Master data in mm

Master Data in MM

Jaures Magloire N.A.Senior SAP MM/SD consultant

Master Data in Materials Management


Master data comprises data records that are stored in the database for a long period of time. These data records are stored centrally, and are used and processed on a cross-application basis. In this way, the multiple storage (redundancy) of data is avoided.

The vendor master record, the material master record, and the purchasing info record belong to the most important master data in the procurement process.


Learning Objectives

This presentation states and briefly describes Master Data used in the procurement process with the aim of giving more insight on the process.


The following Master Data pertains to the MM module

• Vendor Master

• Material Master

• Purchasing Info Record

• Source Lists

• Quota Arrangement



Vendor Master

Lesson Objectives

• After completing this lesson, you will be able to:

• Explain the significance of vendor master records

• Create and maintain vendor master records

• Name the organizational levels that are important for the maintenance of vendor master records


Business Example

Your company has entered into a business relationship with a new vendor. Since you intend to place orders with this vendor frequently in future, you create a new master record for the vendor.


The vendor master record contains information on an enterprise's vendors. This information is stored in individual vendor master records. In addition to the vendor's name and address, a vendor master record contains data such as the following:

• Currency used in transactions with the vendor

• Terms of payment

• Names of important contacts (e.g. salespersons)


Since, for accounting purposes, the vendor is also a creditor of the enterprise, the vendor master record also contains accounting data such as the reconciliation account from the general ledger.

The vendor master record is therefore maintained by both purchasing and accounting.



General data:

This data is valid for the whole client. It includes the vendor's address and bank details, for example.

Accounting data:

This is maintained at company code level. It comprises data such as the number of the reconciliation account and the payment methods for automatic payment transactions.

Purchasing data:

This data is maintained for each purchasing organization. It includes the purchase order currency, Incoterms, and various control data pertaining to the vendor. You can also maintain different data for specific plants or for vendor subranges.


You can decide whether vendor master records are to be maintained centrally (that is, all data is maintained together), or on a decentralized basis (that is, the relevant departments each maintain their own data).



If you only give your purchasing staff the authorizations for transactions MK01,MK02, and MK03 (Logistics → Materials Management→ Purchasing → Master Data → Vendor → Purchasing → Create/Change/Display), they will only be able to maintain the general address and control data and the purchasing-specific data . Accounting personnel must enter the payment transaction data and the company-code-specific data.


However, you can also give your staff authorization to maintain the vendor master data under the menu path Logistics → Materials Management → Purchasing → Master Data → Vendor → Central →Create/Change/Display (transactions XK01, XK02, XK03).In this case, staff can maintain all the data in the vendor master record.


Account Group

When creating a vendor master record, you must decide which account group you are going to assign to this vendor. The account group has control functions.

When you maintain the vendor master record, for example, only the screens and fields that are needed for the relevant role of your business partner appear and are ready to accept user input. This is controlled by the account group.



Among other things, the account group determines:

• The type of number assignment (internal or external) and the number area from which the account number that the system uses to identify the vendor is to be assigned

• The field selection - which fields are ready for user input, which fields must be maintained, and which fields are hidden

• Which partner schemas are valid

• The status - whether the vendor is a one-time vendor (see below)


Reconciliation Account for Vendor Master Record

When creating a vendor master record, you must also maintain a reconciliation account. The reconciliation account is a G/L account in G/L accounting. It depicts a company's liabilities towards several vendors in G/L accounting.

When entering invoices, you enter the vendor and the system produces the reconciliation account from the vendor master record.


Blocking Vendors

In certain cases, you may wish to stop the procurement of goods from a certain vendor. This may be, for example, because the vendor has supplied you with products of inferior quality. In such a case, you have the option of blocking the vendor in the vendor master record. Once you have set the blocking indicator, purchase orders can no longer be placed with this vendor. The block applies until you deselect the indicator.


If you wish to prevent just one particular material from being procured from this vendor, block the vendor in the source list for the material, not in the vendor master record.

To block a vendor master record, choose from the Purchasing menu, Master Data → Vendor → Purchasing → Block (transaction MK05).You can decide whether the vendor is to be blocked for just one purchasing organization or for all.


You also have the option of setting the Block for quality reasons. The Block for quality reasons is effective only for materials for which quality management is active in procurement. The blocking function used here determines which procurement function (such as RFQ or purchase order) is to be blocked for quality reasons.


Material Master

Lesson Objectives

After completing this lesson, you will be able to:

• Explain the significance of material master records

• Create and maintain material master records

• Name the organizational levels that are important for the maintenance of material master records


Business Example

Various departments in your enterprise access and use existing material master records. Check how such master records can be created and extended.


The material master record is an enterprise's main source of material-specific data. It is used by all areas of logistics.

The integration of all material data in a single database object eliminates the problem of data redundancy. All areas, such as purchasing, inventory management, materials planning, and invoice verification, can jointly use the data stored.



