SD Document Field Explanation

[Ashish Lenka]

Sales
The sales application in SAP SD deals with the business process involved with selling goods and services to the customer. A sales document is a vital component of the sales application that records and processes information related to a sales transaction and also marks the beginning of a sales cycle in the SAP system.

In Chapter 1, “Introduction to Sales and Distribution,” you saw a brief overview of the sales cycle and experienced the look and feel of a sales document. In this chapter, we will discuss in detail sales documents, including their use in the SAP system, how they are structured, and how to configure and control them from a sales transaction perspective. We will also briefly touch upon the various sales document types that are available in the standard SAP system, including inquiries, quotations, orders, debit/credit notes, and contracts, to name a few.

Sales Documents
In SAP, the sales cycle begins with the creation of a sales document. The sales document stores and processes the sales-related data and controls the overall processing of the sales transaction. When you receive an order from the customer, the information contained in that physical customer order—such as ordered goods or services, ordered quantity, shipping location, delivery date, and so on—is all stored in a sales document. This sales document then forms the basis for carrying out subsequent SD process steps such as delivery, billing, and accounting postings.

In SAP, sales document is a generic term. You can use a sales document to store and initiate processing for inquiries, quotations, sales orders, contracts, credit/debit notes, invoice corrections, free-of-charge delivery, and other similar sales processes that a user in the sales function deals with on a day-to-day basis. Each of these processes is identified and controlled using a specific sales document type in SAP; for instance, document type AF is for inquiries, AQ is for quotations, and OR is for standard orders.

Each sales document in SAP is assigned a unique document number that can be set internally by the SAP system or externally by the user or interface program that is electronically creating the sales order in the SAP system. You can set up incompletion checks in a sales document to ensure the user enters the data entry completely and to also stop the processing of subsequent steps if the document is found to be incomplete. Status management in the SAP system documents the current status of the object and also controls what subsequent process step may be carried out next. While processing a sales document, SAP also carries out various basic functions such as pricing, taxation, partner determination, availability check, output determination, and so on, which we’ve already discussed.

You can create, change, delete, and reject these sales documents in SAP. You can also create a sales document electronically using the ALE, IDOC, EDI, and BAPI technologies provided by SAP.

TIP : Deletion and rejection are allowed only for those documents that are not yet processed for delivery and other subsequent processes.

Structure of a Sales Document

The structure of a sales document has three parts: a header structure that holds the information applicable to the whole document, an item structure that holds the information specific to an item, and a schedule line that stores the delivery schedule for the item. Data at the header level is valid for all the items. A sales document can have one header and one or multiple line items, and each line item further can have one or multiple schedule lines.

Structural breakdown of a sales document

TIP: The header data for a sales document is stored in table VBAK, the item data is stored in table VBAP, and the schedule line data is stored in table VBEP. Business data— such as the terms of payment, for example—is stored in table VBKD, and partner data for the document header and item is stored in table VBPA.

Origin of Data in a Sales Document

Apart from the data that you entered manually or that came via an interface program, data in a sales document originates from a variety of other sources:

From master data to sales document When you create a sales document, a majority of information required by the sales order is automatically derived by SAP from the master records of the customer and material number you provided on the sales document detail screen. Information derivation from the sold-to party master data includes pricing, shipping conditions, Inco terms, and so on. Information specific to the shipping location and taxation is pulled out from the ship-to party master, and information specific to the payment terms and credit checks is pulled from the payer master record. When the sold-to party performs all four partner functions for a sales document, all the partner-related data is pulled from the sold-to party master record. Information from the material master includes the delivery plant, weights, delivery priority information, and so on. Some miscellaneous information is also derived from various other master records such as the pricing master, customer– material info masters, output masters, and so on, based on the combination of customer and material numbers.

