From the course: Learning SAP Sales and Distribution (SD Module)

SAP sales process overview - SAP ERP Tutorial

From the course: Learning SAP Sales and Distribution (SD Module)

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SAP sales process overview

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- Sales are fundamental to the survival of our businesses, and the SD module in S/4HANA offers a robust process, broken into presales and sales activities. Let's take a look at these activities and the different purposes they serve. First, we'll look at presales activities. There are two major presales functions. First is an inquiry. When we create an inquiry, we record the material, the quantity needed, and the proposed price for a prospective customer. It's important to note that inquiries are not legally binding. The other presale activity is a quotation. Quotations are legally binding documents that offer the terms of the sale to a customer. Terms include the details of the product or service, the quantity, projected delivery dates, and price. Because quotations are legally binding, the quantity and price terms that are offered have an expiration date. Next, we have sales activities. The first, and most common sales document, is a sales order. A sales order is a one-off contract between the company and a customer. The sales order records the products or services, prices, delivery dates, and payment terms. A sales order can be created with reference to inquiries or quotations, but this is not required. While sales orders represent short-term agreements, outline agreements capture long-term arrangements. The first type of outline agreement is a contract. Contracts define the terms and the general time span of long-term commitments between companies and customers. Contracts can be based on the total value of the contract or the total quantity of a material ordered over a long-term period. The second type of outline agreements are called scheduling agreements. Scheduling agreements are very similar to contracts by the way they outline the details of a long-term relationship between a customer and a company. The important difference is that scheduling agreements also include the delivery schedule. All of these presales and sales documents are dependent on master data information that includes customer, material, and pricing data. And like all areas of SAP, reports can be run at any point in the order-to-cash process and provide real-time insights into the effectiveness of the sales department. Without orders, there is no revenue, and, really, there is no business. These presales and sales activities are the foundation that keeps a business thriving.

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