Sales and distribution are one of the main aspects of running an active and successful business. Keeping the same factor in mind, SAP has developed its innovative sales and distribution module, one of the most fundamental modules within the SAP S/4HANA environment. Organizations use this module to store and manage all the relevant data and information related to their products and customers.
This module works in sync with all the other modules of SAP S/4HANA, allowing businesses to accept orders from customers in a more streamlined manner. Furthermore, the sales and distribution module manages all the processes and details involved in the sales and distribution part of the business.
One of the most highlighted facts about the SAP S/4HANA modules is that almost 80% of the features and functionalities of this module are similar to the previous versions. This makes it easier for organizations to get started with this module, as they are already familiar with its features.
However, our concern here is to dive into the details of the remaining 20% of the features and functionalities of the sales and distribution module of SAP S/4HANA. So feel free to tag along to understand better what this module has to offer to businesses and organizations.
SAP S/4HANA: Redefining Sales and Distribution
The S/4HANA platform redefines your business in the following manners. Let’s have a look at the functionality to understand how:
Simplification of the Data Module: In an attempt to simplify the data module of SAP S/4HANA, SAP has removed the prevailing status tables. Additionally, the fields that fall under these status tables have been shifted to the correlated headers and the item tables for billing documents, sales documents, and deliveries.
This feature now enables businesses to reduce the total cost of ownership and eliminate redundancies to enhance the briskness of rebate processing. Furthermore, it allows businesses to save on operational costs and get better business outcomes.
The Distinction of Duplicate Sales Documents: The 2020 release of SAP S/4HANA is equipped with the latest SAP Fiori app, enabling organizations to forage for duplicate sales documents. To break it down further, a business can now reject quotations or sales orders that are not required in order to prevent identical sales documents from being processed numerous times.
This feature enables businesses to avoid unnecessary costs resulting from needless returns or products that are out of stock. In addition, SAP S/4HANA can detect identical documents based on distribution channel, transaction currency, type of sales documents, and various other criteria.
Foreign Trade: The sales module offered by SAP S/4HANA enables organizations to substitute the sales and distribution module for foreign trade with the SAP Global Trade Services (SAP GTS). SAP GTS can even be natively integrated with SAP S/4HANA making preference management in foreign trades and export control, legal control, and letter of credit available in the functionalities related to SAP Global Trade Services instead of the material master. Organizations can leverage this intrastate reporting from within the SAP S/4HANA solution.
Management of Sales Contract: The sales and distribution module of SAP S/4HANA enables businesses to evaluate and determine different varieties of contracts within different systems. This feature is beneficial for users and managers as it enables them to make better sense of the contract pipeline and facilitates better processing for these contracts.
In addition, SAP S/4 HANA enables businesses to seamlessly find the right contract based on the needs and requirements of the moment. Users can even have uninterrupted access to the SAP Fiori app identified as Manage Sales Contract.
Sales Billing, Orders, and Returns Management: SAP has incorporated some new and innovative improvements in sales orders, billing, and returns aspects of the module. This enhancement includes an app for tracking sales that allow organizations to go through activities such as accumulated transactions directly from the list of sales orders.
Further, a brand new functionality in the updated S/4HANA enables intelligent product proposals that allow businesses to predict the number of ordered products with the help of various algorithms. SAP S/4HANA users can now receive warnings or alerts about identical sales documents at the very entry level of sales orders with the latest product proposal functionality.
Price Management: The latest releases of SAP S/4HANA include a new SAP Fiori application wholly dedicated to facilitating effective management of pricing. This application enables a business to evaluate the sales documents where customers have set up an expected price and compare the net price and the price expected by customers.
This allows organizations to either accept or decline the price expected by customers. Furthermore, this app can be used for managing incomplete sales orders that have differences from the expected price of customers.
Template-Based Spreadsheet for Uploading Prices: This unique feature enables organizations to import data from a spreadsheet that is based on templates to create and update different condition records. One can even export these condition records to a spreadsheet, provided that they fit the criteria of the filter.
Under this functionality, the template is divided into two different sheets, where the first sheet explains the attributes used to maintain data and pricing formats. In comparison, the second part is concerned with condition maintenance and enables businesses to maintain essential characteristics such as distribution channels, sales organization, and more.
Introductory Billing Documents: This feature is designed for facilitating different negotiations. Just as regular bills are created based on items on the list of due billings, such as debit memos, sales orders, and deliveries.
These introductory bills can be used to show customers accurate details about terms of payment, prices, and date of billing. In case of any changes become necessary, alterations can be carried out before creating final bills that the customers use to settle payments.
In Conclusion
The sales and distribution module of SAP S/4HANA is equipped with numerous functionalities getting better with time. Developers and engineers are working hard to address these gaps and ensure the users of SAP S/4HANA get the best possible experience.
This helps increase the number of migrations in SAP S/4HANA by businesses and organizations from all around the globe. Furthermore, SAP S/4HANA can predict the behavior of customers and determine the success of a particular product through enhanced evaluation and analysis.