From document header to document item Data for document items originates from the document header. Once copied from the header to the items in a document, this data can be manually changed in the sales document. In such a case, the manually entered data takes precedence over the automatically derived data. For example, say you have an initial customer order received with a requested delivery date of 03/09/09 for all three items; with the standard SAP system behavior, the date 03/09/09 is copied from the sales document header to all the items. But then say customer later sends a request to deliver item 20 by 04/09/09, keeping the schedule for item 10 and 30 intact. To incorporate this request, you manually change the requested delivery date at the item level for item 20 to 04/09/09. This manual change now takes precedence over the requested delivery date initially copied from the header data. So, the header data and items 10 and 30 show the requested delivery date as 03/09/09, and item 20 has a requested delivery date of 04/09/09.

From source document to target document In SAP, data originated in the source document is copied to the target document. For example, when you create a sales order with reference to a quotation, SAP copies the data from the quotation document to the sales order. In this case, SAP will not do any derivation of data from the master records, and data copied from the quotation will be final. So, any changes made to the master data after creating the quotation will not be copied on to the sales order because the data for the sales order is copied from the quotation document that still contains the old information.

From customization settings to sales document SAP copies the defaults defined in the customization settings to the sales documents. Values such as the default billing type and the default delivery type are copied to the sales document so that SAP can use these defaults to perform the subsequent steps without any user intervention. This makes the process more automated.

Customizing Sales Documents
A sales document is controlled via its customization settings. The customization of a sales

document involves the following steps:
Defining sales document types
Defining item categories
Setting up an item category determination
Defining schedule line categories
Setting up a schedule line category determination
Setting up copy controls
In the following sections, we’ll cover each of these steps in detail.

Defining Sales Document Types

The first step in sales document customization is to define the sales document types that meet your business requirements. A sales document type in the SAP system helps you differentiate one kind of sales document from another. Whether a sales document is an inquiry, a quotation, a sales order, or any other kind of sales document, you can identify each one exclusively based on its document type. In the customization of a sales document type, you can define various settings that not only control the overall behavior of the sales document but also impact the subsequent process steps, such as delivery and billing.

To customize a sales document type, you can use the transaction code VOV8 or follow the menu path IMG ➢ Sales And Distribution ➢ Sales ➢ Sales Documents ➢ Sales Document Header ➢ Define Sales Document Types. For discussion purposes, we will be breaking the customization screen into multiple screenshots and will discuss in detail all the important fields on the customization screen. During this discussion, we will be using document type OR Standard Order for analyzing the various settings on the customization screen. Lets start with the General Control and Number Systems sections of the customization screen.

General Control and Number Systems sections of the customization screen for maintaining

sales document types

General Controls and Number Systems

In these sections of the screen, you define all the generic control settings required for your sales document type:

Sales Document Type This field represents the identifier and description for your sales document type. You can define your own sales document type by providing an identifier key that is a maximum of four characters, along with a meaningful description. OR stands for the document type, and Standard Order is the description for the document type OR.

Sales Document Category The field SD Document Categ. classifies sales documents into various categories and enables the SAP system to provide status information about delivery and billing processing for the sales document. When you create your sales document via the copy with reference option, this category field enables the SAP system to provide the status information about the reference documents. You can use document category A for inquiries, B for quotations, C for orders, D foritem proposals, E and F for scheduling agreements, G for contracts, H for returns, K for credit memo requests, and L for debit memo requests.

Sales Document Block When you select this field for a sales document type, the sales document type is blocked for further use and is no longer visible in the list of available document types for processing with sales document create transactions, such as VA01, for example. This is useful in situations where your document type has become obsolete and you don’t want the user to use it for transactional document creation by mistake. Always remember that once blocked in customizing, you cannot use that document type for creating new transactional documents, but the existing transactional documents can still be processed.

You can also use this field to mark a document type as relevant for automatic processing only. When you do so, the document type is no longer available for manual processing via maintenance transactions provided by SAP (VA01, for example). You can make one of the following selections for this field:

Leave the field blank if you do not want to block your sales document type.

Select X when you want to block the document type.
Select A to make the document available for automatic processing only.
Internal and external number range assignment In SAP, you control the document numbering for your sales document using a two-character number range key. When customizing this key, you specify the starting number and the ending number for the number range that then controls the document numbering for your sales document.

value 01 in field No.Range Int.Assgt. represents the internal number range that the SAP system will use to assign the document numbering to your sales document. Similarly, the value 02 in the field No. Range Ext.Assg. will control the document numbering for your sales document when the number is assigned externally by the user or the interface program that is creating the sales order. You can define a number range for your document type by using transaction code VN01 or by following the menu path IMG ➢ Sales And Distribution ➢ Sales ➢ Sales Documents ➢ Sales Document Header ➢ Define Number Range For Sales Documents.

