Module 5: Material Master Records
Material Types
The material type in the SAP system is used to categorize materials. It controls a number of
things including:




How the material is procured (purchased vs. manufactured in-house)
How the material is valued (as market prices change, the value of inventory also changes)
Screen sequence in transaction
Assignment of material numbers
SAP comes with many material types already predefined. We will be using three of these
predefined materials in configuring the Fitter Snacker Company. These are:
ROH – Raw Materials: These materials are purchased and used to manufacture other
materials. Because we don’t sell these materials directly, the ROH material type does not
allow users to enter data in the sales view screen.
HALB – Semi-finished Products: These materials are work-in-process. They are neither
purchased nor sold, but are created from purchased materials and then eventually used in
finished goods.
FERT – Finished Products: These materials are produced internally from purchased raw
materials. Thus, purchasing views are not displayed for these materials.
Note that the terms ROH, HALB and FERT are abbreviated versions of the German terms for the
particular material types. SAP is a German company, and the native German frequently is
evident.
The SAP system has a number of material types pre-defined. It is important that the material
type definitions not be changed unless the user is positive that the change is correct and ALL
users are in agreement. Instead of changing the definition of a material type, a user can create a
new material type from a copy of an existing material type and then change the definition in the
new material type.
In the next exercise, we will look at some of the information stored in the material type
definition, but we will not make any changes!
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Module 5: Material Master Records
To view the material types, follow the menu path:
Logistics – General Material Master Basic Settings Material Types
Define Attributes of Material Types (click clock icon )
Which should give you the following screen:
Click on the display/change icon
to change to display mode:
Display View “Material
types’: Overview
Select FERT
Click on the Details icon
Note that SAP comes with a large number of material types already defined. Click on the
display/change icon ( ) to change to display mode. The screen title should change to Display
View “Material types’: Overview. Select material type FERT, then click on the Details icon
( ). This will produce the following screen:
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Module 5: Material Master Records
These items
determine which
views are available
when a new
material of this
type is created
This entry
determines
how
material is
valued
This screen defines the characteristics of this material type. Click on the exit icon (
to the IMG.
) to return
5.1 Initialize Fiscal Year
In the next step, we will initialize the fiscal period. This step is required to allow material
transactions.
Follow the menu path:
Logistics – General Material Master Basic Settings
Maintain Company Codes for Materials Management (click clock icon
Which will produce the following screen:
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)
Module 5: Material Master Records
Find your company code, then enter the
current year, current period (month) and
check ABp (Allow backposting)
Then click on save
Find your company code, then enter the current year, current month and check the ABp (Allow
backposting) entry. Click on the save icon ( ), then on the back icon ( ) to save your data.
5.2 Create Material Masters
With the material types defined and the fiscal period set, we can now create the material master
data for Fitter Snacker. There is a lot of information that can be entered for Materials from a
number of sources. One of the advantages of an ERP system like SAP is that materials are
defined once for all functional areas. The disadvantage of this is that a lot of information must
be entered in a number of functional areas before the material can be used.
Raw Materials
Material Master is Master Data, which means it is not entered in the IMG but through the SAP
Easy Access. To enter our raw materials, follow the menu path:
Logistics Materials Management Material Master Material Create (special)
Raw Material
Which will produce the following screen:
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Module 5: Material Master Records
Select Industry sector Retail
Then click on Select view(s)
Select industry sector Retail from pull-down list, then click on
the following window:
, which will produce
Select views:
Basic Data 1
Purchasing
General Plant Data/Storage 1
Accounting 1
Costing 1
You will have to scroll to select all
views
Check Create views selected
Click on Default values to save this
view selection
Then click on the enter icon
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Module 5: Material Master Records
Select the following views:
Basic Data 1
Purchasing
General Plant Data/Storage 1
Accounting 1
Costing 1
You will have to scroll to select all of these views. You can create other views for materials at a
later date as the need arises. We will create MRP views for this material in a later exercise so
that we can use it in production scheduling.
Check Create views selected, which tells the SAP system that you wish to create data for your
material in all of these views, click on the save default values icon (
) so that
you don’t have to pick these views each time, then click on the enter icon ( ). This will
produce the following screen:
Enter your plant (##PT),
Leave Stor. location blank
Click on save default values,
then click on the enter icon
Enter ##PT for plant, and leave the storage location blank so that the material will be defined
automatically for all storage locations at this plant. Click on the save default values icon
(
) so that you don’t have to enter the plant each time, then click on the enter
icon ( ) to get to the Create Material screen. Note that SAP has created a material number for
you:
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Module 5: Material Master Records
Note:
SAP-assigned material number. You will
have a different material number assigned
Enter:
## Oats for material description
LB for Base unit of measure
MANU for material group
Enter the following information:
## Oats for material description
LB for Base unit of measure
MANU for material group
Note that you can click on the Base unit of measure field, then click on the list icon ( ) to get a
list of units of measure that have been defined in the SAP system:
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Module 5: Material Master Records
The material group MANU is a client-independent group that was created for Fitter Snacker.
