1. Materials Management SAP ECC 6.0 Rev. 03/29/08 1
SAPtips Sample Materials Management Configuring the Material Master
This segment from our 386 page Mastering SAP Materials Management
manual is being made available as a sample of our training manuals.
Please contact David.Haynes@ERPtips.com if you have any SAP training
needs, or visit www.ERPtips.com for more information.
Written by Jocelyn Hayes
Published by Klee Associates, Inc.
Copyright Klee Associates, Inc., 2008
Configuring the Material Master
In this section, we demonstrate how to configure key fields and activities for the
Material Master. It covers the following:
 Field selection configuration
 Configuring material types
 Maintaining company codes for Materials Management
 Defining material status
 Initializing the period
Selecting Fields to Populate the Material Master
The first time I previewed all of the fields in the Material Master, it was
overwhelming. These days, my first goal for a client installation is to eliminate
unnecessary fields in the standard Material Master. Unfortunately, SAP
configuration in this area is a bit daunting and the IMG Help is generally sparse.
To compensate, I create lots of custom configuration with the end goal of making
the screens friendlier and less prone to error. Frankly, forcing a new SAP user,
who needs only populate 10 actual fields, to look at 12 user views in the Material
Master seems wasteful of the user‟s time. Certainly you would question the
intelligence of the system. We will cover fewer views here, concentrating only on
the following tasks:
 Assigning fields to field selection groups
 Maintaining field selection for data screens
 Defining industry sectors for specific industry field selection
 Defining plant-specific field selection and
 Defining plant-specific screen select
 Specifying lock relevant fields

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Step 1: Assigning fields to field selection groups
If you have custom fields that you want to add to the material master, you must
assign the new field(s) to a field selection group. Follow these steps:
1. Navigate to the IMG and execute the following transaction:
Transaction Code: (no unique transaction code, must use menu)
Logistics – General  Material Master Field Selection  Assign Fields to Field
Selection Groups
2. Click New Entries, and complete the data in the following figure. Use
numbers 111 through 120, as these are the customer-designated values for
field selection groups (SAP has reserved the others).
3. Save your entries.
You can also group all of the fields that you wish to hide together into one field
selection group. This makes them easier to hide (I‟ll explain this further in Step
2).
SAP assigns long texts to a dummy field (i.e., LTEXT_BEST is for Purchase
Order Text) so that you can define the entire screen as hidden, displayed,
mandatory, or optional.

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Step 2: Maintain field selection for data screens
The purpose of Step 2 is to define how the fields within a Field Selection group
behave – whether they are hidden, optional, display only, or required.
The next section of this unit, Material Types, discusses the configuration
for the material type. You may want to jump ahead and configure it
because you will be assigning the field reference to the material type.
The field reference determines which fields are hidden, displayed,
mandatory, or optional when creating the Material Master.
The Field Reference can apply to a material type, an industry sector, or a
transaction code. When creating a material master, all of these field references
are considered when determining whether a field is hidden, displayed,
mandatory, or optional. The table below shows the convention for field selection
control.
Priority Function Character
1. Hide -
2. Display *
3. Required +
4. Optional .
Values for Field Selection Control
The interaction of the fields and function priorities dictate the final disposition of
the field.
For example, if you are entering a material master for Industry Sector M, which
has Hide Field X in its field reference, and material type KMAT, which has
Require Field X in its field reference, then Field X will actually be hidden because
the priority for Hide trumps Required.
Keep in mind that you need to check the settings for industry sector, plant
and material type to determine whether a field will be hidden, displayed,
required, or optional.
To maintain field selection for data screens, perform the following steps:
1. Navigate to the IMG and execute the following transaction:
Transaction Code: OMS9
Logistics – General  Material Master Field Selection  Maintain Field
Selection for Data Screen
2. To create the field reference, it is wise to copy an existing field reference to it,
rather than starting from scratch. Which reference you choose to copy is up
to you, but I suggest you use the default field reference of the material type
that you copied from to create your custom material type. In my example, I
copied material type KMAT, which carries field reference KMAT with it. Along
with copying material type KMAT to ZMAT, I will copy field reference KMAT
to ZMAT as well.

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To copy a field reference, select it as shown in the figure below and click the
copy icon.
3. You will now be on the “Change View „Field Selection for Data Screens‟:
Detail” screen where you can mark which field selection groups are hidden,
optional, mandatory, or displayed.
4. You can click the Where Used icon to see what material types use the
field selection. See the example below of the Where Used screen. Note that
in it I had already assigned the field selection ZMAT to the material type
ZMAT.