Item No. Increment Here you define the increments for an item number for your sales document. So if you set up an item increment as 10, then the first line in the sales document will have item 10, the second line will have item 20, and so on. Keeping a gap in item numbers is always good practice because it gives you some flexibility to insert a new line between two existing line items in a sales document.

Sub-item Increment The subitem concept exists for structured materials such as a bill of materials (BOM). A BOM allows you to process materials in a specified structure. For example, a computer can be sold as one piece or as multiple parts separately. When you sell it as one piece, you define a BOM to set up the main piece of the item as a computer, with a mouse, keyboard, CPU, monitor screen, and so on, as subitems of that main piece. When you create a sales order, you enter the BOM for the computer as a material in the sales order. This BOM automatically explodes into multiple lines of individual materials to be delivered. What item numbers these subitems get depends upon what setting you made when customizing for the subitems increment. As per the increment value shown in Figure 7.2 for subitems, each subitem will have an increment of 1.

Reference Mandatory Make a selection in this field if you want to create a document for your document type only by copying it from an existing document. For example, if your requirement says that a sales order can be created only with reference to a quotation document, you can choose B here for quotation to put this restriction on your sales order document type.

You can set up the SAP system to create a new sales document with reference to the following:

A: An inquiry
B: A quotation
C: A sales order
E: A scheduling agreement
G: A contract
M: A billing document
Remember that a selection in this field will only make it compulsory for the document to refer to an existing document. For the actual flow of data between the two documents, you also need to define the copy control between the documents.

Material Entry Type This field defines the expected input value for the material field during the sales order entry. When you select B in this field, SAP expects you to enter a material number and product catalog combination as a valid input for creating the sales order. Select A, and the SAP expectation changes to the material order number and product catalog combination. Keep the value in this field as blank if you are not working with product catalogs.

Item Division The Item Division check box is like an on/off switch that controls whether the division for an item in the sales order should originate from the material master or from the document header. When selected, it allows the item division to be copied from the material master data. If left unchecked, the item division is copied from the sales document header.

Check Division The Check Division field checks whether the division at the document header is different from the document items. The following options are available:

Leave the field blank: Different divisions between the header and the items are allowed without any message to the user.
Select 1: Divisions can be different, but a warning message is issued.
Select 2: Divisions cannot be different, and an error message is issued.
TIP: When to allow the fields to be different between the header and items depends upon what scenario you want to configure. For example, if you want to allow cross-divisional sales, which allow you to create a sales order with materials from different divisions, then keep the Check Division field blank and the Item Division check box selected for the document type you are configuring so that the division of the header can be different from the item, and at the same time the division at the item level can be copied from the material master.

Probability You use order probability to measure the success rate of a presales process. For example, you use the probability percentage to measure the possibility of a quotation converting into an order. In SAP, the probability is allowed for the inquiry and quotation document categories only. The expected order value is calculated as the net value of the line item multiplied by the probability rate for that line item divided by the total net value for all the line items in the quotation. So, for a quotation containing two items, one for $100 with a 40 percent probability and the other for $100 with a 60 percent probability, the total order value equals $200, but the expected order value equals $100. In other words:
(100 × 40% + 100 × 60%) ÷ 200

Read Info Record This check box controls the copying over of the customerspecific material description from the customer–material info record to the subsequent sales document. When selected in customizing for a document type, the customer material info record gets copied to documents for that document type.

Check Credit Limit This field helps you activate/deactivate credit checks for your document type. The available options are as follows: 
Blank: Select this if you do not want to run a credit ff check on your sales document type.

