Basic Master Data in Materials Management

The basic master data in Materials Management are:

• Material Master
• Vendor Master
• Purchase Info Record

Material Master

Material Master is a master data that contains all the necessary information about a particular material to procure, produce, sell, keep in stock, etc. It is the central repository of information for the enterprise at client level.

The Material Master contains different tabs or views which is separated by department such as Purchasing, Sales, MRP, Accounting, Controlling, Quality Management, etc.

Different views may require different Org. unit. For example, Purchasing view requires Plant information. This is because a Plant in Malaysia might have different purchasing requirements compared to a Plant in France.

On the other hand, Basic Data view does not require any Org. Unit input because the Basic Data information is shared with countries. 

A unique number is assigned to each Material Master. This assignment of numbers can be done internally or externally. Internally means that the system will automatically assign a particular number according to a number range that you have already specified. Externally means you will be able to assign your own Material Master number instead of the system assigning one for you.

Vendor Master

This is where information on Vendors are stored in the client. Various information can be found here such as Vendor name, address, currency, terms of payment, Important contacts, etc.

Apart from the above, it also contains accounting related information such as vendor reconciliation account. Therefore, the vendor master is relevant and contains information for both Purchasing and Accounting.

It is mainly divided into 3 key areas:

• General Data
• Accounting Data
• Purchasing Data

Purchase Info Record

Purchase Info Record is another master data where it stores specific information between a particular material and vendor, thus representing a material-vendor relationship. Examples of data that could be maintained in an Info Record are:

• Order Unit. This is especially useful if there is a scenario where a particular material has different Order Units with different Vendors.
• Price & Conditions. Different vendors will most likely have different price, and different conditions such as Freight Charges, discounts, etc.
• Minimum, Maximum, standard Order Quantity.
• Vendor material number.