SD Enterprise Structure Part 2: Defining and Assigning the Organizational Units

📌 KEY POINTS
✅ Definition only creates an organizational unit; assignment makes it usable — an unassigned sales organization cannot be used in a sales order.
✅ Assignment order: sales org → company code, channel and division → sales org, sales area, sales office → sales area, sales group → sales office, plant → sales org/channel, shipping point → plant.
✅ Plant assignment to sales organization + distribution channel (TVKWZ) decides which plants can deliver for a sales area.
✅ Copy functions (EC01 / "copy, delete, check") copy a unit with its dependent settings — faster and less error-prone than creating from scratch.
⚠️ A plant can deliver for a sales organization of another company code — that is intercompany sales, with its own billing flow.

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▶ WHERE WE ARE
Part 1 explained what each unit means. Now we create and connect them in customizing.

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▶ 1. DEFINE THE UNITS

• Sales organization: address, currency, calendar, statistics currency, reference sales org for document types.
• Distribution channel and division: key and description only; division is shared with MM (material master).
• Sales office, sales group, shipping point: address and working calendar (shipping point also loading and pick/pack time settings).

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▶ 2. SALES ORG AND SALES AREA ASSIGNMENTS

• Sales org → company code (one company code per sales org).
• Distribution channel → sales org, division → sales org.
• Sales area: select valid combinations (TVTA).
• Sales office → sales area, sales group → sales office.

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▶ 3. LOGISTICS ASSIGNMENTS

• Plant → sales organization + distribution channel (TVKWZ).
• Shipping point → plant (TVSWZ); a shipping point can serve several plants in the same location.
• Plant → company code is an MM/FI assignment made before.

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▶ 4. CHECKS AND COPY TOOLS

• EC01 / "copy, delete, check" functions copy a sales organization with its dependencies.
• Check function reports inconsistent assignments.
• Transport all assignments together — partial transports cause runtime errors in the target system.

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▶ 5. DEPENDENT SETTINGS

• Assign sales document types to sales areas (optional restriction).
• Credit segment, output, pricing procedure determination and number ranges all refer to these units later.

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▶ STEP BY STEP

1. Define or copy the sales organization with address and currency.
2. Define channel, division, sales office, sales group, shipping point.
3. Assign sales org to company code, channel/division to sales org, create the sales area.
4. Assign sales office and group.
5. Assign plant to sales org/channel and shipping point to plant.
6. Run the consistency check and create a test order.

✅ CHECKPOINT: a sales order in the new sales area proposes the plant and determines the shipping point.

During a rollout, a new sales organization was transported to quality without the plant assignment (OVX6), because that assignment was in a different transport request owned by the logistics team. Every test order failed with "plant not defined for sales organization/distribution channel". The team moved to one "enterprise structure" transport per rollout wave containing definitions and all assignments, owned by the solution architect, and added a checklist item to create a test order immediately after import.

• Defining units without assignments and wondering why they cannot be used.
• Splitting definitions and assignments over transports imported in the wrong order.
• Forgetting OVX6 plant assignment, so plants cannot be used in the sales area.
• Creating all theoretical sales-area combinations.
• Assigning a plant of another company code without planning the intercompany billing flow.

• Use the copy functions to create new sales organizations from a reference.
• Keep definitions and assignments in one transport per wave.
• Maintain an enterprise-structure matrix (sales area × plant × shipping point) as the single source of truth.
• Create a test order after every structure change.
• Plan intercompany flows whenever a plant belongs to another company code.

Questions: "Walk me through the SD enterprise structure assignments", "Which assignment links plant and sales organization?", "Can a sales organization belong to two company codes?"
Strong answer: lists the assignment chain with the relevant transactions — sales org to company code (OVX3), channel and division to sales org, sales area (OVXG), sales office and group, plant to sales org/channel (OVX6), shipping point to plant (OVXC). A sales org belongs to exactly one company code. Plant of another company code assigned to the sales area means intercompany sales.