PLANETSAP

The SAP Sales and Distribution module automates and manages various aspects of the sales and distribution process.

Sales and Distribution helps to optimize all the tasks and activities carried out in sales, delivery and billing. Key elements are; pre-sales support, inquiry processing, quotation processing, sales order processing, delivery processing, billing and sales information system.

Sales logistics business process scenario in R/3 allows users to manage sales and distribution activities in an effective manner. The business processes include scenarios for sales, shipping, billing, sales support, and sales information. With real time, on line access to sales information, such tasks as order entry, delivery, and billing are all streamlined. In addition, sales and distribution can be integrated with procurement and production planning, improving turnaround time up and down the value chain. The sales function in R/3 utilizes a configurator to select configured products as well as a "conditions" program to manage complex pricing scenarios. The sales order process sends requirements to manufacturing. The R/3 system uses a technology, called Application Linking and Enabling (ALE), to implement distributed solutions such as decentralized shipping. In this approach, special types of business information documents, called Intermediate Documents or IDOCs, are automatically transmitted between communicating systems. This database is used by R/3 to automatically generate the IDOCs used in communicating between the host and remote systems. In the recent years, many of SAP's customers have found that the integration of sales and distribution applications in R/3's logistics chain has improved the performance of their companies.

SAP SD functionality includes the following submodules:

The Pricing sub-module of SD provides functionality for managing prices (external) and costs (internal) of goods and services. SAP pricing functionality includes managing surcharges, discounts, freight and taxes.

The Sales sub-module of SD provides functionality for processing sales orders through the complete order lifecycle. SAP Sales functionality includes customer inquiries, sales order, contracts and returns.

The Shipping sub-module of SD provides functionality a comprehensive solution for distribution management. SAP Shipping functionality includes inventory availability monitoring, material picking/packing and transportation planning.

The Billing sub-module of SD provides functionality for processing sales orders through the complete order lifecycle. SAP Billing functionality includes customer billing, debit/credit memos and rebates.