Material determination, listing, exclusion, and proposal

This chapter covers various material related functionalities that are available in standard SAP. These include
Material Substitution,Item Proposals,
Automatic product selection,Material listingAnd
Exclusion,AndCustomer-material informationRecords. Each of these functionalities has its own use and importance in the overall sales cycle. In this chapter, we'll cover these functionalities in detail, including how to use and customize
Them.

Material Determination

Material Determination(Also calledMaterial Substitution) Is a technique provided by SAP to allow you to substitute one material for another during the processing of a sales cycle. The technique is really useful for providing solutions
For a variety of day to day business requirements that demand material substitutions. Here are a few real-world examples:

• Replacing an obsolete/discontinued material with a new FF one so as to avoid entering an order that erroneously commits the enterprise to operate a discontinued material to the customer
• Automatically substituting the agreed-upon alternative material in an order when the original ordered material is out of stock
• Supplying specially packaged versions of the original material during holiday seasons such as Christmas or Thanksgiving
• Executing a sales promotion in which you want to enclose flyers or promotional materials along with the materials ordered by the customers

You can use material determination to automatically substitute one material for another or to propose a list of alternative materials for the user to select. further, the substitute material either can replace the original material on the main order
Line or can be added as a subitem to the original material in the order. with material determination, not only can you substitute the materials, but you can also check the stock availability for the original or substitute material and control whether the specified age
Is to be transferred to the MRP for the original or for the substitute materials.

Material determination and automatic product selection make a great combination. with this combination, you can replace the materials and can also check whether the customer has agreed to the replacement. you achieve this using the product attributes Fields
Available in the customer and material master records. in the following sewing, we'll cover material determination in detail, including automatic product selection. but before we move ahead, we'll talk about how to maintain material determination records.

Automatic Product proposal

Automatic product selection is one step beyond the plain material Determination Technique in sap erp. here you not only substitute material a with material B but also check whether the customer agrees with such substitution. the setup consists of three simple
Steps:

Step 1: Define the product attributeThe standard SAP system comes with 10 product attribute fields, namely, prat1 through 9 and Prata. These fields correspond to product attributes 1 through 10. The first step is to give a meaningful label
To these fields that can help you identify the nature of the product attribute. for example, you may rename product attribute 1 as "gift-wrapped," product attribute 2 as "discount coupons," product attribute 3 as "promotional material," and so on. since renaming
Is a technical change, you will need an ABAP consultant to help you with the renaming.

Step 2: Assign the product attribute to the materialNext you assign the product attribute to the material. This assignment is set up in the sales org. Data 2 view of the material master record for the material. Here you select all the product
Attributes that apply to the material. for example, you may select product attribute 1, "gift-wrapped," to indicate that the material always comes as gift-wrapped and product attribute 3, "promotional material, "to indicate that marketing promotional material
Also ships along with this material.

Step 3: Assign the product attribute to the customerFinally, you assign the product attributes to the customer. This assignment is set up on the sales tab of the sales data view of the customer master record. You click the product attribute
Button on the sales tab to call up the product attributes screen and then select the attributes that the customer is not willing to accept. for example, if the customer is not willing to accept any material that is gift-wrapped and contains marketing material,
Select attribute 1, "gift-wrapped," and attribute 3, "promotional material." If the customer accepts the materials that are gift-wrapped with no promotional material, choose attribute 3 only

Material listing and exclusion

Material listing/exclusion is functionality in sap sd that controls what materials a customer can buy. when you maintain a material listing for a customer, the customer can only buy those goods contained in the material listing assigned to the customer.
Conversely, material exclusions allow you to set up a list of materials that a customer cannot buy.

Customer-material info records

Parties to a sales transaction (the buyer and the seller) sometimes use different material numbers and descriptions for the same material. A seller may call the material xyz, whereas the buyer callit ABC in his books. in SAP, you bridge this gap using
ACustomer-material info record. The purpose of a customer-material info record is to maintain the customer-specific number and description of the seller's material in the seller's books so as to avoid any confusion that may arise because of different
Naming conventions used by the buyer and seller for the same material. once the record is maintained, you can make an order entry using any of the two material identifiers, that is, the seller's or the buyer's. you can even print the customer-specific material
Number on the various outputs such as order confirmations and invoices.

Item proposal

Item proposalIs a tool that helps you to perform the order entry process more efficiently by allowing you to copy over the items into your order from a customer-specific or generic item proposal list. in this process, you first maintain as a proposal
Document a list of frequently ordered materials, along with the quantities in which the material is ordered or can be ordered by the customer. next, when you need to create an order for such materials, you just call the item proposal screen from within
Sales order creation screen and copy over the required materials with or without quantities to the customer order. this definitely saves a lot of the valuable time and effort that goes into searching for the material when you create the order.

Dependencies between material functionalities

The sequence of events for various material-related functionalities can be defined as follows:

1. Customer-material info records
2. Material Determination
3. Material exclusion
4. Material listing

You can read the source link in detail.

Http://e-university.wisdomjobs.com/sap-sd/chapter-1121-245/material-determination-listing-exclusion-and-proposal.html