A material can be stored, transported, and sold in various units of measure. In mySAP ERP, you can define various units of measure that are maintained in the sales and distribution screens of the material master record.
However, you only need to maintain the fields of the units of measure if they deviate from the base unit of measure. You can enter the following units of measure in the Sales and Distribution screens
Base Unit of Measure This is the unit of measure used as a basis for all transactions. All quantity movements in other units of measure, should any exist, are converted automatically by the system into the base unit of measure. For instance, the base unit of measure may be pieces—as an example, stock of widgets is managed in pieces.
• Alternative Unit of Measure If a product is managed in the base unit of measure “piece” but is sold in the sales unit “box,” you must define the conversion factor. The alternative unit of measure can define, for example, that one box of this material contains five pieces.
relevant for sales. You can replace them with other alternative units of measure in the sales order. For example, if you sell widgets in boxes, then you would use the box unit of measure as the sales unit.
• Delivery Unit The delivery unit refers to the unit in which materials can be delivered. Only exact multiples of the delivery unit can be delivered. For example, with a delivery unit of 30 bottles, 30, 60, or 90 bottles can be delivered, but not 100 bottles.
Quantity Specifications
SAP uses two different quantity specifications for the material master record:
• Minimum Order Quantity The minimum order quantity refers to the minimum quantity the customer must order. A warning message appears if the minimum order quantity is not reached during order entry.
• Minimum Delivery Quantity The minimum delivery quantity refers to the minimum quantity you must deliver to the customer. The minimum delivery quantity is automatically checked during delivery processing. A warning message appears during delivery processing if you enter a delivery quantity lower than the minimum delivery quantity.
• Sales Unit The unit of measure in which materials are sold is referred to as a sales unit (for example, piece, box, or bottle). The value you define in the material master record is proposed during business transactions
