Article Master in SAP IS Retail

Article Master

The article master contains information on all the articles that a company procures or produces, stores, and sells. It is the company's central source for retrieving article-specific data. This information is stored in individual article master records.

The terms “Material” and “Article” are used to differentiate between master data records created using transactions MM01, MM02, and MM03 (Materials), and master data records created using transactions MM41, MM42, and MM43 in SAP Retail (Articles).

Single-Article:

Individually created a standard article in SAP retail systems. A single article has no variant defining characteristics, such as; flavor, size and/or color. Single articles are not connected to any other article in standard functionalities

Generic-Article –

Generic-Articles are not real articles and cannot be sold. They serve only as a data reference for variants/varieties. Although generic articles exist in the systems, they have no inventory management. Generic-Article can be regarded as “parents” of the individual variant articles.

Generic Article is a special type of configurable article that can be used for structuring and maintaining variants of an article. Variants are articles that differ only in certain characteristics such as color, size, or flavor. They grouped together as generic articles.

In Layman language –> Generic articles do not exist physically and are not sold but exist as a data reference for variants. Generic articles exist in systems but have no inventory management.

Variant article

Child article of the generic article, but with special characteristic values assignment, like flavors. Variant articles are always created via generics and will inherit characteristics from the generic.

Display article

A Display is a collection of articles that are like the prepack, bought together and sold individually. As components, you are not restricted to use either single articles or variants of different generic articles. Within display articles, it is possible to use articles from different Merchandise Categories.

Display article

A Display is a collection of articles that are like the prepack, bought together and sold individually. As components, you are not restricted to use either single articles or variants of different generic articles. Within display articles, it is possible to use articles from different Merchandise Categories.

Sales set

A set is a combination of several articles that are bought individually and sold together, for example, a bottle of wine together with two wine glasses. Individual components can have a different price, different tax code but will be sold together with one price.

Prepack

A prepack is a collection of different articles that are bought together and sold individually. Within prepacks you are restricted to use only variant articles. All variant articles must be assigned to the same merchandise category.

 

In SAP Retail, Articles are assigned to Article Categories at the time of creation, and the designation cannot be changed thereafter.  We can distinguish Materials from Articles by examining field ATTYP (Material Category) in database table MARA.

The article type (MARA-ATTYP) determines fundamentally, how the article will be stored on the database and how it will react. Essentially the following values are possible:

1. Single material (industry) (MARA-ATTYP initial): ‚Standard’-Materials of non-Retail systems, created for instance by MM01.
2. Single article (MARA-ATTYP = 00): Individually created articles like standard-materials.
3. Generic article (MARA-ATTYP = 01): Generic articles do not exist physically and are not sold but do only exist as a data reference for variants.
4. Variants (MARA-ATTYP = 02): Article of the kind of the generic article, but with special characteristic values. To the generic article ‘shirt’ for example, one can have the variant: shirt, white, size XL’.
5. Sales Set (MARA-ATTYP = 10): A set is a combination of several articles that are bought individually and sold together, for example, a bottle of wine together with two wine glasses. The components are been deposit in the basic data view at the button ‘components’. Technically, a set is handled like a BOM and stored in BOM database tables. You should not maintain a set by BOM transactions, however.
6. Prepack (MARA-ATTYP = 11): A lot is a collection of different articles that are bought together and sold individually, thus more or less the opposite of a set. Shoes would be a good example: They are bought also a collection of shoes with different sizes (for example one of size 39 three of size 40 … two of size 45 etc.). Prepack allocation plans are maintained in transaction WSTN11. From a technical point of view, prepacks are also plant independent BOMs.
7. Display (MARA-ATTYP = 12): A Display is a collection of articles that are, like prepack, bought together and sold individually, including special packaging. An example would be at Christmas time the paper figure of Santa Claus, holding different types of chocolate: the manufacturer delivers the whole figure, the store sells the individual chocolates. Again, this is technically a BOM.
8. Material group article (MARA-ATTYP = 20)
9. Hierarchy article (MARA-ATTYP = 21)
10. Group material (MARA-ATTYP = 22)
11. Material group reference article (MARA-ATTYP = 30)

Article Master Creation:

As I have shown in below screenshot, we have mainly 7 following views

1. Basic Views(Basic data, Basic Data2)
2. Listing
3. Purchasing
4. Sales
5. Logistics: DC
6. Logistics: Store
7. POS

In retail, articles are the equivalent to the material master in standard. For article maintenance, there are the following transactions:

• MM41 - create article
• MM42 - change article
• MM43 - display article
• MM44 - display changes
• MM46 - mass maintenance retail