MM Foundation, Enterprise Structure and Master Data
MM Foundation Part 1: From Company Code to Storage Location — Structure and Master Data Overview
The foundation every procurement process needs: the organizational levels and the master data maintained at each of them — material master views, supplier (business partner) data, purchasing info records, source lists and conditions — and how they come together in a purchase order.
After a new plant went live, buyers complained that every PO needed manual prices and suppliers. Materials had no purchasing views for the plant and info records existed only for the old purchasing org. Extending master data systematically before go-live of subsequent plants removed the manual work.
MM Foundation Part 2: Master Data Quality — Material, Supplier, Info Record and Source Data
Keep procurement master data reliable: common data defects and their process impact, mandatory fields and field control, duplicate checks, governance with owners and workflows (e.g. MDG), data quality monitoring, and cleansing before migrations.
A global template program found 18% duplicate suppliers across legacy systems. Spend by supplier was understated and duplicate invoices were paid twice. Cleansing before migration, MDG with duplicate checks for new suppliers and a monthly quality dashboard reduced duplicates below 1%.
Interview questions covered
- After a purchasing organization restructuring, buyers report that certain fields (e.g., incoterms, payment terms) are unexpectedly becoming mandatory or hidden in specific purchasing document types, but only for one purchasing organization. How would you diagnose and resolve this?
- Why is master data quality (material master, vendor master, purchasing info records) considered a foundational control point in a Procure-to-Pay implementation, rather than just a data-entry concern?
- A global template design assigns one purchasing group per commodity category, but regional business units insist on local purchasing group ownership by geography. How would you architect the purchasing group structure to balance global template governance with local operational needs?
- In an SAP Retail-enabled client, what is the significance of assigning a site (store or DC) to a merchandise category hierarchy, and how does this differ from a standard plant setup in classic MM?
- Explain how account groups govern field selection and number ranges for material master and Business Partner supplier records, and where these controls are configured.
- A global template program finds duplicate suppliers, incomplete materials and outdated info records in legacy data. How do you set up master data quality for S/4HANA?
- A new plant went live and buyers complain that POs need manual prices, suppliers and delivery dates. How do you analyse it?