A: This runs a simple credit check with a warning message displayed when a credit check for the document fails.
B: This runs a simple credit check with an error message displayed when a credit check for the document fails.
C: This runs a simple credit check and blocks the delivery for the sales document if the credit check for the document fails.
D: This runs a rule-based automatic credit check. The value D in this field that OR is using automatic credit checks.
Credit Group In the standard SAP system, you can carry out the credit check at the sales order level and the delivery level and also while performing the goods issue step for your delivery. A credit group in the SAP system represents these levels. There are three credit groups available in standard SAP:

01 for sales orders
02 for deliveries
03 for goods issue
If you want to carry out credit checks, you need to assign your document type to its relevant category. For sales orders, the credit group is always 01.

Check Purchase Order Number The purpose of this field is to check for duplicate purchase order (PO) numbers during sales order entry. When you select A in this field, SAP gives a warning message during sales order creation if another sales document for same customer with the same PO number exists already. Leave this field blank if you do not want SAP to check for duplicate PO numbers.

Enter Purchase Order Number When you select this box in customizing for your document type, SAP enters the sales document number in the PO number field, provided that this field is blank when the document is saved. This is useful for scenarios such as return material authorization (RMA) wherein you would like to save your sales document number of the RMA document type in the PO field as a reference to be provided to the customer. The customer will use this number as a reference number for all their communications related to that specific RMA transaction.

Output Application An output application is a two-character identifier that controls the overall processing of output at the application level. If you want to carry out output determination for your sales document, then apart from the customization settings that you defined in Chapter, “Partner, Text, and Output Determination,” you also need to assign your document type to its relevant output application. For sales documents, the output application is V1.

Commitment Date Commitment dates are relevant for when your customer contracts have certain obligatory delivery dates to be met. This situation can exist most commonly in customer make-to-order production where there might be bottlenecks and you want SAP to give a commitment date in addition to a confirmed date and quantity. Select an entry in this field when you want SAP to calculate a commitment date for your sales document type.

Transaction Flow the Transaction Flow section of the sales document type customization screen. Here you can customize the look and feel of the order entry screen, define the screen sequencing, and define the various transactional flow– related settings for your sales document. We’ll now give you a detailed look at the various fields on this screen.

Transaction flow section of customization screen for maintaining sales document types

Screen Sequence Group A data entry screen that you use for a contract document might not be relevant for a sales order, and vice versa. Therefore, based on the individual needs of the sales document categories, SAP has grouped the screens into various screen sequence groups. By choosing a screen sequence group for your document type in the field Screen Sequence Grp., you tell SAP what screens and fields should appear and in what sequence they should show up when you create the documents using your document type. In standard SAP, screen sequence group AG is available for inquiries and quotations, AU for sales orders, GA for credit and debit memo, KM for contracts, and RE for returns.

Display Range The value you select in this field controls which details for a structured item, such as a BOM, will be shown during the sales document display. If you choose UALL, both the main and subitems are displayed, and if you choose UHAU, only the main item is shown.

Incompletion Procedure As we mentioned earlier in this chapter, an incompletion procedure helps you check the sales document for incomplete data and stops the further processing steps such as delivery, billing, and so on, for the sales document, until the data in the sales document is complete. value 11 in field Incompl.Procedrepresents the two-character identifier for the incompletion procedure that is assigned to order type OR. Incompletion procedure customization and its assignment are explained in detail later in this chapter.

FCode For Overview Screen The selection made in the field FCode For Overv. Scr. tells SAP which overview screen to display first when you are processing a sales document. You have a choice to select either general overview (UER1), item overview (UER2), and ordering party overview (UBST).

Transaction Group There are six different transaction codes to process the six different varieties of sales documents in SAP.

Relationship Between Transaction Codes and Transaction Groups

Which transaction code to use for processing your document type will depend on what transaction group you choose while configuring your document type. So if you are configuring a sales document, make sure that you select 0 as the transaction group for your document type to process with transaction code VA01-VA03. Apart from this, the transaction group also controls updating the reporting indices in tables TINPA (Business Partner Index) and TVIND (Material & Validity Index).

Quotation Messages/Outline Agrmt Mess./Message: Mast.Contr./ProdAttr.

Messages The purpose of these fields is to provide a message to the user during order creation if any open quotation, outline agreement, master contract, or product attributes exists. The available choices in these fields are self-explanatory.

