Duplicate customer master records

[Former Member]

First thanks for taking the time to read this post. I have always been part of the school of thought of maintaining a common distribution channel for customers. I recently started with a company that has duplicate customer master records. These are customer with the same address, etc. They have been created in some cases four times to accommodate 4 different sales offices, etc for commissions or reporting. I want to propose imrpovement in their system to have one customer instead. Is there any SAP functionality which I can use to have only 1 customer but with 4 different sales offices. I know there is no scope of defining more than sales office in customer master record. I thought of one option to propose TEXT Determination with which I can create a text for the user while creating sales order that this customer has 4 sales offices and allow user to manually enter sales office in sales order. But is there any better option you think of?

I am trying to dictate the best reasons for maintaining one customer and allowing other factors to control the sales office or partner assignments. I would appreciate any arguments and points you may have as to why you do not want duplicate master records. I.e. system performance, time saved in maintenance.

[Former Member]

Hi Mohit,

The interesting question is why up to 4 different sales office serve the same Customer.

- Is it only duplicated master?

- Depending on the "distribution channel" (real one, even if you use common distribution channel in SAP)?

- Depending on the Ship-to party or Plant of Delivery?

- Is there a main Sales Office and the other Sales offices are only used from time to time?

- Does the Sales office depend on the family of product or service delivered to the Customer?

Depending on the answer(s), you can establish the right structure for your Customer Master Data.

Best Regards,

Franck

[former_member188076]

Hi Mohit

It is very nice that someone wants to improve the system which is already implemented, and I would appreciate if your client also agree with your view, as in India it is very difficult for the User / Organisation to change the way they are working and come out of their comfort zone.

Now about your issue:- it is not possible to maintain multiple Sales Office in a Customer master, however you can leave this blank and make the Sales Office field mandatory in Sales Order, so that the user must fill the same while creating the Order.

All the Best

Regards

Amitesh Anand