Item Categories in the Standard R/3 System

The standard R/3 System contains the following item categories:

Item Categories for Material Items

Document Items

Class Items

Text Items

Additional item categories may have been defined in your company. Contact your system manager for information on the special features of these item categories.

Item entry and item category

When you enter an item category, the system makes a number of checks, for example:

BOM usage

For example, if the BOM usage is for plant maintenance only, plant-specific data is not checked. For this reason, BOM usages for plant maintenance do not support items that are relevant to any one of the following:

Design
Production
Costing
Sales and distribution
Shipping
Spare parts

Material type of the BOM header and of the item category

When you enter a BOM item, the system checks the material types of both the header material and the material component.

Class items can only be entered in bills of material whose header material is of a material type for which configuration is supported.

Pipeline materials (material type PIPE) are not kept in stock. They can therefore not be used as stock items in bills of material.

Process materials (material type PROC) cannot be used as BOM items.

Detail screens

For each item category, the system selects several detail screens for data entry and for processing in a fixed sequence.

Once you have created an item, you can no longer change the item category. If you want to correct the item category for an item, you must delete the item and then recreate it.