KEY POINTS IN ASSIGNMENT OF ORGANIZATIONAL ELEMENTS

A client is uniquely defined in the system by a three-digit numeric key. You can set up several company codes in one client in order to thus keep separate sets of financial books. You can use a special Customizing function to copy a company code. In the process, company-code-dependent specifications are adopted for your new company code.

A company code is defined in the system by means of a four-character alphanumeric key that is unique in the client. When creating a new plant, you can use the plant copy function. In the process, all entries in the plant table and all Customizing and system tables that depend on it, and in which the plant occurs as the key, are taken into account.

A plant is defined in the system by means of a four-character alphanumeric key that is unique in the client. A storage location is defined by means of a four-character alphanumeric key that is unique in the plant.

A client may therefore contain several company codes. In turn, a company code may contain several plants. A plant can only ever belong to one company code however. Since the key of a plant is unique in a client, and a plant can only belong to one company code, by specifying the plant, you simultaneously specify the company code. A plant must always be assigned to one company code. However, a company code can comprise several plants.

Several storage locations may be assigned to a plant, but a certain storage location can only belong to one plant only. Storage locations are defined especially for a plant and are thus assigned to this plant. The key of a storage location need only be unique within a plant. Within a client, the same key can be used for different storage locations, since when you specify a storage location you always have to specify the plant too. Several storage locations in which stocks of materials are managed can belong to a plant. A storage location is always assigned to just one plant.

You can assign several purchasing organizations to one company code. However, a certain purchasing organization can only be assigned to one company code. In addition, it must be assigned to all plants for which it is to be active. So once you have assigned the purchasing organization to a company code, you can assign it only to the plants of this company code. Therefore, as a rule, the central purchasing department (as the purchasing organization) of a corporate group is not assigned to a company code. You can decide not to assign the purchasing organization to a company code (cross-company-code purchasing). There is an m:n relationship between purchasing organizations and plants. In other words, you can assign several plants to one purchasing organization, and one plant to several purchasing organizations. Hence, purchasing organizations can be responsible for one or more plants. However, a number of purchasing organizations can be assigned to a plant. For example:

1. A local purchasing organization, a cross-plant purchasing organization and a cross-company-code purchasing organization

2. Two purchasing organizations with different work center operation sets such as Procuring Materials and Procuring Services

In the standard system, all the conditions that exist in the system are entered with reference to a purchasing organization (for example, info records).

The purchasing group is not aligned to other units in the company structure. However, a purchasing group is assigned neither to a purchasing organization nor a plant. A purchasing group can thus be active for all purchasing organizations and all plants if no restrictions have been imposed through authorization management.