SAP Modules Overview
In the past when people were discussing SAP, the conversation very quicklyboiled down to modules, for example:
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SAP’s courses were structured along module lines so that you would attend MM 101, 102 and 103.While at the course you would learn many things about MM, but not much about the rest of the SAP system and how MM fits into it.
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A conversation with a SAP recruiter might go something like this:
Recruiter … “which modules do you work
with?”
Candidate … “well, I have a
lot of purchasing process experience”
Recruiter … “yes, but which
modules do you work with?”
Candidate … “well, it’s
purchasing functionality … so that would be, umm, MM, FI and CO mainly”
Recruiter … “great I have
just the job for you”
Candidate … “fantastic, is it
purchasing?”
Recruiter … “well it says here that they want an
MM, FI and CO person and that’s you, right?”
Not necessarily! A MM, FI, CO role might include Inventory Management (MM), Accounts Receivable (FI) and Profitability Analysis (CO) – none of which a purchasing person is guaranteed to have
Many programme teams were organised along module lines, so that you would have a FI/CO, an MM and a HR team, for example. Training courses were (therefore) often prepared and delivered along module lines too. The result of this was that solutions were frequently optimised along module lines, and less often well integratred, and as for users, well, they were pretty much trained up in a module and left to get on with it post go-live. Fortunately those days are mostlypassed, and more and more programmes (from design to build to training) are being organised along process lines such as:
Order to Cash (including parts of SD, FI-AR and
probably TY as well)
Purchase to Pay (including
MM-Purchasing and FI-AP)
Record to Report (FI-GL etc)
SAP now are moving away from describing their system as a set of modules, and now are using the term ‘solutions’, which is much better. If you visit SAP’s website (as we urge you to do) you will find
that they have structured their Solutions tab as follows:
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Financials
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Human Resources
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Customer Relationship Management
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Supplier Relationship Management
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Product Lifecycle Management
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Supply Chain Management
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Business Intelligence
If you’re still looking for that list of modules, here they are:
FI Financial Accounting – essentially your regulatory ‘books of record’, including
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General ledger
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Book close
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Tax
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Accounts receivable
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Accounts payable
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Consolidation
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Special ledgers
CO Controlling – basically your internal cost/management accounting, including
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Cost elements
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Cost centres
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Profit centres
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Internal orders
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Activity based costing
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Product costing
AM Asset Management – track, value and depreciate your assets, including
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Purchase
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Sale
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Depreciation
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Tracking
PS Project Systems – manage your projects, large and small, including
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Make to order
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Plant shut downs (as a project)
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Third party billing (on the back of a project)
HR Human Resources – ah yes, people, including
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Employment history
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Payroll
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Training
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Career management
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Succession planning
PM Plant Maintenance – maintain your equipment (e.g. a machine, an oil rig, an aircraft etc), including
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Labour
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Material
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Down time and outages
MM Materials Management – underpins the supply chain, including
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Requisitions
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Purchase orders
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Goods receipts
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Accounts payable
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Inventory management
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BOM’s
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Master raw materials,finished goods etc
QM Quality Management – improve the quality of your goods, including
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Planning
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Execution
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Inspections
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Certificates
PP Production Planning – manages your production process, including
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Capacity planning
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Master production scheduling
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Material requirements planning
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Shop floor
SD Sales and Distribution – from order to delivery, including
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RFQ
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Sales orders
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Pricing
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Picking (and other warehouse processes)
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Packing
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Shipping
CA Cross Application – these lie on top of the individual modules, and
include
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WF – workflow
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BW – business information warehouse
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Office – for email
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Workplace
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Industry solutions
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New Dimension products such as CRM, PLM, SRM, APO etc
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