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5. You can also click to see which fields are assigned to each field
selection group.
Step 3: Define field selection by industry sector
As discussed in Step 2, both the industry sector and the material type drive the
behavior of a field when creating a material master. Follow these instructions to
define field selection by industry sector:
1. Navigate to the IMG and execute the following transaction:
Transaction Code: OMS3
Logistics – General  Material Master Field Selection  Define Industry
Sectors and Industry-Sector-Specific Field Selection
2. In this step, you can optionally create additional industry sectors. You may
either refer to an existing field reference or return to Step 2 and copy an
existing field reference to a new one for your own use. To create one, simply
select New Entries and complete the screen as shown below.

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3. Save your entries.
Step 4: Define field selection and screen select by plant
Another driving value to determine field behavior is the plant. This step
demonstrates assigning the plant to a field selection.
1. Navigate to the IMG and execute the following transaction:
Transaction Code: OMSA
Logistics – General  Material Master Field Selection  Define Plant-Specific
Field Selection and Plant-Specific Screen Selection
2. To add a new plant, click New Entries and enter data as shown below.
3. You can also restrict the maintenance status in this step. The maintenance
status simply indicates the views, tabs, or user departments available for
entry on the material master.

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Maintenance Statuses
4. Save your entries.
Step 5: Define lock relevant fields
You can define a field as Lock Relevant if you want to specify its value once and
forever.
Keep in mind that, if you have a scheduled change for a material and
select this, you will lose the scheduled change.
1. Navigate to the IMG and execute the following transaction:
Transaction Code: OMSFIX
Logistics – General  Material Master Field Selection  Define Lock-Relevant
Fields
2. To lock a field after initial entry, simply find the field in the list and select
Lock-rel. to activate the lock relevant indicator.
3. Save your changes.

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Material Types
When you create a new material, you have to select the industry sector and
material type. Ignore the industry sector for now – I have yet to see a good use
for this field. The material type, however, drives the entire use and usefulness of
the Material Master.
Material Type answers many questions about the material: Is the material
configurable? Is it a raw material? Is the master number assigned internally or
externally?
The material type determines the order of user views (tabs) and which fields you
see on those views. In addition, it designates whether the procurement type is in-
house or external and whether changes in material value are updated to the
Financial Accounting module.
From the many standard material types that exist in the SAP system, I
recommend you select the one that fits the material with which you are working.
Then copy it to your own custom material type. The example in this manual is to
copy from a KMAT (configurable material) to a ZMAT.
Step 1: Configuring Material Types
The following procedure illustrates how to configure material types.
1. Review the material types in the standard SAP system and find the one that
most closely resembles the material to be created.
2. Navigate to the IMG and execute the following transaction:
Transaction Code: (no unique transaction code)
Logistics – General  Material Master  Basic Settings  Material Types 
Define Attributes of Material Types
3. Select the material type that you want to copy and click the Copy icon .
4. Clicking the Copy icon takes you to the Create Material Type screen. Enter a
name for your new material type. ZMAT appears in this example.
5. General Data Tab
The next figure displays the fields in the general data section of the Create
Material Type screen. Complete this screen as shown in the table below.

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Create Material Type: General Data
Field Name Description
Field reference
The field reference determines which fields are
mandatory, optional, hidden, and display only. It was
created in Step 2 of this unit. In our example, the field
reference is also ZMAT.
SRef: material type
The screen reference material type determines which
screens appear and in what order they appear, when
creating a material master record.
Authorization group
Authorization group is required to limit certain users
from creating certain material types. SAP performs
two checks when a user attempts to create a new
material:
1. Determine if that user has access to the
Create Material transaction.
2. Verify that the user has access to create
that material type. (You can leave this blank
if you do not want to restrict or maintain the
material types that specified users create.
X-plant matl status
Cross-plant material status can restrict specific
purposes or actions for a material.
Another configuration step in the IMG can configure
the behavior of the selectable statuses. For example,
if a material type cannot be procured, configuration of
the material status would indicate a warning or error
message to a user who is trying to procure that
material type.
The settings driven by the status can also be
overridden on the material master.
Item category group
Item category group drives the processing of the
material type in the sales order. The combination of
item category group and order type determines the
item category defined for a sales order line item.
With Qty Structure
A quantity structure consists of a Bill of Material and
Routing and is the basis for calculating material costs.
It is used in process and repetitive manufacturing. If a