Material Groups are like Purchasing Groups—they can be used to limit the scope of analyses or
searches. The group MANU was created for raw and semi-finished materials (ROH and HALB)
while the group SALES was created for finished products (FERT).
There are a number of views in the material master, most of which we won’t be using. To find
the views that we are using that require data entry, click on the arrows to the right of the view
tabs, and look for tabs with a special icon (
). The next one to be filled in after Basic data 1
is Purchasing:
Click on the arrows until you
get to the Purchasing tab
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Module 5: Material Master Records
Click on the purchasing tab to get the following screen:
Enter purchasing group
##B for Bulk Grains
Enter purchasing group ##B for Bulk Grains , then scroll to the Accounting 1 view. While the
Plant Data/Storage 1 view needs to be created, we do not need to make any entries on this view.
On the Accounting 1 view, we need to add Valuation class 3000 and moving price 0.20:
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Module 5: Material Master Records
Enter Valuation class 3000 and
Moving Price 0.20
On the Costing 1 view, make sure that With qty structure and Material origin are checked:
Make sure both
are checked
Click on the save icon (
), and you should get the message that the material has been created:
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Module 5: Material Master Records
You will need to repeat this process for the rest of the raw materials Fitter Snacker uses. These
materials are summarized in the table below:
Basic Data 1
Base unit
Description
of measure
## Wheat Germ
LB
## Cinnamon
LB
## Nutmeg
LB
## Cloves
LB
## Honey
GAL
## Canola
GAL
## Vit/Min
LB
Powder
## Carob Chips
LB
## Raisins
LB
## Protein
LB
Powder
## Hazelnuts
LB
## Dates
LB
Material
group
MANU
MANU
MANU
MANU
MANU
MANU
MANU
Purchasing
Accounting 1
Purchasing Valuation Moving
group
class
price
##B
3000
0.30
##S
3000
3.00
##S
3000
4.50
##S
3000
5.50
##S
3000
6.40
##S
3000
1.70
##S
3000
18.45
Costing 1
With qty Material
structure
origin
Checked Checked
Checked Checked
Checked Checked
Checked Checked
Checked Checked
Checked Checked
Checked Checked
MANU
MANU
MANU
##S
##S
##S
3000
3000
3000
2.10
3.20
4.40
Checked
Checked
Checked
Checked
Checked
Checked
MANU
MANU
##S
##S
3000
3000
1.64
3.55
Checked
Checked
Checked
Checked
5.3 Create Finished Products
To create our finished products, we use essentially the same process, but with a different set of
views. Use the back icon ( ) to return to SAP Easy Access, then follow the menu path:
Logistics Materials Management Material Master Material Create (special)
Finished Product
Again, you will use industry sector Retail, but select the following views:
Basic Data 1
General Plant Data/Storage 1
Accounting 1
Costing 1
Note that we don’t specify the purchasing view, because these are manufactured products, not
purchased materials. Also, we will be specifying these materials for plant ##PT.
On the Basic Data 1 Tab, enter the following information:
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Module 5: Material Master Records
Enter:
## NRG-A
SALES
CS
79
LB
72
Description:
Base unit of measure:
Material group:
Gross Weight:
Net Weight:
## NRG-A
CS (case)
SALES
79 LB
72
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Module 5: Material Master Records
For the finished products, we will need to specify more than one unit of measure. In the case of
Fitter Snacker, we have boxes, cases and pallets as illustrated in the following figure:
1 Pallet = 15 Cases
As we will only manage snack bars at the case level, we will define cases as our base unit of
measure. To enter the alternate units of measure, click on the additional data icon
(
), which is available from any view when creating the material master:
Click on the additional data icon
Clicking on the additional data icon will produce the following screen, from which you can enter
the relationships between Cases (CS) and Pallets (PAL):
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Module 5: Material Master Records
Define alternate unit of
measure PAL in terms of CS
Enter the alternate units of measure data as shown above, then click on the main data icon
(
). Enter the remaining data for the NRG-A Bars:
Accounting 1
Val. class: 7920
Std. Price: 201.60
Costing 1
With qty structure:
Material origin:
Checked
Checked
Click on the save icon (
) to save the material.
