SAP Financial Accounting (SAP FI)

The Financial Accounting (SAP FI) module in SAP is designed to capture organizations business
transactions in a manner that will satisfy external reporting requirements. Local legal considerations are predelivered with the system and the ability to manage and report on multiple companies in multiple countries
with multiple currencies is part of standard functionality. Integration with Sales and Distribution, Purchasing
and Materials Management allows for the ability to select any financial transaction and "Drill Down" to the
originating transaction whether it is a purchase Order, Sales Order or material movement.

Financial Accounting includes the following sub-modules:

General Ledger (FI-GL)

Accounts Payable (FI-AP)
Accounts Receivable (FI-AR)
Bank Accounting (FI-BL)
Asset Accounting (FI-AA)
Funds Management (FI-FM)
Travel Management (FI-TV)
Special Purpose Ledger (FI-SL) (I am not sure this is really considered a module anymore)

The flexibility of the Finance modules organizational structure gives the module the ability to handle any
economic situation. Whether a smaller organization with a single legal entity or a large organization with
numerous companies, consolidations and varying legal requirements, the FI module can support and
automate most financial postings and reporting. Below is a listing of the main organizational elements in the
Finance module:

Company Code - Represents a legal reporting entity. There can be numerous company codes within
an organization. Each has its own balanced books and reports itself as a single economic entity.
Credit Control Area - If credit management is being used, this sets the general parameters for how
credit is managed. The credit control area can control credit for a single company code representing a
decentralized credit management approach or multiple company codes representing a more
centralized credit management approach.
Chart of Accounts - The system supports single or multiple charts of accounts providing the ability
to record transactions and report financially in many different regulatory environments. A chart of
accounts can support multiple Company Codes if necessary.

Business process associated with the SAP FI module:

The Finance Module is designed to record financial transactions in a manner consistent with external
reporting. External reporting must be in compliance with a country's accounting principles and is required
for public entities, regulatory agencies and information required by banks and other lenders. The module
also handles legal consolidations, receivables, payables, fixed assets as well as banking functions if required.

SAP Financial Supply Chain Management (SAP

FSCM)
The Financial Supply Chain Management module (SAP FSCM) includes the following information and
processes:

Credit Management
Cash and Liquidity Management
Collections Management
Dispute Management
Treasury and Risk Management

FSCM provides the ability to have a better view of your corporate cash flow, manage disputes with your
customers, and add efficiency to your billing processes.

Below, you will find a diagram of the sub-components of FSCM and their key features.

SAP Controlling (SAP CO)

The purpose of the Controlling (CO) module in SAP is to provide organizations with a method of slicing and
dicing data to view costs from an internal management perspective and provide a view of profitability
beyond that of basic financial reporting. This allows the organization to create information in a manner that
is tailored to their specific business measurements needs. Controlling allows an organization to:

Plan and track overhead costs within the company's specific organizational structure.
Track costs related to specific projects or events and either capitalize those costs or charge them to
appropriate departments upon completion.
Perform "Activity Based Costing".
Perform Product Costing, measuring production cost and variances.
Report profitability by product line, division, or other internal measurement.
Report sales and gross profitability by external measures such as market segments or customer
groups.

Controlling consists of all master data, configuration, and reporting required to analyze both spend and
revenues, both within and across organizations. This includes the following master data:

Cost Elements - cost and/or revenue accounts

Cost Centers - departmental units
Profit Centers - business lines, product lines or divisions
Internal Orders - projects or events
Functional Area - Cost of Sales Accounting
Statistical Key Figures - non financial statistics for allocating or measuring financial costs
Activity Types - Labor or other activity costs

Business process associated with the SAP CO module:

Subcomponents of the SAP Controlling (SAP CO) Module:

CO-OM - Overhead Management

- CO-OM-CCA - Cost Center Accounting
- CO-OM-OPA - Internal Order Accounting
- CO-OM-CEL - Cost Element Accounting
- CO-OM-ABC - Activity Based Costing
CO-PCA - Profit Center Accounting
CO-PA - Profitability Analysis
CO-PC - Product Costing

SAP Materials Management (SAP MM)

The Materials Management module (SAP MM) consists of all master data, system configuration, and
transactions to complete the Procure to Pay process. This process map spans from MRP generated
procurement proposals through final invoice receipt and verification.

SAP Materials Management Components or Sub-Components:

Vendor Master and Material Master data

Consumption Based Planning
Purchasing
Inventory Management
Evaluation of Materials
Invoice Verification

Procure to Pay business process associated with the SAP MM module:

Subcomponents of the SAP Materials Management (SAP MM) Module:

Purchasing
Inventory Management
Logistics Invoice Verification
Physical Inventory
Material Valuation
Material Requirements Planning (MRP)
External Services Management

SAP Sales and Distribution (SAP SD)

The Sales and Distribution (SAP SD) consists of all master data, system configuration, and transactions to
complete the Order to Cash process. It includes the following information and processes:

Customer Master and Material Master data

Sales Orders
Deliveries
Pricing
Billing
Credit Management

Order to Cash business process associated with the SAP SD module:

Subcomponents of the SAP Sales and Distribution (SAP SD) Module:

Master Data
Sales Support
Pendulum List Indirect Sales
Sales
Shipping and Transportation
Billing
Empties Management
Credit Management
Foreign Trade/Customs
Sales Information System

SAP Logistics Execution (SAP LE)

Logistics Execution covers the areas of Warehouse Management and Inbound Receiving and
Outbound Shipping processing.
Warehouse Management provides an additional level of stock location detail than SAP Inventory
Management. Inventory Management only maintains stock quantities at the Storage Location level,
which is typically an area of your warehouse or a building on your company's campus. Warehouse
Management manages stock down to the bin level, or to the physical coordinates within your
warehouse. Warehouse Management also provides Picking and Putaway Strategy functionality.

