This blog is a successor to this blog,
How I can keep my SAP system healthy? (Part-3 QM) . I highly suggest you read the first one before you read this part.
Part 4 Sale and Distribution –
In this blog we will discuss some of the important aspects of sale and distribution and it’s data processing.
Customer Master
- If sensitive fields are not identified in customer master e.g. reconciliation accounts, terms of payment. This may lead to unauthorized changes in critical information of the customer and misstated MIS reports.
- Like “Payment History” indicator which records the payment history of the customer has to made mandatory.
- Standard reports on evaluation of payment history of the customer cannot be generated if the “Payment History” indicator is missing in the customer master.
- Analysis of customer payment patterns which assists in cash flow planning and deciding on customer credit/payment terms may not be carried out.
- If ‘Customer group ``is not maintained as mandatory for customer master the classification of customers based on the customer group will not be available. Reports generated in Logistics Information Systems may be incorrect resulting in improper decision making.
Pricing
- If important pricing conditions like material price, GST, VAT etc., which can be processed manually then there is a risk of unauthorized/incorrect price being entered in the system which may lead to financial loss to the company.
- If there are no limits defined for the discount price conditions then there is a risk of unauthorized/higher discounts offered to customers which may lead to financial loss to the company.
- In the pricing conditions (e.g. material price, GST,VAT etc) +/- indicator if it is not defined appropriately for these pricing conditions both negative and positive values can be specified. If a negative price is entered, it may result in incorrect pricing and subsequent financial loss.
- If the tax conditions (e.g. GST,VAT etc), which can be processed manually during transaction processing then there is always a risk of unauthorized/incorrect price being entered in the sales order and invoice, which may result in financial loss to the company.
- This results in loss of control over prices and could lead to tax issues and financial loss to the company.
Sales Order Processing
- Sales orders can be saved without complete information e.g. material, terms of payment etc. It may lead to the creation of incorrect/redundant data in the system.
- Further, it may also lead to a mismatch between the actual sales and the sale booked in the system.
- Standard SAP system allows creating release order/sales order with more than the contract quantity.This may lead to unauthorized sales/release orders being created for the contracts and financial impact to the company.
- If the pricing fields like pricing date, customer group and pricing reference material can be modified while creating a sales order.There may be a risk of old prices and discounts being inserted into the sales documents leading to incorrect pricing. This may result in financial loss to the organization
- Non availability of delivery approval may lead to financial loss for the company.
- Sales order can be changed even after complete delivery, invoicing and accounting.This may lead to incorrect sales transactions resulting in loss of profit, incorrect material reservation and compromise data integrity.
Credit Management
- If the Credit Check is not activated for sales order, Agency Sales etc. This may lead to sales orders being processed without credit check and result into financial impact to the company.
- If sale document types are assigned simple credit check. However, automatic credit check provides advanced level of credit control (e.g. Oldest open item, max. document value)
Credit/Debit Note
- For service debit memo requests, the reference has not been made mandatory.The design of debit note generation may allow the user to bypass the standard policies of the organization and business controls.
- If there is no default billing block assigned for “Credit/Debit memos.This may allow the user to bypass the standard policies of the organization and business controls. This may also cause a possible loss to the company due to weaker system controls in credit notes processing.
- Payer field can be changed in the credit note request.Credit note request referenced to invoice may be created with incorrect ‘Payer’ resulting in credit being passed on to another customer. This may result in financial loss to the company.
- There is a possibility of deliberately manipulating the same to pass on credit notes to customers.
Returns
- If the return order is created without reference to order/invoice.While creating a return order without any reference user has to manually enter the material, quantity, price and customer. There is risk of incorrect data entry which may lead to incorrect transactions being posted in the system.
- Non availability of delivery approval may lead to financial loss for the company.
- SAP system allows to process invoice for return orders without return delivery.This may lead to customer payments without receipt of return material.
- Default delivery blocks should be activated for return orders.
Invoicing
- SAP system allows changing prices during processing of invoice.This may lead to unauthorized price change in the invoice and financial loss to the company.
- The pricing should not be allowed to change during invoice processing.
Again there is no thumb rule to define it. It depends upon the business scenario and practice: what controls should be there in the system? However, SAP System functionality and use remains to be limited in certain aspects, you are more than welcome to discuss your views and suggestions on it and any specific questions.
