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
