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Process 151

the sales order includes data related to shipping, billing, partner functions,
and, if relevant, data from contracts with customers. Shipping and billing data
are obtained from the customer master or the customer-material info record.
Partner functions are obtained from the customer master based on the speci-
fi ed sold-to party. Recall that contracts are agreements made by customers to
purchase a specifi ed quantity or value of materials over a certain time period.
Therefore, data regarding quantities, prices, and delivery dates are obtained
from contracts. In addition, the delivery plant is obtained from the customer-
material info record, the customer master, or the material master, in that order.

Tasks

The key task in this step is to create a sales order. Like a quotation, a sales
order can be created using one of several reference documents. The illustra-
tion in Figure 5-22 is applicable for a sales order as well. Thus, a sales order can
be created with reference to a customer inquiry, a quotation, an agreement, or
a previously created sales order. Data from multiple reference documents can
be combined to create one sales order. Conversely, a single reference docu-
ment can generate several sales orders. Figure 5-25 illustrates this relationship
for the case of quotations. In our example, the quotation received from RMB
is used as the source document to create the sales order. Further, one sales
order is created from one quotation.

Figure 5-25: Relationship between quotations and sales orders

If the credit management capabilities of the ERP system are in use, then
a check of the customer’s credit is conducted. If the credit is approved, then
the fulfi llment process continues. If not, then additional steps are necessary.
The steps related to credit management are discussed later in this chapter.
If the sales order is associated with a customer contract then an additional
task is to link the customer’s purchases against the terms of the contract. This
action allows both the company and the customer to monitor and track sales
to ensure that the terms of the contract are met.
Figure 5-26 represents a standard sales order. The left side illustrates the
structure of a sales order, and the right side indicates some of the data con-
tained in the sales order that GBI created for RMB.
The document header in a sales order includes data that are valid for
the entire sales order. Examples are customer data such as partner functions
and customer PO number, dates, and order total. Each sales document can

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