Andre Hartman
Project 2
SAP
This project gives you an opportunity to try SAP, considered to be the industry leader in ERP
(Enterprise Resource Planning) systems.
The assignment consists of two hands on exercises using SAP for a fictitious company, Chuck’s
Bikes, Inc. Using the account and password assigned to you, work your way through two
tutorials and answer the following questions. Keep your answers short and to the point.
Exercise #1 - Procure to Pay (P2P)
A tutorial for a Procurement process using SAP is located in the appendix at the end of
“Supporting the Procurement Process with SAP”. That tutorial leads the student through a
Procurement process that orders, receives, and pays for 20 bicycle water bottles and 30 water
bottle cages. Once the tutorial is complete, students should answer the following questions.
1. Describe your first impressions of SAP. SAP is very challenging and complex; I can
definitely see why people are trained to use them.
2. What types of skills seem to be necessary to use this system? The user should definitely have
good organizational skills to keep track of the orders, have a keen eye for detail to ensure that
they do not make mistakes, and should have basic computer skills at minimum.
3. Create a screen capture of an SAP screen. Underneath the image, provide an answer to each
of the following questions:
a. In which of the activities does this screen occur? The activity that this screen occurs
in is the order activity.
b. What is the name of this screen? The name of the screen is Create Purchase Order.
c. What is the name of the screen that precedes it? The name of the screen that precedes
it is the SAP Easy Access screen. What screen comes after it? The name of the screen
that comes after it is the Vendor Search screen.
d. What actor accomplishes this activity? Maria accomplishes this activity.
e. Describe an error that this actor may do on this screen that SAP will prevent. SAP
will prevent the incorrect document date from being entered.
4. Make an informal diagram of the four main actors: Supplier (Composite Bikes), Purchasing
(Maria), Warehouse (Wally), and Accounting (Ann). Draw arrows that show the data that
flows among the actors during this process. Number the arrows and include on each arrow
what data are included in the message.
4.) Supplier (Composite Bikes)
Supplier receives payment
1.) Purchasing (Maria)
Creates Purchase
Order
(Purch. Org, Purch,
Group, Company Code,
PO quantity, PO delivery
date, PO material, Net
Price, PO plant, Unique
PO number)
3.) Accounting (Ann)
2.) Warehouse (Wally)
Receives Goods
(Quantities
received,
Condition
Material Arrived
in, Enters quantity
received into
goods receipt,
Updates Records
in Raw Material
Inventory)
Receives Invoice
(Records arrival
date of invoice,
Records amount of
purchase order of
invoice, Records
Purchase Order
Number, Vendor
Name, Address,
Items Ordered,
Performs 3-way
check, Posts
Outgoing
Payment)
5. Using the same four main actors as in question 4, this time show with the arrows how the
material (the water bottles and cages) moves.
4.) Accounting (Ann)
Receives bill for bottles and cages
1.) Purchasing (Maria)
Sends P.O. of bottles and
cages to the supplier,
Space Bikes Composites
3.) Warehouse (Wally)
2.) Supplier (Composite Bikes)
Receives bottle
and cages order
Ships bottles and
cages
6. One concern of a business is fraud. One fraud technique is to create suppliers who are not
suppliers but are coconspirators. The conspirator inside the business accepts invoices for
non-existent deliveries. For this fraud scheme to work, who at CBI has to take part? For this
fraud scheme to work, Maria would have to take in it. Since Maria is the purchasing
manager, her job entails approving the purchasing order and converting the purchasing
requisition into a purchase order. How can SAP processes decrease the chance of this type of
fraud? SAP processes can decrease the chance of this type of fraud because each user has
access to only a limited number of SAP screens.
7. Select any of the main activities or sub activities in the Procurement process: (Receive bill)
a. What event triggers this activity? The event that triggers this activity is receiving an
invoice for the material from the supplier.
b. What activity follows this activity? The activity that follows this activity is the pay
supplier activity.
c. For one data entry item for this activity, describe what would happen in the rest of the
process if that entry was erroneous. If the wrong amount gets entered, then the vendor
would get underpaid or overpaid.
d. For one data entry item for this activity, describe what limits ( controls) you would
put in place on the data to prevent the type of error described in item c. The limits that
I would put in place for the amount field would be that the amount entered has to fall
into a certain range.
