Sap Organize Records for the Companies

Name Ashley Struble        Section______ Date _12/9/18

Insert Screenshots from the SAP Assignment #2 Case Study Here. (20 points)

Screenshots are worth 5 points each

Customer Master - Screenshot 1 Here

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Standard Order - Screenshot 2 Here

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Billing Document – Screenshot 3 Here

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Document Flow - Screenshot 4 Here

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Short Answer

1.         You can create a Customer Master Record Centrally or in a Distributed fashion.  What are the reasons that SAP offers this option? Describe a situation where each option would be appropriate?

        SAP offers this option so you can organize records to your liking based upon your companies needs. Depending on how you organize the records or enter the data you can do it centrally, which would mean you enter all the data at once or you do it distributedly per department , which allows them to enter it to their liking. Storing the information centrally will also limit the number of times the same information is entered, which will also help to avoid inconsistencies in master data by maintaining it centrally. If the address of one of your customers changes, for example, you only have to enter this change once, and your accounting and sales departments will always have up-to-date information.

        One situation where I can see creating a Master Record centrally is when you have a small company where each role is divided up so that someone's specific role is to enter all new customer data into the system. This will free up other people’s time from enter the same data over again and it gives someone the responsibility of making sure customer data all stays up to date.

        I can see a large company needing to enter the data in a distributed fashion because each department requires specific information to complete their process. With a large amount of customers if each department works on their own part of the customer record then they will always ensure they have the correct data needed and when they need it.

2.     Your vendor has raised their prices and you need to raise your sales price so that you continue to make profit. (a) In terms of the fulfillment documents, where will the new price appear (inquiry, quotation, standard/sales order)?

         In the inquiry we can see out net value, thus if our supplier is raising their prices this is where you will see their new increased price to be located. On the various documents we can see the pricing displayed in the net price field and the net value price field. When in the overview tab you can see the pricing in each line item.

3.     In the assignment you created a sales order by referencing your quotation. What is the advantage of referencing in an ERP system?

        One advantage of referencing your quotation when creating a sales order is that the data will be automatically pulled into the sales order for you., thus saving you the time from entering the data again.  Another advantage is that it makes it easy to track activities related to that specific order. When all the documents are tied together it allows for ease of use in the system when it comes to finding related documents.

4.         In the course of this assignment you may have learned through bitter experience that if you make a mistake SAP does not allow you to delete everything and start over.  This restriction is common across all ERP systems.  Why have ERP systems designers built this restriction into their systems?

        Since each document in SAP builds off the next and pulls data from the one before it if you deleted everything to start over you could be deleting vital information used by other employees in another department. Deleting everything could cause you to lose documents that people in other departments are using and thus cause major delays in processes.

5.         Overall, do you think that GBI is using an SAP system that is only configured or also customized? (and please provide a rationale for your answer)

I believe that GBI is a using a customized SAP system since just from using the system I did not see any added features or tools. GBI doesn’t require any custom features to perform their business processes since they pretty much just stick to quotes, sales orders, PO’s and basic billing. The company’s processes are pretty simple and can easily work with the standard SAP system with a little configurations.

6.         What are the risks and benefits of ERP customization?  What guidelines would you use in evaluating a request from a business unit to customize your ERP system?

        The risks of customizing your ERP system are as follows: issues with upgrading, issues with support, maintenance and very costly. Customizing the ERP system requires a large investment cost as well as continued maintenance. Upgrading will not be as simple as it was with a configured system and you will limit yourself with getting support once you customize the system. You will have only support resources that are knowledge in your specific customizations.

        While a customized ERP system can be costly and require more maintenance, it can also allow your business processes to run more smoothly and provide you with a competitive advantage. By customize your ERP system the software can be tailored to fit your organizations needs and current processes rather than adapting them to fit the system. If your ERP system is different than what everyone else in your industry is using than you can help protect people from easily replicating your processes.