Repeat the process for the ## NRG-B bars, using the following data:
Basic Data 1
Accounting 1
Costing 1
Base
unit of Material Gross Weight
Net
Val.
Std.
With qty Material
Description measure group weight
Unit
weight class price structure origin
## NRG-B
CS
SALES
72
LB
72
7920 244.80 Checked Checked
Make sure to enter the alternate units of measure:
1 PAL = 15 CS
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Module 5: Material Master Records
5.4 Create Purchasing Info Records
Now that we have defined our vendors and defined our materials, we can relate our raw materials
to our vendors. To do that, we create what is called a Purchasing Info Record. The purchasing
info record provides continuously updated information about the relationship between a specific
material and a specific vendor. This data includes order unit, price, price changes, tolerances,
reminder infos, historic data, statistics, texts, etc. This data can be updated manually or
automatically.
To create the purchasing info record, follow the menu path:
Logistics Materials Management Purchasing Master data Info record
Create
Which will produce the following screen:
Enter ##PR for
purchasing organization
and select Standard for
Info category
Use the search function
to find Vendors and
Materials
As every student has created five vendors, there are a lot of vendors floating around in the SAP
system. Furthermore, the SAP system identifies the vendors by their vendor number, which is
usually not easy to remember. To make finding our vendors easier, we can use the search
function. Click on the vendor field, then click on the search icon ( ) to call the following search
screen:
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Module 5: Material Master Records
Enter search
term ##, then
click on the
check mark
If you remembered to enter ## for the search term when you defined your vendors, you should
get a list of them after entering the search term and clicking on the enter icon ( ):
Double-click on Climax Cereals
Double click on the vendor Climax Cereals to select this vendor. We can use a similar process
to find our material, but unfortunately the SAP programmers did not see the wisdom in providing
search terms for materials. We can deal with that problem, however. If you used the proper
naming convention, your materials should all begin with ##. Click on the Material field, then
click on the search icon ( ) to call the following search screen:
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Module 5: Material Master Records
Enter ##*, then
click on the enter
icon to search
As your material description should begin with ##, we can tell SAP to search for any material
beginning with ## by entering it followed by an asterisk (*), which tells SAP to search for any
material that begins with ## followed by anything else. Enter ##* in the Material description,
then click on the enter icon ( ). This should produce the following screen list of materials:
Double-click on
## Oats to select it
Select ## Oats from the search list to select it. Enter Purchasing org. ##PR and select Standard
under Info category, then click on the enter icon ( ) to get to the following screen:
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Module 5: Material Master Records
Click on Purch. org. data 1
Click on Purch. org. data 1 to get the following screen:
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Module 5: Material Master Records
Enter
Plnd dely time: 10
Purch. group: ##B
Standard qty.: 44000
Net price: 0.20
Enter the following information:
Plnd dely time: 10
Purch. group: ##B
Standard qty.: 44000
Net price: 0.20
then click on the save icon ( ) to save the info record. Repeat this process to define the
relationships between the vendors and materials as given in the following table. Note that you
will create a total of 28 info records:
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Module 5: Material Master Records
Material
## Oats
## Wheat Germ
Material
## Canola
## Carob Chips
## Cinnamon
## Cloves
## Dates
## Hazelnuts
## Honey
## Nutmeg
## Protein
Powder
## Raisins
## Vit/Min
Powder
Planned dely time
10
5
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
Vendors
## Climax Cereals
## Grand Rapids Grains
## Oshtemo Oats
Purch. group
Standard qty
##B
44,000
##B
2000
Vendors
## Battle Creek Baking Supplies
## Farmington Food Products
##S
500
##S
1000
##S
100
##S
100
##S
100
##S
100
##S
500
##S
100
##S
2000
3
3
##S
##S
1000
100
Net price
0.20
0.30
1.70
2.10
3.00
5.50
3.55
1.64
6.40
4.50
4.40
3.20
18.45
Master Data Report for Module 5
To display purchasing info records sorted by vendor, follow the menu path:
Logistics Materials Management Purchasing Master data Info record List
Displays By Vendor
This will call up the following screen:
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Module 5: Material Master Records
Use the search function to
find your vendor, then click
on the execute icon to
create the report
Use the search function to find a vendor and enter it in the first vendor field. Click on the
execute icon ( ) to create the report:
Print a report for each vendor. Staple the reports together, put your
name on them, then hand the reports in.
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