Changes in short description (MM02) are changing reports of old consumption MB51

[Former Member]

Hi gurus,

If I do any change (update) in the short description of material master (MM02), the descriptions is showed like changed for all older reports (mb51 for example) and documents (migo for example), specially for consumption movements (I use 201 an 261).

Example:

If I have a material number 1234567 with description VALVE123, and I change the description for VALVE345, when I extract a report or see an older MIGO document of consumption, it shows that all consumptions were done for the material with description VALVE345. It means that it does not keep the traceability of the consumption.

For the movement 101 it keeps like traceable (in MIGO and reports) and shows the description.

I need to have these data like traceable and know what was the description of the material at the moment it was consumed.

Can anybody help me?

[JL23 · Accepted solution]

your ideas do not match with SAP system design and relational database design in general.

A material master and its description is unique in the system, in a movement you just enter the material number and the program shows you the description which is taken during runtime from your material master and is not at all stored in the movement because this would be redundant information and waste table space. So you just have the description just 1 time, even when you have several million movements.

A material VALVE123 cannot be VALVE345 tomorrow, it is VALVE123 forever and you would need to create a new material master for VALVE345. Or, if VALVE345 is a replacement for VALVE123 then you might change the description, as you did, but this means no separate history.

So it is you own decision, if a separate history is needed, then you have to create a separate material, if the history of the change is not important for reports then you can rename the existing material master.

[Former Member]

Thanks for quickly respond to the question, Jürgen, and it makes sense...

The only thing that is still an open point is the goods receipt by movement 101, which in MIGO keeps the historial. But maybe it is relevant because it is related to the PO, and as we know the PO description it is not updated by a material master change.

Regards,