Purpose

The material master contains information on all the materials that a company procures or produces, stores, and sells. It is the company's central source for retrieving material-specific data. This information is stored in individual material master records.

Integration

The material master is used by all components in the SAP Logistics System. The integration of all material data in a single database object eliminates redundant data storage. In the SAP Logistics System, the data contained in the material master is required, for example, for the following functions:

• In Purchasing for ordering
• In Inventory Management for goods movement postings and physical inventory
• In Invoice Verification for posting invoices
• In Sales and Distribution for sales order processing
• In Production Planning and Control for material requirements planning, scheduling, and work scheduling

Corporate Structure

The material master has a hierarchical structure resembling the organizational structure of a company. Some material data is valid at all organizational levels, while other data is valid only at certain levels. The organizational units are as follows:

• Client
• Company Code
• Plant
• Storage Location
• Purchasing Organization
• Sales Organization
• Warehouse Number
• Storage Type

Structure

The client is the top level of the organizational level. Several company codes can be assigned to one client. In turn, several plants can be assigned to a company code, and several storage locations assigned to a plant.

Plants must always be consecutively numbered for all company codes. Consequently, plants assigned to different company codes cannot have the same number. However, the numbers of storage locations can be repeated, as long as they are assigned to different plants.