SAP is one of the most popular enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions in
the world. It offers an integrated system that supports major business functions
such as sales, production, and financial accounting. Over the years, SAP has been
enhanced, and new versions have been released. The older SAP R/3 has now developed
into the SAP ERP system on which we have based this book.
The latest version of SAP ERP at this time is ERP Central Component, Release 6.0,
often referred to as ECC 6.0. It consists of several application components closely
integrated with one another. SD is one of these application components.
When any organization looks to implement SAP ERP, it first studies its business
processes and decides on the ones that are to be mapped in SAP. Based on this, it
can select the application components that are relevant. For example, a manufacturing
organization may require a different set of applications than a service provider
or a trading company.
The Sales and Distribution application caters to the business processes associated
with customer order fulfillment. SD has several components offering diverse functionality.
For example, there are components for pricing (which control how prices
and costs are determined in a sales transaction), availability check (that control how
product stocks are allocated to orders from various customers), and credit management
(that check the credit worthiness of the customer before a transaction is permitted).
Again, you have to select which processes are applicable to you.
In an integrated system, each application has to mesh with other related applications
to ensure continuity and consistency. This is one of the strong points of the SD
application.
Next we’ll cover the first steps in accessing SAP. As we go through the application in
this book, we will discuss each step in further detail.
sap是世界上最流行的一款ERP（企业资源计划）解决方案。它提供了一套一整套集成系统，支持如销售、产品、财务等大型商业模块。这些年，SAP一直在进步，发布了新版本。我们的书正式基于SAP ERP这款从老式的SAP R/3系统更新过来的系统。
目前最新的SAP ERP版本是 ERP 中心组件 6.0版本，也叫ECC6.0。它包括了几个紧密集成的应用模块，SD是其中一个。
当任何组织去实施SAP ERP时，他们会去了解他们自己的商业模式，然后决定哪些东西需要实施到SAP中去。基于这些，他们可以挑选相关联的应用组件模块来实施。举个例子，一个工厂组织相对于一家设备供应商或贸易公司而言，更加需要不同的模块应用设置。
销售和分销模块适合于和客户订单执行相关的商业流程。SD拥有不同的组件能够提供不同的功能，例如：有定价功能（其作用是控制销售交易中的价格与费用）、可行性检查功能（其作用是控制不同客户订单的货物库存的分配）、借贷管理（在交易之前去检核客户的信贷价值）。再次说明，你必须选择一个合适的业务流程。
在这个集成系统中，每一个模块都和其他模块有联系来确保连续性和一致性。这是SD模块的一大优点。
然后，我们将会介绍访问SAP的第一步。当我们在学习这些模块的时候，我们会细致描述每一步操作。