Sales information System

Sales information System

The Sales Information System (SIS) is a tool which helps to collect, consolidate and utilize data from Sales and Distribution processing. It can be used as a planning and control instrument at different levels in the decision-making process. It enables you to track and trace the economic trends, market developments, demand & supply trends, and sales trends early in the Supply chain and take appropriate measures.

It helps to collect and consolidate actual data from Sales and Distribution processing. Using this information you can also create your own planning data. Comparison of actual data and planning data assists in decision making. From the huge amount of data which exists in the SD System, you can filter out the most important information using the aggregation functions, tailored to your needs. It depends on the user’s requirement to determine the depth of information.

The procedures included in sales information system are:

• Initial download by setting up the statistical data
• Synchronization by doing a comparison of stock levels

The purpose of Sales Information System (SIS) is to help generate key MIS and Analysis reports. To enable this, an information system first collects and aggregates transaction information into information structures. A typical structure should consist of the following:

1.Characteristics, which is, the basis on which data is to be aggregated, such as the sales organization, the distribution channel, the customer group

2.Key figures which are nothing but statistics such as the order quantity, the net value, and the gross value), and

3.A period unit, which is, a time element such as daily, weekly, or monthly

The values of the key figures are aggregated at a regular time interval specified by the period unit for each characteristic in the information structure. This enables to generate analysis reports such as the total monthly order value) by the sales organization

There are 4 broad activities for the Sales Information System sub process

1.  Information Structures

2.  Characteristics and Key figures

3.  Updating Sales Information System

4.  Standard Analyses

 The core master data has to be defined for the following master data:

Ø  Material Master

Ø  Customer master records

Ø  Pricing condition records

The SIS tables and info structures should be activated and the transaction updates to them should be enabled. Apart from the standard info structures, customized Info Structures can also be defined and reported using Sales Information System.

SIS Information Structures

The Information structures resemble a table for collection of data. We have to define the information structure as per our system requirement. Various standard structures are available in SAP which can be used directly or we can customize them as per the requirement. The standard information structures available in SAP sales information system are as follows:

Ø  S001 - Customer

Ø  S002 - Sales office

Ø  S003 -Sales organization

Ø  S004 - Material

Ø  S005 - Shipping point

Ø  S006 - Sales employee

These information structures form the data basis for the respective standard analyses of the same name. Apart from these Master Sales Info structures, there are a few internal information structures which are used by system to update transaction data. For example, S066/67 is used for Credit Management; S060 is used for rebate processing and S009/14 for sales support.

There are sets of rules defined to update the information systems.

SIS Characteristics and Key figures             

Characteristics can be defined as the criteria which the user specifies to collect data on a certain entity or dimension. Examples of characteristics of Info-structure S001–Customer are Sales Organization, Distribution channel, Sold-to-party, Material. The structure is updated with this dimension of data at these key characteristics to perform analysis as required.

The users normally require sales information on sales organizations, sales offices, customers, and materials. A period unit is also a criterion used in information structures. The user can set the Information system to update the Information structures in the frequency of the specified period unit for the characteristics. You can collect data for a particular period, for example, for a day, a week, a month, or a posting period.

The Key figures are performance measures. They provide important business information or the transactional information specific to a characteristic. Few important key figures for the info-structure S001 on the dimension of characteristic Sales area are Quantity of Incoming orders, sales volume, returns, Invoiced Sales, Credit memo, etc.

Updating Sales Information System

Data analysis in the Sales Information System is based on statistical data that has been updated from Sales and Distribution transactions to the information structures.

The following data from the sales and distribution processes update the information structures:

·         Sales documents (for example: orders, returns, requests for quotation, quotations)

·         Deliveries

·         Billing documents (debit memos, credit memos, cancellations)

The data flows from the document structure to the information structures. Whenever there is a change in these documents it is reflected in the information structures.

You can use Statistics groups to filter the data that is updated in the information structure. For example, you don’t want to update the information regarding sales on the promotion material, you can use a statistical group filter for materials. Similarly, you may want to segregate sales document types and item categories (such as regular orders and return orders).

The statistics groups are freely definable. There are statistics groups for materials, customers, sales documents, and item categories. You can add new groups as per your requirements. Then assign the statistics groups to sales documents and item categories. Similarly, customer master and material master data have to be updated with the appropriate value in the statistics group field. Statistics groups are also linked to update groups and these groups control the updates to information systems.

 Standard Analyses

The data stored in the information structure can be queried and accessed based on the reporting requirements. In the standard system, the standard analyses that are available in the Sales Information System are:

·         Customer: used to access data directly from the customer statistics

·         Material: used to access specific statistical data that is directly linked to a material

·         Shipping Point: analysis is based on data that has been updated from the creation of the delivery note

·         Sales Office: used to analyse the sales volume for a certain sales group achieved in a certain division

·         Exception Analysis: display Exceptions defined using the Early Warning System