1 Configuring SAP ERP Sales and Distribution -introduction to SAP

SAP is one of the most popular enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions in
the world. It offers an integrated system that supports major business functions
such as sales, production, and financial accounting. Over the years, SAP has been
enhanced, and new versions have been released. The older SAP R/3 has now developed
into the SAP ERP system on which we have based this book.
The latest version of SAP ERP at this time is ERP Central Component, Release 6.0,
often referred to as ECC 6.0. It consists of several application components closely
integrated with one another. SD is one of these application components.
When any organization looks to implement SAP ERP, it first studies its business
processes and decides on the ones that are to be mapped in SAP. Based on this, it
can select the application components that are relevant. For example, a manufacturing
organization may require a different set of applications than a service provider
or a trading company.
The Sales and Distribution application caters to the business processes associated
with customer order fulfillment. SD has several components offering diverse functionality.
For example, there are components for pricing (which control how prices
and costs are determined in a sales transaction), availability check (that control how
product stocks are allocated to orders from various customers), and credit management
(that check the credit worthiness of the customer before a transaction is permitted).
Again, you have to select which processes are applicable to you.
In an integrated system, each application has to mesh with other related applications
to ensure continuity and consistency. This is one of the strong points of the SD
application.

Next we’ll cover the first steps in accessing SAP. As we go through the application in
this book, we will discuss each step in further detail.

 

sap是世界上最流行的一款ERP（企業資源計劃）解決方案。它提供了一套一整套集成系統，支持如銷售、產品、財務等大型商業模塊。這些年，SAP一直在進步，發佈了新版本。咱們的書正式基於SAP ERP這款從老式的SAP R/3系統更新過來的系統。

目前最新的SAP ERP版本是 ERP 中心組件 6.0版本，也叫ECC6.0。它包括了幾個緊密集成的應用模塊，SD是其中一個。

當任何組織去實施SAP ERP時，他們會去了解他們本身的商業模式，而後決定哪些東西須要實施到SAP中去。基於這些，他們能夠挑選相關聯的應用組件模塊來實施。舉個例子，一個工廠組織相對於一家設備供應商或貿易公司而言，更加須要不一樣的模塊應用設置。

銷售和分銷模塊適合於和客戶訂單執行相關的商業流程。SD擁有不一樣的組件可以提供不一樣的功能，例如：有訂價功能（其做用是控制銷售交易中的價格與費用）、可行性檢查功能（其做用是控制不一樣客戶訂單的貨物庫存的分配）、借貸管理（在交易以前去檢核客戶的信貸價值）。再次說明，你必須選擇一個合適的業務流程。

在這個集成系統中，每個模塊都和其餘模塊有聯繫來確保連續性和一致性。這是SD模塊的一大優勢。

而後，咱們將會介紹訪問SAP的第一步。當咱們在學習這些模塊的時候，咱們會細緻描述每一步操做。