SAP terms explained

Material master

The central record for each material in SAP: descriptions, units of measure, purchasing, MRP, accounting and other views. Created with MM01, changed with MM02 and displayed with MM03.

Plant extension

Making an existing material available in another plant, storage location or sales organisation by adding the missing organisational views, usually with MM01.

Base unit of measure

The unit in which SAP manages a material's stock. Changing it is restricted once stock, open documents or bookings exist.

Business partner (BP)

In SAP S/4HANA, customers and vendors are maintained as business partners with transaction BP, which replaces the older vendor and customer master transactions.

Purchase requisition

An internal request to buy something. Created with ME51N and changed with ME52N.

Purchase order

The legal order to a vendor. Created with ME21N, changed with ME22N and displayed with ME23N.

Purchasing info record

Stores the price and conditions for one material from one vendor. Maintained with ME11 and ME12.

Release strategy

SAP's own approval of purchase requisitions and purchase orders before they can be processed, for example with ME29N.

Goods receipt

Posting the arrival of goods against a purchase order, usually with MIGO.

Invoice verification

Checking and posting a vendor invoice against the purchase order and goods receipt, usually with MIRO.

GR/IR clearing

The GR/IR account holds the difference between goods received and invoices received. Open items are reviewed and cleared, for example with MR11.

Vendor Invoice Management (VIM)

OpenText Vendor Invoice Management, an add-on for SAP that scans, checks and routes vendor invoices before posting.

Transport request

The container that moves configuration and development changes from development to quality to production, managed with STMS.

Roles and authorisations

What a user may do in SAP. Roles are built with PFCG and assigned to users with SU01.

Segregation of duties (SoD)

The rule that conflicting tasks, such as creating a vendor and paying it, must not sit with the same person.

ITGC

IT general controls: access, change management and operations controls that auditors test, for example that every change was approved before it was made.

BAPI

Business Application Programming Interface: a standard SAP function that another program can call to create or change an SAP object, such as a material or purchase order.

RFC

Remote Function Call: the standard way for an outside program to call a function in an SAP system.

IDoc

Intermediate Document: SAP's standard format for exchanging business data between systems.

OData service

A web interface to SAP S/4HANA data and functions, also used by SAP Fiori apps.

SAP GUI scripting and bots

Automating the SAP screens themselves, used when a task has no suitable interface. It needs care, because screen changes can break a script.

Master data governance

The rules, roles and approvals that keep master data correct, complete and consistent across the company.

Transaction codes are the usual ones in SAP ECC and SAP S/4HANA; your company may use its own variants.