and used in production or plant maintenance. A material of this material type can contain purchasing data, but not sales data. It is managed on a quantity basis.
Industry Sector
When you create a material, the material type determines the following:
- Which screens appear and in which order
- Which industry-specific data appears
- Which branch of industry the material is assigned to
The industry sector is one of the several influencing factors that determine the data fields and screens that are available for input during material maintenance.
When the material is configured, the industry sector can act as a key for specifying whether a field is required, changeable, display only, or hidden.
In addition, the industry sector is used in the configuration to determine the views and the sequence in which a user can display the material.
Note
From within any of the Create, Change, or Display transactions, users can access the Defaults → Industry Sector menu. This transaction is user-specific and can control the default industry sector as well as hide the industry sector once a default is set.Material Numbering
When you create a material master you have to think on the way of material numbering. Would you like to use and external or internal numbering?
The type of number assignment you can implement depends on the material type and is defined in Customizing. To do this, you must maintain the number range groups. You can assign the material types to the groups.
Note
Material numbering is defined at client level.You can assign an interval to only one group and also change the current number of an interval manually.
Note
In Customizing, you decide whether you would like to use the long material number in SAP S/4HANA. Then, the material number is 40 digits long. The long material number does not work for the internal numbering. In this case, the material stays with 18 digits in the database, as it was in SAP ERP.Storing and Displaying the Material Number
Your company can decide how it wants to view the material when these are being configured. The material field has a maximum of 40 characters, with an internal number assignment of 18 digits. You can configure a template to provide breaks in the material number, for example, 123-456-789. If you do not intend to use all 18 characters from the beginning, you can specify whether leading zeros are to be displayed.
The data you enter for material number conversion determines the way material numbers are displayed in dialog functions and printouts only. This means that the information is stored in the database unconverted.
Caution
The display format for the material number applies to all clients.You must assign a base unit of measure to every material. This is referred to as the stock keeping unit or the smallest unit of measure used by a material. This field is used across all clients and impacts all plants (of any company code) that use this material.
Units of Measure
The units of measure can be defined at several places in your material master.
Note
As a rule, the engineering department uses/defines the base unit of measure.Units of Measure supported by SAP
The following Units of Measure are supported by SAP:
- Base unit of measure (Basic Data 1):
This is the stock keeping unit. All other units of measure are converted to the base unit of measure. If there is no standard formula to convert an alternative unit of measure, you must enter the conversion factor for the units of measure in material maintenance.
- Order unit (Purchasing):
This is used for ordering the material and is the default unit for purchasing functions.
- Sales unit (Sales: Sales Org. Data 1):
This unit is used for selling the material and is the default unit displayed in the sales order. If required, you can change this unit in the sales order.
- Production unit (Work Scheduling):
This is the unit of measure in which a goods receipt is created. When you create a production order for a material and a production unit has been entered in both the material and in the routing, the system checks whether the quantity entered in the production order falls within the lot size range in the routing.
- Unit of issue (Work Scheduling and Warehouse Management 1):
This is the unit of measure for issuing the material from stock. Use this unit for goods issue and stock movement transactions. You can use this unit for the BOM item quantity as well.
Note
As a rule, the engineering department uses/defines the base unit of measure.SAP S/4HANA includes the unit of measure tables of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and converts from kilograms to pounds. However, you need to define how other non-dimensional units of measure are converted, for example from pieces to pallets. This is often material-specific and needs to be maintained in the material tables.
You can group several units of measure into a unit of measure group and then assign the group to materials that have similar weight and dimension characteristics. For each unit of measure in the group, you can enter the conversion factor to the base unit of measure. You maintain unit of measure groups in Customizing for the material (Logistics-General).
