What are the different types of SAP modules? How do they work?

SAP (Systeme, Anwendungen, Produkte, German for “Systems Applications and Products.”), started in 1972 by five former IBM employees in Mannheim, Germany, states that it is the world’s largest inter-enterprise software company.

My understanding from the question is that you know SAP is a popular application, if you feel so then damn you are right.

One of the reasons this application is so popular in today’s market is its flexibility and it is customized as per business requirements. This is achieved by something similar to the concept ” Divide and Rule”.

This application is broken down to several modules and these modules bring the agility required to run business at different levels. It is also easy to integrate these applications by using connections with SAP and also NON – SAP systems and it is not complicated to maintain these connections.

Technical Modules:

. Programming (ABAP)

. BASIS

Main Functional SAP ERP Modules:

. FICO (Finance & Controlling)

. HR (Human Resource)

. PP (Production Planning)

. MM (Material Management)

. SD (Sales & Distribution)

. PM (Plant Maintenance)

. PS (Project System)

. QM (Quality Management)

. BIW (Business Information Warehousing)

Business Suite:

. CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

. SCM (Supply Chain Management)

. SEM (Strategic Enhanced Management)

. APO (Advanced Planner Optimizer)

. EP (Enterprise Portal)

. SRM (Supplier Relationship Management)

. XI (Exchange Infrastructure)

Listing of each modules in SAP ERP:

. Basis

. ABAP/4 Programming

. FI (Financial Accounting)

. CO (Controlling)

. EC (Enterprise Controlling)

. TR (Treasury)

. IM (Investment Management)

. HR (Human Resource)

. SD (Sales and Distribution)

. Logistics Information System

. MM (Materials Management)

. PM (Plant Maintenance)

. PP (Production Planning)

. QM (Quality Management)

. BW (Business Warehousing)

. IS (Industry Solutions) / SAP for Industries specific solutions

. CS (Customer Service)

. SMB

. CA (Cross Application Components)

. PS (Project Systems)

. mySAP SEM

. mySAP CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

. mySAP Product Life Cycle Management

. SCM (SAP Supply Chain Management)

. Netweaver

. mySAP SRM (Supplier Relationship Management)

Above are the different Modules and there are many sub-modules and components within modules, this is not complicated if at all it looks that way because you would not be dealing with all these at the same time, it totally is dependent on the business you are handling and the tasks you need to achieve.

Now, the second part of the question ” How do they work?”

In SAP All the transactions and are written in ABAP, this is Advanced Business Application Programming (Allgemeiner Berichts-Aufbereitungs-Prozessor, German for “general report creation processor”) and SAP now has its own home grown database SAP HANA, as we understand that integration is a big plus in SAP we have SAP Netweaver which is the integration platform that is been acquired by SAP and modified to fit its business applications on this Service oriented architecture. It supports platform-independent web services, business applications, and standards-based development.

SAP when implemented in any organisation can be divided into two categories.

1. Technical – ABAP, BASIS etc

They basically look after the programming, authorization issues, or new report making, stuff like that.

2. Functional – SD, PP, CO, FI etc.

Any organisation has certain parts to be looked after, so they divide into modules, and the respective functional consultants maps the business in SAP.

About how they work.

Umm, well it pretty simple. The functional consultant of the respective module maps the required business scenario in SAP, through configuration provided in SAP. Or with help of the technical consultants, through enhancements. But you would be needing reports or printouts of the same, to collect and analyze your data, thats where the technical team comes in handy. But then also they need help from the functional team.

Also, the SAP tackles the day-to-day issues which arise, and resolve the same.

The different types of SAP modules can be separated by their functionality. I wanted to cover this question very broadly with a summary

There are two broad splits:

• Financial – covering examples such as Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Management Accounting (CO Module), Assets, Projects.
• Logistics – covering areas such as Sales & Distribution, Materials Management (Inventory), Production, Purchasing.

Each of these modules offers sub-areas for entering documents (sales orders, requisitions, journal entries, etc) as well as reporting.

Underlying the entire module framework are the technologies SAP is based on, such as ABAP (programming language) , HANA (database). These technologies are used in all the SAP modules.

The strength of SAP has always been integration – for example, if you create a sales invoice in logistics, the financial modules are updated at the same time. So the structure of SAP supports companies who are looking to install one system to handle all the company’s needs and ensure that the parts of the organization use one way of working and report the numbers the same way.

One of the biggest questions that comes to the mind of SAP aspirants is “Where to start if I want to have a career in SAP? Which SAP modules to pick up to get a premium job?”, and so on.

To answer such questions, we have made a comprehensive list of SAP modules as per your domain experience. This will help you to decide which SAP modules you should start learning and start focusing on jobs.

List of modules (domain-wise)

Human Resources

• SAP Human Resources (SAP HR) / SAP Human Capital Management (SAP HCM)
• SAP SuccessFactors (SAP SF)

Finance

• SAP Finance and Controlling (SAP FICO)
• SAP S/4HANA Finance

Sales and Marketing

• SAP Sales and Distribution (SAP SD)
• SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM)

Information Technology (IT)

• SAP HANA
• SAP ABAP
• SAP BW
• SAP BW/4HANA
• SAP BO

Operations

• SAP Materials Management (SAP MM)
• SAP Production Planning (SAP PP)
• SAP Warehouse Management (SAP WM)
• SAP Extended Warehouse Management (SAP EWM)
• SAP Plant Maintenance (SAP PM)
• SAP S/4HANA Logistics

Besides the above, there are many more modules such as SAP TRM, SAP MDM, and more.