CHAPTER 1. Introdution to SAP and Master Data - Introduction to SD Customer Master Data

 Master data forms the basis of all transactional processing. This is especially true for Sales and Distribution processing. Master data creation, ownership, and maintenance are tjr responsibility of all modules. The structure and data within a company's master data govern how the system is to respond to future transactions of analysis.

 

Customer Master Data

 Customer master data in SD is divided into three main areas.

• Basic Data This data remains the same for the customer regardless of which organization he buys from your company. Examples of this type of data are the customer address and contact details.
• Organizational Data This is customer data related to your organizational structure-for example, ths customer may prefer stock to be delivered from plant YX01 when an order is placed in a specific sales area. (Sales area is explained later.) The customer may then wish stock to be delivered from a plant closer to his location YX02 when a sales order is placed in another sales area. A customer master record may exist for many sales areas. You can then have different data from the different sales areas, even though you are taking the order from the same customer and using the same customer number.
• Company Code Data A customer master record must also heve company-related data. This data is used for financial accounting purposes. An example of company code data is the reconciliation account. A customer master record may exist for more than one company code-for example, when you have more than one company in your orgainzation and the customer can buy from any one of them.

 A sales area is a specific combination of a sales organization, a distribution channel, and a division. The sales organuzation is the legal entity responsible for the sale. You usually have a sales organization for each company code.  The distribution channel is the way you send your product to the market-for example, you may have a retail distribution channel and a wholesale distribution channl. A division is a product division-for example, original equipment or spare parts. The combination of these represents the sales area. So when a customer places an order with sales organization ABC in retail distribution channel for spare parts, you have identified the sales area. The precesses may differ when a customer purchases from the same sales organization and the same division, but is purchasing wholesale, so the sales area would then be different as well. (Due to the distribution channel being different, that is wholesale.)

 The customer master sales area data allows you to specify different master data (for example different payment terms) based on the sales areas.

 There are additional forms of master of customer master data-for example, the customer credit master record, which is related to the customer master record, shown in Figure 1-13.

 However, these additional forms of master data are not mandatory and are covered in thier own chapters in this content.

 We desctibe how to maintain the customizing, insert, and remove fields, as well as partner functions, of the customer master record later in this chapter.