SD Documents, Sales Documents, Sales Orders: Same Same, but Different?

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Have you ever wondered why some people talk about SD documents, others about sales documents, and yet others about sales orders? Are these actually all the same documents, similar ones, or completely different ones? The answer is both yes and no.

All these documents belong to the same family, they’re all used in sales processes.

SD documents (short for sales and distribution documents) are the grandparents in this family:

SD documents comprise sales documents, billing process documents, and delivery documents. This means that sales documents are one of three children, to stick to the family analogy.

However, sales documents are also parents and have children of their own, the grandchildren of SD documents if you will. As with all children, they share some similarities, but each comes with their own characteristics. We’re of course talking about sales document categories here:

Every sales document category is broken down into sales document types. When you create a sales document, you have to pick a sales document type. For example, when you create a sales order, you select a specific sales order type: For standard processes, you create a standard order. When you sell a product from your consignment stock, you create a consignment issue. When you want to supplement the consignment stock, you create a consignment fill-up.

The sales document category and the sales document type determine what kind of sales document is created, which data you can enter in a sales document, which checks the system runs automatically, or which subsequent processes the system triggers. For example, when you create a sales order, the system determines prices for the products that you enter and checks their availability. For sales orders without charge, prices are not relevant, so the system automatically applies a discount of 100%. The products in a sales order also need to be delivered to your customer, so a delivery document would be a natural subsequent document. For a credit memo request, you wouldn't need a delivery document, but a credit memo as part of the billing process.

So you see, all these documents are very similar, but each one serves a distinct purpose.

The sales documents that you create are individual documents, but they are also one of several sequential process steps. Furthermore, you can create standalone sales documents, but you can also create a sales document with reference to another sales document, thus making the document chain shorter or longer. When you create a sales document with reference to another sales document, you can simply let the system copy data instead of having to enter it over and over again. The flow of data from one document to another also makes it easier to identify issues and solve them: The process flow (a graphical overview in SAP Fiori apps) or document flow (a list tree in classical applications) serves as a history that you can easily look up.

Like any good family reunion, we’ll end our little family story with a group picture:

 It shows well that while SD documents, sales documents, and sales orders are related, they’re not the same – just like in a real family.

PS: For those of you who are interested in a bit of family history, here are two interesting facts:

1. SD (or sales and distribution) documents are a concept that goes back to SAP ERP and SAP R/3. In these earlier versions of SAP’s ERP software, Sales and Distribution (SD) was one of the most widely used modules. That’s why SD documents encompass sales documents, billing process documents, and delivery documents. In SAP S/4HANA and SAP S/4HANA Cloud, you can find the sales process part of SD under Sales, while the delivery (or distribution) process part of SD is now part of Supply Chain. However, you can still find SD, for example, in the components used for tickets. Still all part of the same family!
2. Similarly, sales orders without charge (also known as orders free of charge) used to be a sales order type in the past. However, the relationship didn’t fully reflect the characteristics of this document. It simply serves a different purpose than a standard sales order. That’s why in SAP S/4HANA and SAP S/4HANA Cloud, sales orders without charge are a standalone sales document category. From a twin, they changed into a sibling!

You can find extensive information about our sales document family in the documentation on the SAP Help Portal. Learn, for example, how sales documents are structured, more about the origin of data in sales documents, or how sales documents are controlled.