How the Customer Master Record is Structured in SAP SD

Use

Data on customers is important for both the accounting department and the sales and distribution department. In order to avoid data redundancy, accounting data and sales and distribution data is stored in one master record, the customer master record.

A customer master record can be accessed using three different groups of data, which differ in the level of detail they offer. A master record has the following structure.

General data

General data does not depend on the company code, or on your company's organization of sales and distribution. Data on a customer is the same in both views. This includes, for example, the customer name, address and telephone number.

However, general data is not limited to the information which is of importance to both departments. The unloading point, for example, which is regarded as general data, is only relevant for sales and distribution. However, since it is not based on the sales and distribution organization of your company and is always unique for this customer, it is not considered part of the sales and distribution data.

If you edit a customer master record using only the customer number, without specifying a sales and distribution area or a company code, the system will only display the general data screens.

General data is entered by the department which first creates the customer master record for a customer. If the sales and distribution department creates the customer master record, it must also enter the address data. When the accounting department enters accounting data it is then unnecessary for them to enter the general data also. They can use the display function to access the general data.

Company Code Data

This data is only of importance to the accounting department. It includes, for example, data on insurance and account management. Company code data only applies to one company code.

If you edit the customer master record you must specify customer number and company code in order to access the screens containing company code data.

Sales and Distribution Data

This data is only of importance to sales and distribution. It includes data on pricing, delivery priority and shipping conditions. The data for one customer can differ for each sales area. The sales area is a combination of sales organization, distribution channel and division.

Only after entering the sales and distribution data for a customer can you process sales and distribution transactions for the customer (for example, a sales order). Also, you can only invoice a business transaction if the data on the payer has been maintained from the financial accounting view.

If you edit the customer master record you must enter the customer number and the sales area in order to access screens containing sales and distribution data.

Menu Access According to the Department

In the system you can access department-specific data via menus:

• If you want to define customer data for sales you access the customer master record through the sales and distribution menu (Logistics).
• If you want to enter data for the accounting department, you access the customer master record through the accounting menu.
• You can use both initial menus to edit the customer data centrally, i.e. from both the sales view and the accounting view.

In sales and distribution, central maintenance is only provided for the business partners sold-to party and payer, for which central maintenance is worthwhile.