In 2004, SAP launched a new version of R/3 software with a revised architecture called SAP ECC (SAP ERP Central Component). It is SAP’s ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) solution. It is one of the most robust and successful ERP software available in the market that are used by more than 80% of the fortune 500 companies.
SAP ECC comprises of 10 functional components such as Financial Accounting (FI), Controlling (CO), Sales and Distribution (SD), Materials Management (MM), Production Planning (PP), Quality Management (QM), Plan Maintenance (PM), Customer Service (CS), Project Systems (PS) and Human Capital Management (HCM).
The modules within the ECC systems are tightly integrated with each other which makes the data flow between multiple line of businesses easy and efficient. It also provides an integrated view of the whole organisation.
Now let’s take a quick look at the modules available in ECC and it’s purposes..
| Modules | Description |
| FI | FI stands for Finance. It is one of the most important modules of the SAP ECC system, which is used to collect, store and process various financial processes such as general ledger, accounts payable, accounts receivable, bank accounting, asset accounting and travel management. |
| CO | CO stands for Controlling. Controlling provides information for management decision-making. It facilitates coordination, monitoring and optimization of all processes in an organization. This involves recording both the consumption of production factors and the services provided by an organization. |
| SD | SD stands for Sales & Distribution. It stores and processes information related to customers, services, shipping, selling and transportation of goods and services. |
| MM | MM stands for Materials Management. It deals with the management of materials (products and services) that are required by an organisation to produce their goods or offer their services. |
| PP | PP stands for Production Planning. Functionlaities in this module helps organisations to produce goods that are aligned with the market demand. It helps track the goods movement from raw materials to finished goods, hence providing organisations the ability to plan their production process well in advanced. |
| QM | QM stands for Quality Management. As the name implies, the functionalities of this module helps organisations to ensure the goods produced by them meet certain quality control criterias. |
| PM | PM stands for Plant Maintenance. It contains functionalities such as Inspection, preventive maintenace, Repair, Budget planning for plant maintenance to help organisations conduct repairs and maintain their plants (e.g. factories, warehouses, workshops, Engineering or electrical equipment, etc) |
| CS | CS stands for Customer Service. It is involved in the planning of providing external services such as providing repair maintenance of a product a customer has bought or rented. |
| PS | PS stands for Project Systems. This module is used by the project managers as it provides functionalities to manage projects successfully and ensure they are executed efficiently, on time and within budget. |
| HCM | HCM stands for Human Capital Management. Contains all the required functionalities to manage an organisation’s workforce including Employee experience management, Core HR and Payroll, Employee master data, Talent management and Workforce planning. |
SAP offers mainstream support for SAP ECC until 31st December 2025. Customers have an option to buy extended maintenance for two more years (until 2027) with an additional cost. The successor of SAP ECC is SAP S/4HANA.
Let’s chat about SAP S/4HANA in an another blog very soon.
Check my YouTube video about SAP ECC, if you are interested.
P.S. Check out my course on Udemy – “Introduction to SAP – The Complete Package for Beginners“
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