SAP Item Category Determination an Overview

The item category determination in the sales document depends on the sales document type and the material. An item category group is defined in the material master record. For Example, in the standard sap system. Item category group NORM is defined for materials kept in stock and the group DIEN for services and non-stock material.

To know how the system determines the item category. For a material with the item category group NORM, the system determines the item category AFN for an enquiry (Sales document type IN) and the item category TAN for a standard Order (Sales document type OR).

SAP Item Category Determination

Determining the Item Category for Sub Items

Services and free goods can be entered as separate items or can be allocated to the other items.  An item which is allocated to another one item called a sub item. To determining the item category for sub items depends on the higher level item.

If a free goods item is allocated to a standard item in a standard order (Item category TAN), the item category TANN is used for the sub item in the standard version of the SAP System, and the sub item is processed as a free of charge item.

Also See: Special Stocks and Procurement Types in SAP MM an Overview