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material is costed with a quantity structure, turn on
this indicator to improve system performance. You
can override this checkbox in individual material
masters.
Initial Status
Check the initial status box if this is a batch material
and the initial batch of this material should be
restricted.
External no. assignment
w/o check
Check this box if you want to allow external
numbering of the material master (assigned by the
user) without SAP checking that the number is within
a valid range. This basically allows the user to name
the material without following any naming
conventions.
General Tab Field Completion
6. Specifying parameters on the Special Material Types tab
On the Special Material Types tab, you can mark if the material is:
 Configurable
 For a process (product produces co-products)
 Pipeline mandatory material
 Manufacturer part
Create Material Type: Special material types
7. Internal/external Purchase Orders Tab
The figure below shows the Create Material Type: Internal/external purchase
orders tab. In this area, set whether to allow internal or external purchase orders.
 Select 0 if internal or external purchase orders are not allowed.
 Select 1 if they are allowed, but SAP will issue a warning message.
 Select 2 if they are allowed without warning.

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Create Material Type: Internal/External POs
8. Setting a standard material classification
If you use a standard material classification for your materials of this material
type, you can enter it in the Create Material Type: Classification tab to save users
from selecting it for every new material created.
Create Material Type: Classification
9. Setting default price control for material type
The figure below shows the Create Material Type: Valuation screen. A valuation
class assigns the material to a group of general ledger (G/L) accounts that are
updated when a goods movement occurs.
This section determines what the default price control will be for your material
type. You can select either standard price or moving value, or leave it blank. The
account category reference (specified in the Acct cat. reference field) is a group
of valuation classes (G/L accounts) that SAP lets you enter when maintaining the
Accounting view of the material master record. (If your material type does not
utilize the Accounting view, this section is irrelevant.)
Create Material Type: Valuation
10. Determine the valuation area for the material type. On the Quantity/value
Updating Tab, you will select the appropriate valuation area conditions.
A valuation area is simply the level at which you value your stock – either at
a plant or company code level or by quantity or value. Most SAP customers
set their plants here. You can choose to display the quantity and value of
your stock within the material master record. If you need to see this

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information in the Material Master, you can select it here; but keep in mind
that tracking it at this level does add a load to your system.
Be sure to maintain this for any new plants you add to your system!
Create Material Type: Quantity/value updating
11. Set user departments for the material type by selecting which views (also
called user departments) appear as tabs when you create a material master.
The following figure below shows the User departments setting for the material
type. In this grid, you select views required to maintain this material type.
Create Material Type: User departments
12. Save the new material type .
Step 2: Assigning material types to special Create transactions
If you have users who create only a single material type, you can further simplify
material master entry by assigning that material type to a special Create
transaction.
The menu path in SAP remains the same. In other words, the material type
description you see in the IMG does not change the material type you see in
the SAP menu. You will have to request that your SAP Administrator either
change the menu or create a Z transaction for your use and add it to the
menu.

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SAP Material Master – Create (Special) menu
1. To create a special transaction, follow this path in the IMG:
Logistics – General  Material Master  Basic Settings  Material Types 
Assign Material Types to Special “Create” Transactions
2. Change the material type from the standard SAP material type to the custom
one you created.
3. Save your changes .

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Maintaining Company Codes for Materials
Management
You must maintain your company codes both in Financial Accounting (FI) and
Materials Management for the fiscal period. This allows you to open and close
the period and not permit postings to previously closed periods or to future
closed periods.
Make this a step in your year-end close process, otherwise you may forget;
then on January 1st, you will receive many complaints from user who cannot
post their documents.
1. To maintain the company codes, follow this path in the IMG:
Logistics – General  Material Master  Basic Settings  Maintain Company
Codes for Materials Management
2. Go to the company code for which you wish to change the periods, and
complete the periods. The ABp field shows whether to allow backposting. It
lets you backpost transaction 1 in the past.
3. Save your entries .

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Defining Material Status
In this configuration step, you will define how to treat materials with an assigned
status. And, you can restrict use of the material. In Materials Management, you
can restrict the material from being purchased or put in inventory. This control on
the Basic Data screen sets this status for the material in all plants. There is
another field on the purchasing view, at plant level.
In configuration, you can set whether the user receives a warning or an error
message when the status is set and active.
1. Configuration of Cross-Plant Material Status can be found in the IMG here:
Logistics-General  Material Master  Settings for key fields  Define Material
Statuses
2. To view the details of the status, select the material status and click on the
button.
3. Now you can view or change the material status settings.

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The status in this particular example blocks the material for Purchasing,
Forecasting, MRP, and Inventory Management.
SAPTip
It is also possible to create new entries or copy existing entries to create a
new material status by selecting . or .
4. Save any setting changes or new material statuses that you have
created.

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