Management of SOVA master files and commodity code statistics in SAP
Simplifying materials classification in SAP
Mercoline has developed a SOVA Assistant to take on the management of SOVA master data and support the daily data maintenance of commodity codes. This solution is easy to implement in SAP and is adapted to the specific needs of the SAP user companies in their projects.
Long-term preparation of material data for the upcoming year change
- Import of the current SOVA master file and the new SOVA master file for next year
- Analysis of the scope of change resulting from new SOVA master files
- Preparation of change allocation in relation to the current material master in the SAP system
Editing potentially affected materials in material marking
- Notification of whether changes will affect the respective material (no change, 1:1, m:n, m:1)
- Decisions that have to be made manually by the user are displayed
- Comparison of texts from the old and new SOVA master file
- The “Automatic Setting” function supports the execution of changes from the first decision
Manual setting of new commodity codes
- Notification of default values for new commodity codes
- In m:n cases: Defaults for new numbers according to the instructions from the SOVA master file can be selected
- Notifications via pop-up in the event that particular new units of measurement have been entered into the updated SOVA master file
Automatic update when the year changes
Automatic update when the year changes
- Update of the entries (from Z tables) in the respective SAP tables (T604)
- Validity years of current entries are updated
- Material markings are written to material master sets
Comfortable daily SOVA data maintenance
- Existing entries in the SAP standard tables (T604) can be checked against the current year’s imported SOVA master file and adapted as needed.
- Data from the new SOVA master file can be manually copied into the standard tables.
Reduction of manual activities and errors in foreign trade data
Material maintenance throughout the year
- Default-based maintenance of the materials is possible
- Pre-selection for the incorporation of existing commodity code allocations for the same materials in other plants
- Deletion functions for commodity codes in the respective material
Sova Leitdatei file background
Commodity codes are the central characteristic in international trade. Goods are always classified according to their technical properties and are allocated a corresponding commodity code (customs tariff number). On the basis of the commodity code, the tariff rates, import restrictions, export restrictions and required documents are established upon import.
The commodity codes change on January 1st of each year. Prior to this, the German Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden publishes the changes in the product list for the foreign trade statistics in the form of a data package known as the Sova master file, in addition to posting it on the Internet for download.
The list of valid commodity codes (Sova master file) is an index of all the valid commodity codes in the publication year, accompanied by a comprehensive description of goods in the .txt-Format (text with fixed width), making it suitable for use in SAP systems. The complete data package download also contains a number of conversion files that can be helpful in the reallocation of invalid commodity codes.
Assistant for the management of the SOVA master file
At the end of each year, the Federal Statistical Office publishes the new list of valid commodity codes. As a result, numerous changes have to be implemented at the beginning of the following year. If you want to avoid the hustle and bustle of these changes, you can use the Mercoline SOVA Assistant to process the data in advance and conveniently release it at the beginning of January.