SAP Material Master Report
A material master report joins the SAP basic, plant/MRP and valuation tables and resolves texts, so material attributes across plants sit on labelled Excel rows keyed by material and plant.
- PostNow ships this report out of the box – pick it, set filters, run, and it lands in Excel; no SE16, joins or ABAP.
- The data spans several tables. It joins MARA, MAKT, MARC, MBEW, T023T / T134T on MATNR (+ WERKS) and resolves the text lookups.
- The standard route is manual. Teams use MM03 for a single record, then SE16 or SQVI to stitch tables together in Excel.
- You get clean, labelled columns. MATNR, MAKTX, MTART, MATKL, MEINS, WERKS and more, each with a plain-English heading.
- Refreshable, not a one-off dump. Rerun the report to pull the latest, with your own SAP authorizations enforced. Works on ECC and S/4HANA.
What the material master report shows
A SAP material master report answers a simple question that SAP makes surprisingly hard: give me every material master record, with all the attributes that matter, in one place I can filter and share. On screen, SAP shows one record at a time and splits its attributes across several views. This report flattens all of that into a single Excel sheet, one row per record, with the codes turned into readable labels.
Because the output is a plain sheet, it becomes the starting point for the work people actually do with it: a data-quality review, a cleanup before a migration, a hand-off to an auditor, or a source for a pivot. The value is not just the extract, it is that the extract is complete and consistent every time you run it.
A material master report is often the first thing a data team reaches for, because so much depends on it: MRP runs on the plant view, valuation on the accounting view, and procurement on the purchasing fields. Having every view side by side in one sheet is what makes a data-quality pass possible, whether you are checking that new materials were extended to the right plants, that MRP controllers are set, or that price control is consistent before a period close or a migration.
The SAP tables behind it
A material spans a basic record and several plant views. MARA holds the basic, client-level data: material number MATNR, material type, material group and base unit. MAKT holds the description. MARC holds the plant and MRP view, keyed by MATNR plus plant WERKS, with the MRP controller, purchasing group and procurement type, so a material extended to three plants has three MARC rows. MBEW holds the valuation per plant. The material-group and material-type texts come from T023T and T134T. A full material report joins the basic record to each plant view and adds the texts.
The joins are the whole reason this is worth automating. Miss one and the report is subtly wrong; get the key fields slightly off and rows fan out or drop. Doing it once, correctly, and then reusing it is what turns a fragile spreadsheet exercise into a reliable report.
The columns you get
Every column below is a real SAP field, labelled in plain English, with the table it is read from. These are the fields most teams want on a material master report; a tool like PostNow lets you add or remove columns without touching the underlying join.
| SAP field | What it is | Source |
|---|---|---|
| MATNR | Material | MARA |
| MAKTX | Description | MAKT |
| MTART | Material type | MARA |
| MATKL | Material group | MARA |
| MEINS | Base unit | MARA |
| WERKS | Plant | MARC |
| DISPO | MRP controller | MARC |
| EKGRP | Purchasing group | MARC |
| BESKZ | Procurement type | MARC |
| VPRSV | Price control | MBEW |
| VERPR | Moving avg price | MBEW |
| STPRS | Standard price | MBEW |
| LVORM | Deletion flag | MARA |
Building it yourself: MM03, SE16 or SQVI
MM03 shows one material across its views, one at a time, and MM60 gives a material list but with a fixed layout that rarely matches what you need. SE16 on MARA gives the basic records, but the plant and MRP data in MARC and the valuation in MBEW come out as separate extracts you match on material and plant in Excel, plus MAKT for descriptions. Because the plant views multiply rows, it is easy to double-count or drop rows in the match. A clean, refreshable material report across plants is a developer job.
None of this is impossible; people do it every month. The problem is that it is manual, easy to get subtly wrong, and stale the moment it is saved. Each refresh means repeating the same exports and the same lookups, and any new column means another round with a developer. For a one-off you can push through it. For a report you run every period, the cost adds up. If you want the general landscape of options first, see our overview of SAP reporting tools and how to get SAP to Excel.
The out-of-the-box way: PostNow's material master report
PostNow's Report Library already contains this exact report, pre-built. You do not assemble the joins or resolve the texts; that is done for you. You open Excel, log in to postnow.ai from the task pane, pick the material master report, set your range filters, and run. The governed, joined data lands in the sheet, ready to filter, pivot or share, and you can refresh it whenever you need the latest.
Two things make this different from a SE16 dump. First, it is governed: PostNow enforces your own SAP authorizations, so you only ever see the data you are entitled to, and every row can be traced back to its source. Second, it is repeatable: the same report, the same columns, refreshable on demand, with no ABAP to write or maintain. That is the payoff of teaching the hard version first, then handing you the shortcut.
Filters and selection you'll want
A good material master report is only as useful as the selection you can put on it. The filters most teams reach for are:
- Material range (MATNR)
- Plant (WERKS)
- Material type (MTART)
- Material group (MATKL)
- MRP controller (DISPO)
- Deletion flag (LVORM)
You set these once as your selection, then reuse or adjust them each run. Because the selection travels with the report, a monthly extract becomes a single refresh rather than a rebuild.
ECC vs S/4HANA
MARA, MARC and MBEW persist in S/4HANA, where the main change is the longer 40-character material number, which PostNow handles. A table-based material report reads the same on ECC and S/4HANA.
The practical takeaway is that a report built on the tables and read through standard interfaces survives a migration far better than one wired to a specific screen or a custom program. When you eventually move from ECC to S/4HANA, a table-based material master report keeps working, which is one less thing to rebuild in an already large project.
Frequently asked questions
How do I get a material master report out of SAP into Excel?
You can export the underlying tables with SE16 and stitch them together in Excel, build a query in SQVI, or ask a developer for an ABAP report. The quickest governed route is a tool that already has the report built: in PostNow you log in to postnow.ai from the Excel task pane, pick the material master report from the Report Library, set your filters and run, and the joined data lands in the sheet.
Which SAP tables hold material master data?
The data is spread across several tables that have to be joined on their key fields: MARA, MAKT, MARC, MBEW, T023T / T134T. The report links them on MATNR (+ WERKS) and resolves the text tables so the output reads in plain language.
Is there a standard SAP report or transaction for material master?
There are standard transactions (MM03 and others), but they are built for on-screen display or for a fixed layout, not for a clean, refreshable Excel extract with exactly the columns you want. That is why most teams fall back to SE16 exports or a custom report.
How do I export material master data to Excel without ABAP?
Use a tool whose SAP connection is set up once and then reads through standard interfaces, so no ABAP is needed for day-to-day reporting. PostNow reads the material master tables, performs the joins and text lookups, and writes the result straight into Excel, refreshable on demand, with your own SAP authorizations enforced.
Can I refresh or schedule the report?
Yes. Because the report keeps its connection and selection, you can refresh it to pull the latest data at any time rather than rebuilding the extract. This is the main advantage over a one-off SE16 dump, which is stale the moment it is saved.
Does it work in S/4HANA?
MARA, MARC and MBEW persist in S/4HANA, where the main change is the longer 40-character material number, which PostNow handles. A table-based material report reads the same on ECC and S/4HANA.
How do I export the material master across plants?
Basic data sits in MARA and plant and MRP data in MARC, one row per plant. A report joins them on material and plant, so a material extended to several plants shows one row per plant with its own MRP and valuation data. Filter to a single plant to get one row per material.
Can I include MRP and valuation fields?
Yes. MRP fields such as the MRP controller and procurement type sit in MARC, and price control and prices in MBEW. A PostNow report can include all of them next to the basic data and descriptions.