The following diagram illustrates a typical Outbound Process using Warehouse Management:

SAP Production Planning (SAP PP)

Production Planning consists of all master data, system configuration, and transactions to complete the Plan
to Produce process. It includes the following information and processes:

Material Master, Bill of Material, Routing and Work Center data

Sales and Production Plans
Long Term Planning
Demand Management
Material Requirements Planning (MRP)
Capacity Planning
Production Orders
KANBAN

Diagram of the typical Plan to Produce business process associated with the SAP PP
module:

SAP Production Planning (SAP PP) is compromised of the following modules:

Master Data - includes the material master, work centers, routings and bill of materials.
SOP - Sales and Operations Planning (SOP) provides the ability to forecast sales and production
plans based on historical, current and future data.
DRP - Distribution Resource Planning allows companies the ability to plan the demand for
distribution centers.

Production Planning - includes material forecasting, demand management, long term planning and
master production scheduling (MPS).
MRP - Material Requirements Planning relies on demand and supply elements with the calculation
parameters to calculate the net requirements from the planning run.
Shop Floor Control - includes the processing of production orders, goods movements,
confirmations and reporting tools for production.
Capacity Planning - evaluates the capacity utilized based on the work centers available capacity to
show capacity constraints.
Repetitive Manufacturing - in repetitive manufacturing, the manufacturing process is usually
simple in that the same products are produced over a long period of time. This module provides the
transactions and business process for companies to run repetitive manufacturing in SAP.
KANBAN - is a process of replenishment based on a pull system using KANBAN cards to generate
the replenishment cycle.
Product Cost Planning - is the process of evaluating all the time values and value of component
materials to determine the product cost.

SAP Quality Management (SAP QM)

SAP Quality Management (QM) assures that products meet stringent regulatory standards, are safe and
uniform, and meet company product specifications. SAP QM processes are thoroughly integrated into the
manufacturing process.

The Quality Management (QM) process can integrate with the following SAP modules:

The Quality Management module covers all classic quality management tasks, such as quality planning
(setup of data for QM tasks), quality inspection, and quality control. SAP has several QM terms that are
important to note.

Quality Planning: the creation and management of master data that is required to plan and complete
inspections.
Quality Inspection: the identification of whether an inspection unit meets specified criteria.
Quality Certificates: documents that contain text, value, and inspection results, which are used to
certify the material.
Quality Notifications: the recording and processing of internal or external problems that result from
poor quality.
Quality Control: the combination of specification from inspection planning, results from quality
inspections, and quality notifications form the basis for quality control.
Test Equipment Management: the management of test equipment in the form of master data
records in SAP.

The following figure shows a sample flow that depicts typical tasks in the Quality Management
process flow.

SAP Plant Maintenance (SAP PM)

Plant Maintenance operates the overall maintenance business processes and functions. The Plant
Maintenance module allows a maintenance organization to:

Identify, document, and correct failures and degradations of any assets for which they have
responsibility.
Plan and schedule activities to prevent or predict failures and keep assets and processes operating
within design specifications.

Both Corrective and Preventative maintenance processes exist in the Plant Maintenance
module.
Corrective maintenance refers to the activities conducted by the Maintenance Organization to repair
equipment of all forms within their area of responsibility. Preventive maintenance is a discipline that uses
processes and activities that focus on the prevention of failures or performance degradation before it occurs.
The following diagram illustrates the common process for both Corrective and Preventative Maintenance
within the Plant Maintenance module:

Subcomponents of the SAP Plant Maintenance (SAP PM) Module:

Management of Technical Objects - includes master data objects such as functional locations and
equipment master records.
Maintenance Processing - includes processing steps such as notifications and work orders.
Preventative Maintenance - includes maintenance planning and work scheduling tasks.

SAP Project System (SAP PS)

Project System provides tools to track project milestone, costs and resources. SAP's Project System module
contains tight integration to the Controlling, Human Resources, and Logistics modules. It utilizes personnel
records from HR, rolls costs into Controlling and links to materials or customers in the Logistics modules.
Two key objects that define the Project in SAP are:

Work Breakdown Structure - defines tasks and assign resources to those tasks
Network - defines the dependencies within the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

Common processes in Project System include:

Tracking costs against WBS elements. These costs can either be from personnel time charged
against the project or from materials and/or services procured to support the project.
Tracking milestones against key dates defined in the project.

The following diagram illustrates the hierarchy of objects within an SAP Project:

SAP Human Resources (SAP HR)

The Human Resources module (SAP HR) consists of all master data, system configuration, and transactions
to complete the Hire to Retire (or, as some say, Fire) process. It includes the following information and
processes.

SAP Human Resources (HR) Components or Sub-Components:

Personnel Management
- Personnel Administration
- Recruitment
- Organization Structure
- Compensation Management
- Personnel Development
Organizational Management
Travel Management
Time Management
Payroll

Typical Hire to Retire business process associated with the SAP HR module: