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Marketing Information Systems and the Sales Order Process
In SAP ERP, a sales order clerk must enter code numbers for customers’ names and
the product sold, rather than using customer and product item names. Because more than
one customer might have the same name, a unique number is assigned by the company to
each customer in the database. This number acts as the primary identifier for the
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customer. The same logic applies to distinguishing one inventory item from another. In
database terminology, such codes are called key fields. For most data entry fields, the SAP
ERP system determines whether an entry is valid. Figure 3-4 shows how SAP ERP lists the
system’s 34 predefined sales order document types. The sales order clerk can choose the
correct type from among these.

SaTy: Sales Document
Type

Source Line: SAP AG.

FIGURE 3-4 Some of the sales order document types predefined in SAP ERP

While it might sound as if a sales order clerk must remember a lot of code numbers to
use the SAP ERP system, this is not the case. For instance, when a sales order clerk has to
find a customer in the SAP ERP system, he or she can click in the Sold-To Party field to
display a search icon and then click the search icon to open the search window shown in
Figure 3-5.

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