Functional Differences Between the
Industry / Retail Material Master
Description
As of Release 4.0A, the material master for retail (together
with all other retail functions) has been included in the standard
SAP R/3 System. However, this does not mean that industry material
master maintenance and retail material master maintenance will be
fused. There will continue to be the following separate functional
areas:
How Does the Retail Material Master Differ from the Industry
Material Master?
The retail material master has been extended to take account of
the following special requirements in retail:
The data for some objects (such as purchasing info record and
classification) has been integrated directly in the maintenance
screens.
Several areas of validity (organizational levels such as plants
and distribution chains), even several materials in the case of a
generic material can be processed online in a single maintenance
transaction.
Unlike the industry material master,
in which you can process only one material number, one plant, and
so on at a time, the data from higher levels in the retail material
master is transferred to the subordinate levels, provided you have
not maintained the subordinate levels differently.
Example
The data for a generic material is
transferred to the variants. In addition, the data for reference
plants is transferred to normal plants.
The retail material master includes retail-specific functions
such as assortment listing and sales pricing.
Conversely, some of the data and functions in the industry
material master are not supported in the retail material master in
Release 4.0A. These functions are as follows:
Materials that you create with the retail material master can be
displayed with the industry material master, but not changed.
Conversely, materials that you create with the industry material
master cannot be processed in the retail material master.