Master

Let's start with master data versus transaction data. Master data usually represents something that
remains constant, such as a business partner (customer/vendor), a material (part number), etc. Master
data examples include customers, vendors, materials, general ledger accounts, etc. When you create a
master data record, it rarely changes and can be used across different business transaction cycles. You
can create many different transaction records using the same customer master record information.

Transaction:
Transaction data represents a single business event, such as a customer order, the creation of a
purchase requisition, procuring goods from a vendor, receiving those goods, processing the vendor's
invoice, generating a payment to a vendor, or entering a journal entry at the end of the month to record
accrued payroll.

Line item
Line item data includes the individual items ordered by the customer. Examples would include part
numbers, quantities, units of measure, line item prices, and other fields that apply to only that order line. If
the customer ordered 10 different parts on the same PO, then the customer order entered into SAP would
have 1 order header and 10 line items.

Item data.
These are usually elements of a specific transaction involving orders, invoices, etc. Examples include the
order from a customer for multiple part numbers. The header data includes the details that apply across
all items that appear on the customer order. The header data would include the order date, order type,
customer number, customer's name and address, customer's PO number, desired shipping date, shipping
location, etc.

The same logic would apply to purchase requisitions, purchase orders, vendor invoices, and many other
transactions.
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HI,

The <u><b>Header data</b></u> has the common inforamtion .Let us take a purchase order example.In a single
purchase order you can puchase differnt kinds of items (like engine,notor,tube,valve).

So the purchase order number and the purchase order date is common for all the items that you are going to
purchase in a single purchase order request.These common information would come in the header data.

The individual components like engine ,motor ,tube and valve and their information would come <u><b>Item
data</b></u>.Material number ,material description quantiy ,price (these are relevant to each an every item ,so each
item in the purchase order will have differnt different values for these fields.)
So common datas come in the heade item data and the details of very individual items in a purchase order or the
sales order will come inthe item data.

Now an example for Sales order.we have sales order and the sales order no is 5000 and the date is 15/3/2006 and
the items in the sales order are book ( 50 qty),pen(100 qty),stapler(5qty).

VBAK - header items are stored.

NOW as per our example the VBAK table will have the following vales,
Vbeln(sales order number) erdat (date)
5000 15/3/2006

VBAP-Sales order items

Field in VBAP.
vbeln = sales order number
posnr = index number
matnr = material number
arktx = material description
kwmeng = quantity
Now the VBAP(iteam data table) wll have th folowng fields wih respect to the sales order number 5000
vbeln posnr matnr arktx kwmeng
5000 10 100 book 50
5000 20 200 pen 100
5000 30 300 stapler 5

<u><b>Master data</b></u> is a collection of information about a person or an object, e.g. vendor or G/L account.
For example, a vendor master record contains not only general information but also purchase order related
information. Master data can only be entered and changed by authorized users.

The data which is updated or stored in the tables rerely. These tables having master data is called as master
tables.
Example : MARA - Material master table

<u><b>Transaction data</b></u> is data related to a single business event such as a purchase requisition. For
example, when you create a requisition, SAP creates an electronic document for that particular transaction. SAP
gives the transaction a document number and adds the document to the transaction data that is already in the
system.

This is the data we update in a regular basis by refering the master data. The table contains many records
corresponding to the mamster data.
Example : MSEG - daily transactions (Goods transfer data)