MARA table — MARA General Material Data Table

One row in MARA represents one material number at client level, holding the attributes that are true for that material everywhere it is used: material type, industry sector, material group, base unit of measure, gross and net weight, volume, and the cross-client and cross-plant status flags. It does not carry a description (that is MAKT), a price or valuation class (MBEW), a plant-specific MRP or procurement setting (MARC), or a sales view (MVKE). Consultants new to the object often expect MARA to answer 'is this material active in this plant' or 'what does it cost' - it cannot, by design, because those questions are plant- and organization-dependent and SAP deliberately split that data across separate views and tables that all hang off MARA by material number.

MANDT is the client field; every selection runs implicitly within one client so cross-client comparisons need explicit handling, not a WHERE clause. MATNR is unique per client, so a direct read by material number is always cheap. The table is wide and grows into the millions of rows in a mature system, so any selection on MTART, MATKL or MBRSH alone, without a MATNR restriction, is a full or near-full scan and should be pushed to a reporting tool or restricted further before running it in a productive system during business hours. Never select on LVORM alone expecting to find 'deleted' materials - it flags intent, not completion, and plenty of flagged materials are still transacted against for years.

Symptom: a material cannot be ordered or posted anywhere. First check MARA-MSTAE and MARA-MSTDE (status and status-from date) for that MATNR - if MSTAE is set and the date has passed, the block is at client level and no plant-level fix will resolve it. If MSTAE is blank, the block is plant- or purchasing-org-specific and the search moves to MARC-MMSTA or the relevant purchasing view instead, not to MARA.

MARA still exists as a transparent table in S/4HANA and retains its role as the client-level material master root. The material number field was extended to accommodate longer numbers than the 18-character limit familiar from ECC, which matters for any custom code or interface that hard-codes a shorter length or truncates MATNR. The split between MARA, MARC, MVKE and MBEW is unchanged; S/4HANA did not consolidate general, plant, sales and valuation data into one table. Fiori apps and CDS views for material master read from MARA underneath, so the table itself remains the reference point even where the UI has moved on.

Master data governance for MARA sits with the MM master data or material master team, usually the group that owns the material creation and change workflow. Plant, valuation and sales extensions are typically owned by whoever runs those respective processes (production planning for MRP views, finance for valuation, sales for the sales views), so a data question on MARA itself is a master data ticket, while a missing-extension question belongs to the relevant functional owner.

MAKT carries the language-dependent descriptions written alongside material creation. MARC, MARD, MBEW and MVKE hold the plant, storage location, valuation and sales extensions respectively, all created or changed through the same material master maintenance transactions. MARM stores alternative units of measure. EINA and EKPO connect the material to purchasing info records and purchase order history. MATDOC or MSEG record the actual stock movements posted against the material.