Document Pricing Procedure In the field Doc. Pric. Procedure, you choose which document pricing procedure key to assign to your document type. The key you assign here will be one of the factors determining the pricing procedure for your sales document. At this point, if you feel the need for a quick revision/recall on the pricing procedure and its determination-related concepts, please refer to Chapter, “Pricing and Tax Determination.”

Status Profile In this field, you assign the default status profile for your document type. Using the status profile, you can define your own status management for a sales document or individual line items of a sales document. Suppose you want to set up a small workflow for your sales document wherein your sales document should be under the Initial status just after creation, should be under the In Process status when it is with the approval authority for approvals, should be under the Reassign status when it is reassigned back, and finally should show the status as Released when some authorized person releases it for further processing.

In a status profile, you define the status steps (in other words, the four statuses we mentioned earlier). For each status step, you define which business function you want to allow when the document is under the said status. Thus, each status step then controls what business function is allowed and what is not. So that only an authorized person can perform the status change, each status line within a status profile is linked to an authorization code. Only the users who have this authorization code assigned to their user roles can change the status of the document. You can assign this status profile to the sales document type or an item category type to make it work for a sales document or a line item, respectively. For defining and assigning your own status profiles, follow the menu path IMG ➢ Sales And Distribution ➢ Sales ➢ Sales Documents ➢ Define And Assign Status Profile. Define your own status profile by providing an eight-digit alphanumeric value and maintaining the various statuses.

Alternate Sales Document Types By making a selection in the field Alt.Sales Doc. Type1, you allow the user to switch between the document types during the sales order entry. This is really helpful in a telesales scenario where the telesales representative does not know whether the prospect customer will end up placing an order or an inquiry. With a choice to switch between the document types without leaving the document creation screen, the telesales representative can keep on entering the information as they talk with the customer and can choose the document type while saving the document. You can set up two alternate sales document types when customizing for your sales document type using the fields Alt.Sales Doc. Type1 and Alt.Sales Doc. Type2. Choose the sales document type in this field that you would like to use as an alternative sales document during sales order processing.

Incompletion Messages Unlike the incompletion procedure that allows you to save the incomplete sales document but disqualifies it for further processing steps such as delivery and billing, the Incomplet.Messages check box, when selected, prevents you from even saving the incomplete sales orders. You should select this only if you want SAP to stop an incomplete sales document from getting saved that was created using your sales document type.

Variant Transaction variants consist of a sequence of screen variants and are assigned to the transaction codes. Using these variants, you can change the normal behavior of various screens called in a transaction during document processing. You can change the “ready for input status of the fields, hide and change the table control column attributes, hide menu functions, and hide the entire screens. You define the transaction variants using transaction code SHD0. If you would like to use a transaction variant for processing your document, then provide that transaction variant here in this field, or leave this field blank so SAP will use the standard variant.

Shipping and Billing Information
In this section of customizing a sales document type, you assign default values for delivery-related and billing-related fields. SAP then uses these defaults while performing the subsequent steps of shipping andbilling for your sales document.

Shipping and billing section of the customization screen for maintaining the sales document types

Delivery Type Delivery Type here represents the delivery document type that you would like SAP to use while creating a delivery for your document. Choose a default delivery type only when your document is relevant for delivery. Leave this field blank if your sales document is not relevant for delivery such as with an inquiry, quotation, debit, or credit note request or any service-related billings. For document type OR, SAP uses delivery document LF.

Delivery Block When you make a selection in this field, SAP prevents your sales document from getting delivered until an authorized person checks the documents and releases them from the delivery block. For example, in case of free-of-charge deliveries, you might want to make someone responsible to validate and justify the reasons for free-of-charge delivery before the actual delivery happens. Delivery block customization is discussed in detail later in this chapter.

Shipping Conditions Make a selection in this field if you would like to copy the default shipping condition from the document type customization to your sales document. SAP copies shipping conditions from the customer master to the sales documents, but when you define a default in the sales document type, that default takes precedence over the customer master shipping condition.

