3 Quick SAP MM Tips

Three quick tips from First Steps in SAP® Purchasing Processes (MM) by Claudia Jost.

1. Wildcard Search
   If you do not have the complete name of a vendor, or are not sure of exactly how it is written, you can use * as a wildcard. In this example, the search terms could be as follows:
   G.WIN*
   Or: *Winde*

2. Using Templates
You can create vendors for similar or identical product groups by using an existing vendor as a template. In addition to making the task easier, this also ensures that agreed standards are maintained for each product group.

3. Process Security through Order Acknowledgments
In principle, the entry of an order acknowledgment should (also) be mandatory. If there are any deviations between the customer and vendor data, this allows early clarification and entry of the correct data in the SAP system, thus avoiding subsequent correction during invoice verification, for example. If clarification takes place at a later stage, this often leads to late payments, which has a negative impact on business relationships with vendors and in severe cases, delivery blocks.

Keep reading in First Steps in SAP® Purchasing Processes (MM) by Claudia Jost.

In this book you will learn the basics of the purchasing process in SAP ERP. A step-by-step example with detailed SAP screenshots will take you from the vendor master data on the purchase requisition to the purchase order. Building on this, the goods receipt and invoice verification will follow.

Author Claudia Jost was involved in process design for 15 years. Her focuses included on one hand designing processes with external business partners (concentrating on procurement processes), and on the other hand, mapping these processes in the SAP system. Her tasks also included electronic integration via EDI and optimizing internal business processes based on SAP standard applications. With regard to the design of the Electronic Manufacturing Services (EMS) process, she is responsible for integrating the entire process, from the customer order, through production, up to delivery, in SAP.  Today, she works for an international manufacturer of battery systems, establishing the German branch. Before her professional career, Claudia Jost trained as an optician and then studied economics at the University of Applied Sciences in Bocholt, Germany.