Datasheet
CHAPTER 1
W
elcome to the world of SAP Sales and Distribution!
In this chapter, we will start with the basics about the SAP ERP system. We will
discuss the various application areas and how they are structured. You will see that
there are dierent menus oered to end users (who have to run transactions) and
administrators (who congure or set up the system). We will introduce some basic
transactions that you will need to know before you proceed with the rest of the book.
Sales and Distribution (SD) is one of the most important application areas in the
SAP ERP system. In this chapter, we will explain how a general sales cycle is carried
out in SAP. We will also give you an idea of how this book is structured.
Introduction to SAP
SAP is one of the most popular enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions in
the world. It oers an integrated system that supports major business functions
such as sales, production, and nancial accounting. Over the years, SAP has been
enhanced, and new versions have been released. e older SAP R/3 has now devel-
oped into the SAP ERP system on which we have based this book.
e latest version of SAP ERP at this time is ERP Central Component, Release 6.0,
oen referred to as ECC 6.0. It consists of several application components closely
integrated with one another. SD is one of these application components.
When any organization looks to implement SAP ERP, it rst studies its business
processes and decides on the ones that are to be mapped in SAP. Based on this, it
can select the application components that are relevant. For example, a manufactur-
ing organization may require a dierent set of applications than a service provider
or a trading company.
e Sales and Distribution application caters to the business processes associated
with customer order fulllment. SD has several components oering diverse func-
tionality. For example, there are components for pricing (which control how prices
and costs are determined in a sales transaction), availability check (that control how
product stocks are allocated to orders from various customers), and credit manage-
ment (that check the credit worthiness of the customer before a transaction is per-
mitted). Again, you have to select which processes are applicable to you.
In an integrated system, each application has to mesh with other related applica-
tions to ensure continuity and consistency. is is one of the strong points of the SD
application.
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