Immediate Delivery When you make a selection in this field, SAP creates the delivery for your document immediately on saving the document. In the standard SAP system, this setting is generally used for cash sales and rush orders. You can select from the following available options:

Select A for immediate deliveries.
Select X for immediate deliveries only for confirmed quantity line items.
Leave the field blank if you do not want to create immediate deliveries.
Dlv-Rel.Billing Type The SAP system will use the billing document type you enter in this field as a default billing document type when creating billings for your sales document type for delivery-relevant billing scenarios. A delivery-relevant billing refers to those scenarios where the sales cycle involves creating a delivery document before creating a billing document.

Order-Rel.Bill.Type Here you enter the default order-relevant billing document type that you want to use to bill your sales document. An order-relevant billing refers to a billing document created directly from a sales order without involving a delivery step in between. This refers to service billing orders and debit/credit note processes.

Intercomp.Bill.Type Here you enter the default intercompany billing document type that you want to use to bill your sales document in an intercompany scenario. An intercompany billing document records the sales transaction happening between the two companies of the same group.

Billing Block The purpose of this field is to block your sales document from getting billed. Make a selection in this field only when you want to prevent your sales document from getting billed until an authorized person checks the documents and releases them from the billing block, such as credit notes. Please note that the billing block you assign here will work at the header level and will be applicable throughout the sales document.

Billing Plan Type A billing plan controls the billing timelines and schedule of billing for periodic and milestone-based billing. In SAP, you can have a billing plan at the header level as well as at the item level. Make a selection in this field only when your sales document is either relevant for periodic billing or is a milestone billing and you want to keep the billing plan at the header level for your sales document type. For more details on billing plans. strong>Payment Guarantee Procedure A payment guarantee procedure controls the risk management settings for your sales document type. A letter of credit, bank guarantee, and export credit insurance are a few examples of risk management documents that are commonly used in foreign trade. Maintain the value in this field if your document type is relevant for risk management control.

Payment Card Plan Type and Checking Group Make a selection in these fields only when your sales document is relevant for payment cards processing. For standard orders of document type OR, SAP uses value 03 (Payment Cards) for the Payment Card Plan Type field and uses 01 (Standard) for the Checking Group field. Requested Delivery Date/Pricing Date/Purchase Order Date the set of fields from the sales document type customization screen where you maintain proposals for determining the requested delivery date, the pricing date, and the purchase order date for your sales document type. A requested delivery date is the date by which the customer expects to receive the delivery of the goods. It can be a date provided by the customer or proposed by the SAP system. A pricing date, on the other hand, helps in finding out the valid price for a sales document line item. We’ll now cover how these fields impact the determination of various dates in a sales document.

Requested Delivery Date/Pricing Date/Purchase Order Date section of the customization screen for maintaining sales document types

Date Type/Propose Delivery Date/Lead Time In Days These three fields control the value and display format for the requested delivery date field on the sales document:

Date Type controls the display format of the requested delivery date. You can make selections from the list of available values and can set up the display of the requested delivery date to be a day format (day, month, year), a week format (week, year), and a month format (month, year).
The Propose Deliv.Date check box, when selected, proposes the current system date as the requested delivery date for your sales document.
Lead Time In Days postpones the requested delivery date by the number of days you enter in this field.
Proposal For Pricing Date The field Prop.F.Pricing Date helps in determining the pricing date for the sales document. From the list of available options, you can select A to have the pricing date equal the requested delivery date from the document header, you can select B to have the pricing date be valid from the date of the document header, you can select C to have the pricing date equal the contract start date from the document header or item, and you can leave the field blank to have the pricing date equal the current system date.

Propose PO Date Use this check box when you want to propose the current system date as the purchase order date for a sales document. strong>Proposal For Valid From Date The field Prop.Valid-From Date helps in determining the date value for the valid from date in the sales document. The fields on the sales document have no proposal when the value is left blank in customizing, they will be valid from today’s date when A is selected for the value in customizing, and will be valid from the date that equals the beginning of next month when the value B is selected in customizing. The customization screen for the sales document type also contains a section for setting up contracts. We intentionally skipped that section of the customization here and will be covering that later in this chapter while discussing contracts.