SAP Knowledge Base Article - Public

3612185 - Modified Sales Order Line Item Description Not Reflected in Purchase Order

Symptom

After modifying the description of a line item in a sales order, the updated description is not carried over to the corresponding purchase order. The modified material description in the sales order line item must be propagated to the purchase order.

Environment

SAP Business ByDesign

Reproducing the Issue

  1. Navigate to the Sales Work Center.

  2. Go to the Sales Orders View.

  3. Select an existing sales order XYZ or create a new one 

  4. Add a product ABC to the line item 

  5. Modify the Description field of the line item manually.

  6. Save the sales order.

  7. Generate a purchase order from the sales order 

  8. Check the purchase order line item description.

Observed Result: The description remains the original value from the product master data, not the modified value from the sales order.

Cause

  • The purchase order line item description is fetched directly from the product master data at the time of purchase order creation, not from the manually modified description in the sales order line item.

  • This behavior occurs because the system prioritizes master data consistency over user-modified descriptions in downstream documents (e.g., purchase orders). Modifications made to the description in the sales order are stored locally in the sales document but are not designed to overwrite the product master data or propagate to other documents.

Resolution

To ensure the modified description from the sales order appears in the purchase order:

  1. Manual Override in Purchase Order:

    • After generating the purchase order, manually update the line item description in the purchase order to match the modified sales order description.

  2. Update Product Master Data:

    • If the modified description should apply universally, update the product master data.

    • Regenerate the purchase order to reflect the updated master data.

Keywords

Sales Order, Line Item, Description, Modification, Purchase Order, Product Master Data. , KBA , AP-SLO-SO , Sales Order , Problem

Product

SAP Business ByDesign all versions