SAP R/3 Sales and Distribution Overiew

SAP Sales allows you to execute different business transactions based on sales documents defined in the system. Four groups of sales documents are differentiated:

Customer inquiries and quotations
Sales orders
Outline agreements, such as contracts and scheduling agreements
Complaints, such as free of charge deliveries, credit and debit memo requests and returns

Delivieries and billing documents can be created and processed from the sales document. Some sales documents, such as cash sales and rush orders, automatically trigger the creation of subsequent deliveries and billing documents.

Sales Order
The sales order is a contractual agreement between a sales organization and a sold-to party about delivering products or providing a service for defined prices, quantities and times. In sales order processing, the system implements various functions:
In the sales order, functions such as pricing and printouts are available. The system checks whether the material is available for the requested delivery date and if necessary, transfers the requirements to materials planning. Shipping deadlines and shipping points are determined in delivery scheduling. Another part of this component are the special sales order types - rush orders and cash sales.

You can process sales orders in the SAP System differently, depending on your specific needs. In the most simple case, you can enter a sales order with several items in a single screen. The system automatically proposes data from the relevant master records. From the customer master record of the sold-to party, the system proposes sales, shipping, pricing, and billing data. In addition, the system copies customer-specific master data about texts, partners, and contact people at the customer site.
For each material in the sales order, the system automatically proposes data from the relevant material master records, such as data for pricing, delivery scheduling, availability check, tax determination, and weight and volume determination. The data proposed by the system can be used as a basis for your order. If your sales order processing requires it, you can modify this data manually or add new data. For example, your pricing policy may allow you to manually change the value of certain discounts within a permitted range. In addition, you can branch in the sales order to a number of different screens where you can display and modify data, such as terms of payment and delivery data.

In SAP R/3 Sales and Distribution it is also easy to create a new sales order with reference to an existing document. For example, if a customer accepts a quotation you sent, the system can copy all the relevant master data from the quotation when you create the sales order. When you process a sales order using the standard version of the SAP R/3 System, the system can automatically carry out basic functions, such as pricing, availability checks, delivery scheduling, shipping point and route determination and checking credit limits

The new interface with its flexible tables allows you to adjust the display to meet your requirements during processing. You can alter the width of the columns and their sequence to suit your way of working by simply dragging the mouse. You can then save your different version of the display as a variant. An essential element of the interface is the tab page which looks like a box of index cards where you can easily find what you need. Each tab page has a title which is constantly visible. By simply clicking on the tab page title, you can bring the page in the box into the background, and process it if necessary. This tab page technique means that all the data that belongs together can be displayed together, even if the display area available is limited.

The overview screen provides the user with a choice of data for the document header. Under the display area, there is a table with the items for the document. From this overview screen, you can switch between several tab pages. The Sales tab page contains important fields from the document header so it is particularly useful when you create the document for the first time. In Customizing, you can define which fields should be hidden. This gives you more space for the items. The Item overview screen displays a limited amount of header data - and again this provides more room for the items. The Ordering party, Procurement, Shipping, and Reason for rejection tab pages display data for the relevant area. The Procurement tab page shows both the items and the schedule lines. Using the Configuration tab page, you can gain an overview of characteristic attributes for an item quickly and easily. This display possibility is particularly useful for materials with a relatively simple configuration, and for when you work with models, in which essential characteristics occur again and again.

The header screen contains several tab pages with data from the document header. Before Release 4.0, you could switch from the Business Data screen to the three detail screens Sales, Shipping and Billing. The data for these detail screens is now on the Sales, Shipping, Billing document and Accounting tab pages for the header screen, making it easier to reach than previously. As of 4.0, the data from the Business Data screen is divided between the relevant tab pages. Instead of the additional data screen, there are now two tab pages for Additional Data A and Additional Data B and the latter can be designed to suit your needs.

The item screen displays data on an individual item for the document. Even here, there are several tab pages to choose from. Similar to the header screen, the tab pages in the item screen make data from the previous three detail screens for sales, shipping and billing directly accessible. The Business Data screen no longer exists here either and instead you can find the fields from this screen in the Sales A, Sales B, Shipping and Billing tab pages. There are two pages for sales data, allowing full display of the tab pages even on smaller screens. The previous data in the Additional Data screen has now also been divided into two pages.

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