Different business scenarios and Sales BOM techniques for header and item level stock and prices

Dear Fellows

I have been continuously contributing in SD forums from last year and I have seen many threads about Sales BOM. Sometime users want to modify sales BOM as per their own business scenarios so here I am going to explain how sales BOM helps us to meet different requirements.

Here, I assume that you know how Sales BOM, item category, schedule line category and copy control works in SD process.

If you google with search term "Sales Bom in SAP SD" system will give you a lot of information about standard settings of sales BOM by using item category group ERLA and LUMF. This information can be found on following link.

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_erp2004/helpdata/en/dd/560234545a11d1a7020000e829fd11/content.htm

In standard settings you can control pricing, inventory and delivery related indicator either on main item level or sub item level. If you use ERLA item category group in finished goods material master data, it will control pricing and inventory at header level and sub items will work as text items. For sub item level control you use item category group LUMF.

A very common and easy to understand example which SAP's standard documents have used is sale of a computer. In a computer sale, we sell it with brand name and specification. For instance if we sell a Dell pentium 4 desktop computer, it will have a mouse, keyboard, monitor and speakers but as a whole this is a Dell pentium 4 PC. So we will enter only one material in sale order with material description DELL Pentium 4 Desktop PC and system will determine all compnents automatically.

Sometime we get some requirements which SAP standard item categories and schedule line categories cannot meet. So we need to understand the basic concepts of item categories and schedule line categories and change them to fulfill our requirement. Let me explain with some real business scenarios.

Scenario 1:     In SAP free goods standard settings we can maintain 1 free good material against 1 main item i.e. there is 1:1 combination. We can play with material's quantity but not with number of materials. If we get a requirement from client that if customer buys 5 quantity of material A then he will get 1 quantity of material B then it can be fulfill with standard free goods by maintaining it in VBN1. But if customer will get 1 quantity of material B and 1 quantity of material C on buying 1 quantity of material A then we can get this done by using Sales BOM.The settings for main item and sub item will be as follows. I am assuming that you want to cumulate cost prices of sub items in main item at the time of billing. If you don't want this then simply dont mark the check box in copy control from delivery to billing at item level for cumulate cost. Also maintain BOM for master data in CS01 with usage 5.

Main Item Settings

Standard Shedule line category (CP) is used and Item Category Group in Material master sales view is Z001 which is customized for free goods main item materials. I will be using same material group for other scenarios as well.

Sub Item Setting

Standard Shedule line category (CP) is used and Item Category Group in Material master sales view is NORM.

Item Category Assignment

Here ZMZM is my order type and Z001 is material group which I have maintained only in main item material's sales view field Item category group from material master (MVKE-MTPOS). Here no need to maintain in General item category group (MARA-MTPOS_MARA). ZTS1 is main item and ZTS2 is sub Item.

Scenario 2:     Lets take another example of a split air conditioner. We are selling split air conditioners to customers and producing them in our plant. In split air conditioner Indoor, outdoor and Remote control are three separate materials. We sell split air conditioner in finished goods with capacity and brand name like 1 Ton Samsung AC 2 Ton Mitsubishi AC and we can also sell components individually. So we need to maintain prices at both level header and item. Here we will maintain stock at item level and price at item and header both. If we are selling a whole package of split air conditioner then it will be at header level and if we are selling only one component then there will be individual price of component.

When we are selling a whole package

Main Item

For this You have to use schedule line CT with no movement type and relevant for delivery if you want to use delivery related billing and copy the main item in delivery document. If you dont want to copy it in delivery then you can simply use CD shedule line category for main item but for this you have to use order related billing. It is good to copy main item in delivery just like a text item.

Sub Item

For Sub item we can use CP or CN as per your requirement.  

Item Category Assignment

When we are selling a component

When you will enter compnent material in order, system will determin normal item category TAN and with billing and pricing activated and price will be determined from condition record which you have maintained for it. So you can sell a whole package or component in same order type.

Scenario 3:      If you are dealing with some business process in which you need to maintain multi level BOMs then you can achieve this by changing item category settings of main item and assignment of item categories. I don't have any real business scenario but lets assume we are selling comupters and in our company we are maintaining BOMs for computers and CPU separately. If we are selling a desktop computer then system will explode BOM of Dell 780 Computer in which we have maintained Monitor, CPU, Key Board, Mouse and Speakers materials and for CPU we have another BOM with Mother Board, Power Supply, Hard Drive and Super drive etc. Now when we enter Dell 780 material system will explode two BOMs. Prices will be maintained for Computer (Exluding CPU). For CPU we will maintain seprate price. Stock and deliveries will be maintain at sub item level.From configuration point of view there will two differences from scenario 2.

Main ITem

With this you can sell whole package and also compnents separately.

Note:    

These are some basics and most common business processes and I have shared these just to give you an idea. You can modify them as epr your scenario. It is all about playing with item category and schedule line settings. If you have some other BOM related business scenario or process which you are not able to configure with sales BOM, you can post your scenario in comment and let me help you in that.

There are many other controls like not to change quantity or material of sub items, copy whole package in delivery or allow single items too, creating automatic PR (third party sale) and maintain prices for compnents and whole package etc. I am not going in detail of these as we can find a lot of links in SCN describing these controls.

Value addition comments and suggestions will be highly appriciated. T W if there is any other business scenario or example in your mind please share with me.

Thank$