Symptom
In some cases it is necessary to modify the customer master data (name, address ...) of a business partner within a productive SAP system.
As a result of that modification you face the problem that already existing SD documents are updated according to the new master data.
Thus old SD documents already sent to customers contain now new partner data (for example different address).
You might think this is a system error, in case you need to issue an output for an old SD document, since it displays now different data than the one it used to have in the past before master data change.
This phenomenon is not a program error but the standard design of the system.
Reason
SAP can not store all the master data inside the SD document tables.
An address change in the customer master record is always transferred to all existing documents (unless the document has a manual address).
The system does not save the master data in the document, but in the master record. The document shows only a reference to the master record.
Following SAP note provides an explanation:
380456 - Customer master data: Address change in documents
Solution
- One option could be to create a manual address in the documents. See note 550073 (Point 5) and 97832. In this case the address is only stored in the document and a change in the customer master does not have an influence on the address in the existing documents.
- However, in order to avoid such a problem, as a solution I would suggest you to use the optical archiving via ArchiveLink.
This functionality makes it possible to store the outputs of SD documents so that you can print out them in the future at any time in their original form. In the output type customizing you have the possibility to set the storage mode 'Archive only' or 'Print and archive'
You can find the documentation in R/3 Library under the following path:
- Basis Components
- Basis Services / Communication Interfaces (BC-SRV)
- SAP ArchiveLink (BC-SRV-ARL)
- SAP ArchiveLink - Scenarios in Applications (BC-SRV-ARL)
- SAP ArchiveLink - Archiving Scenarios (SD)
Use transaction OAAD (Administration of Stored Documents) to display documents from the optical archive
Stored documents are classified according to document types. The system uses the following document types in case of SD documents:
| SDOCONTRAC | Contract |
| SDOORDER | Order confirmation |
| SDODELNOTE | Delivery note |
| SDODELPLAN | Scheduling Agreement |
| SDOINVOICE | Billing documents |
| SDOINVLIST | Invoice list |
| SDOBONUS | Rebate credit memo |
| ... |
You can make use of the activation of ArchiveLink functionality even after real document archiving. Sometimes people need the output of an already archived document. But it can not be opened from the archive and the reload of archived documents into the system is not supported by SAP.
In that case you can easily have an access to the output of documents stored by ArchiveLink in the Attachment list.
The following image shows how you can access the stored PDF output of an already archived billing document in VF07 transaction.
The output is also available from SARI transaction.
For more information have a look at the following notes:
1822569 - Not possible to display/print the output of archived billing document in VF07
440033 - Informationen zur Fakturaanzeige aus Archiv (VF07)
.