The data stored in the material master record is required for many purposes, including the following:

• Purchasing data is required for ordering purposes

• Inventory management data is needed to post goods movements and carry out physical inventories

• Accounting data is required for material valuation

• Materials planning data is needed for material requirements planning


Since different user departments within an enterprise work with one material, and each department enters different information relating to it, the data in a material master record is subdivided according to area of use. Each user department thus has its own view of a material master record and is responsible for maintaining the data covered by this view.



The data screens used to process material master records can be subdivided into the following types:

Main data

• These are the screens for the individual user departments, such as basic data, materials planning, and so on.

Additional data

• These are the screens on which you find additional information, such as alternative units of measure, material short descriptions, and consumption values.



Client, plant, and storage location play a role when you enter data for purchasing, inventory management, and accounting. Other organizational levels can be relevant for other departments. For example, the sales and distribution data is entered depending on the sales organization and the distribution channel and you must specify a warehouse number and storage type for the warehouse management data.


Create Material Master Record

Choose Logistics → Materials Management → Material Master →

Material → Create (General) → Immediately (MM01).



When creating a new material master record, you must choose a material type and an industry sector to which the material is to be assigned.



Material Type

Among other things, the material type controls:

• The type of number assignment (internal or external)

• The permissible number range intervals

• Which screens appear and in which order

• Which user-department-specific data is suggested for entry (in views)

• Which procurement type is allowed for a material (that is, whether the

• material is produced in-house, procured externally, or both)


Along with the plant, the material type determines a material's inventory management requirement (whether quantity changes are continuously recorded in the material master record and/or value changes in the stock accounts of financial accounting).

Furthermore, the material type determines which accounts are posted when a receipt of a material into (or an issue from) the warehouse is booked.



Industry Sector

Like the material type, the industry sector also has a control function.

When you create a material master record, the industry sector determines:

• Which screens appear and in which order

• Which industry-specific fields appear on each screen

The industry sector you assign to a material cannot subsequently be changed.


Some data in the material master is used for information purposes only, for example, description, size, and dimensions.

Other material data has a controlling function in an application. For example, the MRP type controls the MRP procedure and the price control indicator determines which material valuation procedure is used.


Extend Material Master Record

Once a department has created data for a material, the material master record exists in the database. If someone from another department later wishes to enter data, he or she does have not have to create the material master record from scratch, but only has to extend the existing record by adding the information from his or her department. A material master is also extended when data pertaining to the material is stored for further organizational levels.



Purchasing Info Records Maintenance

Lesson Objectives

After completing this lesson, you will be able to:

• List the organizational levels relevant for purchasing info records

• List the ways in which purchasing info records can be created

• Maintain a purchasing info record


Business Example

To help you determine sources of supply and prices, you can store information for specific material-vendor relationships in the system. You can enter conditions and other price elements such as freight costs and reductions for a material, depending on the vendor and the purchasing organization. You can also enter planned delivery times, tolerances and terms of delivery.


Purchasing info records


The purchasing info record (info record) provides the option of storing information about a vendor and a material as the master data at purchasing organization and plant level. You can define the following information in info records:

• Current and future prices and conditions (for example, freight and discounts)

• Delivery data (for example, planned delivery time and over delivery and under delivery tolerances)


• Vendor data (for example, contact person) and vendor-specific data about the material (such as the vendor subrange to which the material belongs, description of material at vendor)

• Number of the last purchase order

• Texts.

The following type of texts are set in the purchasing info record:

• Internal info memo record: This is an internal comment that is copied to the purchase order item. This text is not printed.

• PO text in the purchasing info record: This is used to describe the PO item. It is copied to the purchase order item and printed.


The purchasing info record is an important source of information for the buyer. When creating the purchasing documents, the data from the info record is copied into the document as default values.

You can also use the list displays for the info records to determine which vendors offer a particular material or which materials can be procured from a particular vendor.

A purchasing info record can be valid at both purchasing organization level and plant level. It also includes general data that is valid cross-client for every purchasing organization or every plant.



You can manually create or change an info record for a purchasing organization or plant. In the purchasing menu, choose Master Data → Info Record → Create (ME11), (or Change).

On the initial screen, you must then enter vendor, material, and the organizational levels you want (purchasing organization or purchasing organization/plant).

On the following data screens, enter the necessary data manually, for example, planned delivery time, gross price and conditions.

Purchasing info records can also be created or updated automatically by setting the Info update indicator when maintaining a quotation, purchase order or outline agreement.


Price Determination

If you create a purchasing document, the system attempts to find a price for the material to be procured. The system always searches from specific to general.

This means that when creating a purchase order, the system first searches for a purchasing info record with the combination of vendor/material at the purchasing organization/plant level. If there is no such info record, the system then searches at purchasing organization level. If there is no info record here either, you must enter the price manually.



Info Records and Prices

If a purchasing info record exists, then valid conditions have priority during the price determination. If an info record does not contain any conditions or only contains invalid conditions, the system reads the number of the last purchasing document in the info record and then suggests the price from this document. The prices determined in this way are default values that can be changed by the buyer if necessary.

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Master data in mm