ABSTRACT
Purchasing or procurement is one of the fundamental activities of Systems, Applications, and Products (SAP) materials management (MM). SAP MM enables purchasing functions for materials and services through a wide range of features available in the standard SAP as well as through customized features. Manufacturers adopt a make-to-stock or a make-to-order strategy for production for fulfilling the customer demands. SAP MM purchasing component can be aligned with the manufacturing strategy of the manufacturer. Purchasing cycle varies from organization to organization depending on their particular needs. In SAP, there is a concept called document type. Depending on the document type, purchasing documents differ from each other, and the document number ranges and fields on the document screen are determined. Outline agreement is a broad term used in SAP to cover most of the long-term purchasing agreements by the customers with their vendors.
