STKO table — BOM Header Table STKO

Each row in STKO is one bill of material header, keyed by BOM category, an internal BOM number and an alternative BOM indicator. It carries data that applies to the whole BOM rather than to any single component: the base quantity and unit the BOM is built for, the BOM status controlling which functional areas may use it, the usage indicator distinguishing production, engineering and other BOM types, and the deletion flag at header level. STKO deliberately holds no material number and no plant. Those associations are resolved through separate assignment tables depending on the BOM category, most commonly MAST for material BOMs. A single STKO record can, in principle, be referenced by more than one material through that assignment layer, which is why STKO by itself never answers 'which material is this BOM for'.

Always restrict on MANDT and never scan STKO without at least STLTY, since the same STLNR range can theoretically appear under different categories in some landscapes. STLNR alone is not selective enough to reason about business meaning because it is a generated technical number with no embedded logic. Do not select on STKO first when the starting point is a material and plant; start from MAST, filter by MATNR, WERKS, STLAN and STLAL, and only then pull the matching STLNR into STKO. Querying STKO directly by status or usage across a whole client is expensive and rarely what the investigation actually needs.

Symptom: a planner reports that BOM explosion for a material in a given plant is picking up the wrong quantities. Select MAST for the material and plant to get STLAN, STLAL and STLNR. Take that STLNR and STLTY into STKO and check BMENG and BMEIN. If the item quantities in STPO were maintained assuming a different base quantity than what STKO actually stores, the explosion math will be off by exactly that ratio, which confirms the header, not the items, is the source of the discrepancy.

STKO is unchanged in structure on S/4HANA and continues to be the persistence table for BOM headers. Fiori and CDS-based BOM apps read the same underlying data through compatibility or consumption views layered on top of STKO and its companion tables; the table itself was not merged or redesigned as part of the simplification of other classic PP objects. Existing joins written against STKO on ECC continue to work unchanged on S/4HANA.

BOM header data questions belong to whoever owns material master and BOM maintenance, typically a production planning or engineering master data role working through the standard BOM maintenance transactions. Basis or ABAP involvement is only needed when the question is about table growth, generated number ranges, or a custom report joining STKO incorrectly.

MAST is the assignment table that connects a material and plant to an STKO header and is the usual entry point before reaching STKO. STPO holds the individual BOM items under a header and STAS holds item selection and validity. BOM maintenance transactions write to all three tables together, so a header-only change without the corresponding item and selection updates is unusual and worth investigating on its own.