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Home Up Customer & Vendor Direct Assignment Indirect Assignment

Implementing Sap With an Asap...

 

 

Direct Assignment of Relationships

This section addresses those organisation structure relationships that are directly assigned in the SAP configuration. IE via "IMG...Enterprise Structure /Assignment".

It may not look like it, but this is actually quite easy except for a couple of areas with a lot of flexibility (and remember: flexibility = complexity).  Let's get it over with quickly and then get down to the more interesting (difficult or non-obvious ?) integration.  To make it even easier I have divided the relationships between the:

  • core / essential relationships that you should understand or address as a first priority and the
  • secondary relationships (or module specific ) ones you can worry about later if you need to.

I have also grouped the relationships in what I hope is more logical (since FI is where most of the integration is heading (because of the financial postings) I have sorted by FI elements and listed them first.   Apart from that you should still be able to follow along fairly easily in the IMG - or if you have the R/3 Library CD ROM follow along there (under Implementation Tools / Implementation guide).

Table of Direct Organisation Structure Relationships maintained by "IMG...Enterprise Structure /Assignment"
Module/ module Element 1 Element 2 Relationship Comment
Core or Primary Relationships:
Financials, Controlling, Treasury
FI / CO Company code Controlling Area many to one This is a no-brainer.  However if you have complex currency / organisation reporting requirements then you should probably read the IMG help carefully and test out your scenarios before configurers get too far down the track.
FI / TR Company code Financial management area many to one Even if you are not really using Treasury, you may want to assign this to use the Basic functions (useful if using AR, AP and doing banking)
CO / CO-PA Controlling Area Operating Concern many to one Only required if using CO-PA
CO / TR Controlling Area Financial management area many to one, usually only one each though All company codes assigned to the controlling area must also be assigned to the Financial Management Area.  Required if costs etc needed in TR.
Logistics (Materials Management and Sales and Distribution)
LO / FI Plant Company Code many to one Required so the system knows which legal entity to post financial stock values.  
SD / FI Sales Organisation Company Code many to one  
SD / SD Distribution Channel Sales Organisation many to many  
LO / SD Division Sales Organisation many to many  
SD / SD Sales Areas   many to many This is a unique setup.  A sales area is not a new organisation element, but defines a valid combination of Sales Organisation / Distribution Channel / Division.  This is how you control what products can be sold by what methods of delivery and by which selling groups.  This also has a significant impact on the customer master data requirements.
MM / FI Purchasing Organisation Company Code many to many or none optional - if the company code is not assigned it will be determined from the plant.  This allows the setup of purchasing responsibility
  • corporate wide
  • by company  or
  • by plant
Human Resources
HR / FI Personnel Area Company Code many to one Required so the system can post financial impact of HR postings.   Note that personnel areas in different countries cannot map to the same company code.  It is usual that different countries would have different company codes (legal entities) anyway.
Secondary Relationships:
Financials, Controlling and Integration with FI/CO
FI Company code (group) company many to one optional - can do financial statements by group company, however can also just use ranges or selections of company codes.
FI Company code Credit Control Area many to one optional - only required if using credit management or creating the credit management section of the customer master.
FI / EC-CS or FI-LC Business area Consolidation business area many to one Only required if using the consolidation modules.
FI / SD Business Area (Rule 1) Depends on rules chosen for each Sales Area many to one Here we have great flexibility = some complexity - worthy of a separate SD/Business Area page to explain what's possible.   Briefly for each Sales Area you could specify :
  • Rule 1: By plant and division
  • Rule 2: By sales area
  • Rule 3: By sales organisation, distribution channel and item division.  Note that the item division could be different from the Division in the Sales Area.   Divisions are a little 'strange' in Logistics - they have either a sales SD emphasis or a product MM emphasis. 
LO / FI If Valuation Level = Company code, then Plant  / Valuation Area Business Area many to one Only required to enable automatic business area account assignment.   If you are valuing stocks at a company code level, you can map each plant to a business area.  Note the Valuation Area is then the company code.  It is confusing I know!
LO / FI If Valuation Level = Plant, then Plant Business Area many to one Only required to enable automatic business area account assignment.   If you are valuing stocks at a plant level, you can map each plant and division (essentially groupings of products) to a business area
Logistics / Sales and Distribution
SD / SD Sales Offices Sales Areas many to many Optional. Used as defaults only. Note sales office is usually a geographical distinction.
SD / SD Sales Groups Sales Offices many to many Optional. Sales groups are responsibility groupings rather than geographic.
LO / SD Plants Sales Organisation / Distribution channel many to many Essentially defines which selling organisations can sell, by which methods out of which plants
SD / LO Shipping Points Plants many to many Defines which plants can ship from which locations
Materials Management
MM / MM Purchasing Organisation Plant many to many Allows a variety of purchasing responsibilities and gives control over who can buy for where.
MM / MM Standard or Reference Purchasing Organisation Plant one to many The system will use the information associated with this purchasing organisation for source determination of materials.
MM / MM Purchasing Organisation Standard or Reference Purchasing Organisation many to one Allows use of the contracts etc negotiated by this purchasing organisation as a reference if another purchasing organisation is buying.
WM / IM Warehouse number Plant / Storage Location one to one Defines which storage locations are controlled by the warehouse management system.
Plant Maintenance
PM / PM Maintenance Plant Maintenance Planning Plant many to one Defines which plants do the planning of maintenance  for other plants.
Human Resources
HR / FI Employee subgroup Employee Group many to many Determines the valid combinations for the country groupings

Determining the FI Business Area from SD - flexibility and therefore complexity

There are 3 ways of determining the business area for an SD posting that is trying to post to FI (ie when the system does the revenue account determination.  You can define a different way for each SD Sales Area.  This means that you first have to tell the system which 'rule' you want to use for which Sales Area. 

Module/ module Element 1 Element 2 Relationship Comment
FI / SD Business Area Plant / Division one to one Rule 1: By plant and division
FI / SD Business Area Sales Area one to one Rule 2: By sales area
FI / SD Business Area Sales Organization, Channel and item Division one to one Rule 3: By sales organization, distribution channel and item division.  Note that the item division could be different from the Division in the Sales Area.  Divisions are a little 'strange' in Logistics - they have either a sales SD emphasis or a product MM emphasis. 

So for example we could have the following configuration :

Sales Area (Sales Organisation,   Channnel, Division) Rule Plant or  Division Business Area
1000, 01 (internet), 01 (books) 2 (sales area) n/a INET
1000, 01 (internet), 02 (music) 2 (sales area) n/a INET
2000, 02 (retail), 03 (electronics) 1 (Plant / division) Sydney ELNS (Electronics in Australia)
Korea ELVC (Electronics in Korea)
2000, 03 (wholesale), 05 (speciality products) 3 (Sales Organisation / Channel / Item Division) all item divisions SPEC (Speciality Products)

It may look complex and cumbersome, but it will only be so if you have a complicated business and of course you want to have business areas.  If you have a fairly homogenous organisation, then at worst you will have to put several partially repetitive entries in the configuration table.  With a bit of luck and a stable organisation you will never have to come back to this !!
 

 


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