Exercise #2 - Order to Cash (O2C)
A tutorial for the Sales process using SAP is included in the appendix at the end of “Supporting
the Sales Process with SAP”. The tutorial leads the student through a Sales process that sells 5
bicycles to a customer called Philly Bikes. Once the tutorial is complete, students should answer
the following questions..
1. How is the Sales process in SAP similar to the Procurement process in SAP? In both the
sales process and the procurement process, orders are created, documents are created,
product is exchanged for cash, and there is flow of information from department to
department. In what important ways are they different? The main activities for the sales
process are sell, ship and payment whereas the main activities for the procurement
process are order, receive and pay.
2. Create a screen capture of an SAP screen. Underneath the image, provide an answer to
each of the following questions:
a. In which of the activities does this screen occur? Sell.
b. What is the name of the screen? Create Sales Order: Initial Screen.
c. What is the name of the screen that precedes it? The name of the screen that
precedes it is the SAP Easy Access screen. What screen comes after it? The
screen that comes after it is the Create Sales Order: Overview Screen.
d. What actor accomplishes this activity? Sue accomplishes this activity.
e. Describe an error that this actor could make on this screen that SAP will prevent.
There is no error that SAP will prevent on this screen.
3. Make an informal diagram of the four main actors— the Customer (Philly Bikes), Sales
(Sue), the Warehouse (Wally), and Accounting (Ann). Draw arrows that show the data
that flows between each of the actors during this process. Number the arrows and include
on each arrow what data are included in the message.
4.) Customer (Philly Bikes)
Customer receives bill
1.) Sales (Sue)
Creates Sales Order
(Customer number, Date
of transaction,
Transaction number,
Material Number,
Number Ordered)
3.) Accounting (Ann)
Creates Billing
Document for
Customer
(Adds Sales Order
to Billing List,
Receives check in
mail, Posts
Incoming
Payments,
Specifies Payment,
Updates Sales
Record)
2.) Warehouse (Wally)
Picks, Packs and
Ships
(Creates outbound
document for
sales order, Inputs
shipping point,
date, order
number, Quantity
updates, Posts
Goods)
4. Using the same four main actors, this time show with the arrows how the material (the
bikes) moves.
4.) Accounting (Ann)
Receives payment
1.) Sales (Sue)
Creates the sales order of
bikes
3.) Customer (Philly Bikes)
2.) Warehouse (Wally)
Picks, packs, and
ships the bikes to
the customer
Receives the
shipment of bikes
5. One concern of a business is fraud. One fraud technique is to create customers who are
not customers but who are coconspirators. The conspirator inside the business credits the
account of the coconspirator for payments that were never actually received. For this
fraud scheme to work, who at CBI has to take part? For this fraud scheme to work, Ann
would have to take part in it. Since Ann, is the accountant she is responsible for posting
incoming payments into the SAP system. How can SAP processes decrease the chance of
this type of fraud? SAP processes can decrease the chance of this type of fraud through
its use of warning pop-ups.
6. Select any of the main activities or sub activities in the Sales process: (Create Sales
Order)
a. Specify what event triggers this activity to occur. The event that triggers this
activity is making a sale.
b. Identify what activity follows this activity. The activity that follows this activity is
creating a delivery note.
c. For one data entry item, describe what would happen in the rest of the process if
that entry was erroneous. If the wrong customer is selected, then the product will
be sent to the wrong destination and the customer will be unsatisfied.
d. For one data entry item, describe what limits (controls) you would put in place on
the data to prevent the type of error described in item c. The controls that I would
put in place on the data to prevent the type of error described in item c is that the
sales order number that is created has to match the customer number.
7. Having completed one or both tutorials, make two suggestions about how:
a. SAP could make their software easier to use. SAP could make their software
easier to use by having a search function that appears on the SAP Easy Access
screen to help the user find the right place that they need to be in more quickly
and efficiently rather than clicking around. SAP also could have a built-in help
function that leads you to a technical support specialist to help with any technical
issues that may arise.
b. How the tutorial( s) could be improved to help new students learn about processes
and SAP. The tutorials could be improved to help new students learn about
processes and SAP by being more interactive. The tutorials could have a show-me
where it shows the user what to click on and walks them through everything stepby-step and then have a guide me to confirm the user’s level of understanding of
what they just did. The tutorials could also have audio to go with it for those who
learn better by hearing.