Main logistics areas within SAP Business One:

Purchasing and Inbound Logistics

Marketing, Sales and Outbound Logistics
Warehouse Management
Production
Service
Master data is common to all areas of Logistics.
Financial controlling underlies all areas of Logistics.
Process variations are controlled by System
Configuration.

 You navigate through SAP Business One using the main

menu. The main menu arranges the functions of the
individual applications in a tree structure. The company
name and the name of the current user display at the top
left.
Choose Administration Choose Company to change the
server, that stores the company data. The companies
stored on the selected server display in a table. As long
as your user exists in a company, you can switch directly
to a different company. You can also change users
without having to exit the system.
One reason why you might use multiple companies:
One reason why you might change a user:

 The SAP Business One menu bar displays at the top of

the screen. The menu bar contains the Windows
standard menu (File, Edit, Window, Help) as well as
generic SAP Business One functions.
The toolbar displays under the menu bar. The toolbar is
a collection of icon buttons that grant you easy access
to commonly-used functions. The functions represented
by the buttons are also available in the menu bar.
Active functions appear in color, and inactive functions
gray out. You can choose the toolbars that will be
displayed or hidden. To hide or show a toolbar, rightclick in the toolbar area and check or uncheck the
appropriate toolbar.

The graphic shows the form of the customer business partner master. This form serves us as an example to
explain some of the generic functions within any form in SAP Business One.

SAP Business One offers two input tools:

Selection list: Choose the icon left of the field to open a new window with a list of all possible entries.

Dropdown list: Choose the icon to the right of the field to open a dropdown list with all possible entries.

The link arrow is a very powerful tool. It allows you to open windows with related information.

If a user has the proper authorization, he or she can change field labels by selecting the Ctrl key and doubleclicking the label at the same time.

At the bottom of every screen, you will find the status bar that always shows the name, length, and contents of
the current field. Furthermore, if you enable the View System Information menu item, the system also
displays some technical information about the field, which you can use for creating queries or formatted
searches or which you may need if you are working with the Software Development Kit.

You can use the four fields on the right to display additional data for an object. The system displays this data
when you use the object in the active window. This means, for example, that you can display the customer's
telephone number while you are entering an order.

Note: Master Data opens in Add mode. Change to Display mode to search for data. For documents, the modes
are reversed.

 Under Tools My Shortcuts Customize, the system

allows you to assign the function keys F2 through F12 to
your most used transactions. You can then start these
transactions simply by hitting the respective function key.
The function key F1 is reserved for accessing online help.
Furthermore, every user can create a personalized menu
containing favorite transactions and frequently-used
queries. Choose Tools My Menu to maintain your user
menu.
User Defaults can be set for each user.
You can change the settings for columns in a document
for each user. Once you make the settings, these defaults
will be applied automatically each time this user logs in.

 Every system user can determine which modules and

menu options will be displayed on his or her main menu.
Visible: When this box is checked the module/menu item
displays on the main menu. When this box is cleared the
module/menu item will not display.
Apply Authorization: This button is relevant to normal
users only.
Normal users, contrary to superusers, can be restricted
to certain actions and menu items due to authorizations.
By choosing the Apply Authorization button, a regular
user can set the main menu to display only authorized
modules and menu items.

 SAP Business One tracks business activities using documents such as

purchase orders, invoices, production orders, sales orders, and so on.
Each of these documents is constructed from smaller reusable
chunks of data called master data.
Master data refers to the key information that describes your
customers, vendors, and leads as well as items that your company
buys and sells.
Creating documents from master data increases productivity,
ensures data consistency, and reduces errors.
It is easy to look up business partner and item information while you
are entering sales and purchasing documents. A selection list icon is
available in the business partner and item number fields in marketing
documents. Use the selection list icon to make a selection list appear.
You can scroll through the list or use characters with wildcards to
search.

 All the documents in purchasing and in sales share a similar structure. The
documents for sales and purchasing are also often called Marketing Documents.
In general the document is divided into:
the upper part (header) with the general information,
the middle part with the information on different tab pages and the item specific data
(you can access more item specific data in the line details by double-clicking a row),
and the lower part (footer) with more general information.
The middle part contains three tabs:
The Contents tab is where all the specific information about the ordered items or
services is entered, such as quantity, price, item number, and description
The Logistics tab contains the details about where the items or services as well as
payments are to be sent. Shipping method is also specified here. Most of the data is
pulled from preconfigured master company details and vendor data.
The Accounting tab contains the relevant general ledger (G/L) account information for
the purchase pulled from the financial accounting master data.
Much of the data appearing in these tabs defaults from the master data. The values
can be changed while working in the documents. These changes will affect the
document, but do not change the master data records.

 In purchasing and sales documents, you can choose the rows type on the Contents
tab page.
The default view of the system is without the type column and can be edited using
the Form Settings. You have to select the Type indicator on the Form Settings
Table Format tab page.
The options for the row types are:
Blank: for a regular item row this field is empty
T: for a text row
S: for a subtotal row
A: If the document is a sales quotation, the option A is available for an alternative
item row. An alternative item is not taken into account on sum calculations.
You can change the format of any row in the Contents tab of any SAP Business One
purchasing document to insert text or a subtotal of the preceding row. Simply click
on the drop-down list in the Type field and select T (for text) or (for subtotal).
When you select T, the Text Editor pop-up window appears. From here, insert
predefined text from the drop-down list or insert your own text. This is especially
helpful when you want to convey specific instructions to your vendor about how
items should be manufactured, handled, or shipped.

 You can use SAP Business One online help in several ways. If you press F1, you get
context-sensitive help; that is, help about the particular screen you are on. Use
Shift + F1 to get a field context help.
Selecting Help Support Desk Find a Solution from the main window menu bar
displays an SAP Library window, which allows you to search for a solution by key
words.
The System Messages Log pane displays up to the last 50 system messages
appeared on the application window for the current user since the last login.
This pane appears at the bottom part of SAP Business One application, but you can
close it, move it, and re size it as required, like any other application window.
The window displays errors, warnings or information messages.
A hyperlink to relevant help files may appear in the row. Click it to read more
detailed information on the message. When available, the system message will
display an eight or nine digit unique identifier. You can use this ID as a search key
in the online help.
The date and time of message appears. You can change the format of the date and
time in the General Settings area. Administration System Initialization General
Settings Display tab Date Format and Time Format fields .

 Drag&Relate is a particularly effective means of linking two

business objects to create a query.
The screen on the right shows the data in an item master
record. If you want to find out which quotations have been
made for this item, for example, you simply drag the Item
Number field to the Quotations entry in the navigation
Drag&Relate tree. The system then displays a list of all the
quotations for item M00001. If this list is too long, you can
filter the list to display just the results that you are
interested in.
You can limit the authorizations per user for using the
reports: Administration System Initialization
Authorizations General Authorizations, select General
Drag&Relate

 Under Administration System

Initialization General Settings on
the Display tab, you can change
various display parameters.
On the Font&Bkgd tab, you can
choose a background image.