Samples and promotional goods are normally sent or given to the customer free of charge from the warehouse.

Samples are issued from production, and promotional goods, which are normally trading goods, are issued from procurement. The costs can be planned in Controlling (CO) either in the profitability analysis or in internal orders. They are then evaluated with the actual values transferred to the billing document.

A field service employee can issue samples and promotional goods; or they can be shipped as a delivery in a shipment, or they can be supplements in a mailing campaign.

Samples and promotional goods can also be billed with a price, if required.

The following R/3 components are integrated with sending samples and advertising materials:

You can enter samples and promotional goods in the sales order as free-of-charge items. They can also be combined with other items that are not free. The following functions are available:

• Costing and pricing
• Availability check
• Transfer of requirements to demand management
• Delivery scheduling
• Export control

Picking links warehouse management (WM) with sales order processing. The system differentiates between picking in warehouses with fixed bin locations, or in warehouses with random storage (using transfer orders).

Invoices are created using deliveries. Once a billing document has been created, the values are posted to the relevant financial and cost accounting accounts, although in this case only costs, and no profits, are posted.

The information system helps you in planning, forecasts, and analyses. It uses master data and any transaction data that may result from the business processes for its evaluations.

The following scenarios can be integrated with the scenario for sending samples and advertising materials: