Example vertical: Food & Beverage Distribution
How a food-distribution client maps its everyday vocabulary — cases, perishable lots, delivery runs, restaurant chains — onto SAP Business One entities so Norma answers in the client's language. A deep, replaceable template.
This is an example, not a fact about your business. It shows the shape of a per-customer vertical doc: how a client’s everyday words map onto SAP Business One entities so Norma answers in the client’s dialect. A real client replaces this with their own — same structure, their vocabulary. It teaches Norma the customer’s language; it does not change what Norma can do.
Who this is for
A food & beverage distributor buys from producers (growers, bakeries, breweries) and sells to restaurants, caterers, hotels, and grocery retailers. Staff talk in cases, lots, best-before dates, and delivery runs — not SAP table names. Margins are thin, stock is perishable, and a late or wrong delivery loses a customer. This doc records the dialect so Norma understands “a case of 12”, “this morning’s tomato lot”, or “the Bistro Nine standing order” and maps each to the right SAP entity.
Vocabulary → SAP entity
| The client says | SAP Business One entity | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Product / SKU (“case of 12 Widgets”, “5 kg tub of sauce”) | Item (OITM) | The selling unit (case, tub) is the item’s sales unit; the pack size (“of 12”) is part of the item, not a separate thing to model. |
| Lot / batch (“lot 2026-07-A”, “this morning’s delivery of tomatoes”) | Batch on a batch-managed item | Perishable goods are batch-tracked so best-before and recalls trace to a specific batch. |
| Best-before / expiry | Batch attribute (not the item) | Same widget in two lots has two expiry dates. |
| Customer (“Bistro Nine”, “the Kowloon Street chain”) | Business Partner, customer (cCustomer) | A restaurant group with several sites is usually one BP with multiple ship-to addresses. |
| Producer / supplier (“our tomato grower”, “the brewery”) | Business Partner, supplier (cSupplier) | |
| Standing / recurring order (“Bistro Nine’s Tuesday order”) | Sales order — one document per delivery | A recurring order is a habit, not a SAP entity; each delivery is its own order. |
| Delivery run (“the Monday north route”) | grouping of Delivery Notes | The run is operational; each drop is a delivery note. |
| Price list (“wholesale vs restaurant pricing”) | Price List on the BP | The BP’s assigned price list drives line prices; Norma never invents a price. |
| Credit for spoiled goods | A/R Credit Memo | A money credit — distinct from a physical return (below). |
| Sending stock back | Return | A goods movement — different SAP document from a credit memo. |
Terms that need care
- Perishability lives on the batch, not the item. “The batch expiring Friday” → read the batch, never the item master.
- “Case” is ambiguous — selling unit or a physical warehouse carton. In this client’s language “case” means the selling unit; warehouse cartons are counted in inventory, not sold as a line.
- “Credit” is overloaded. A money credit for spoiled goods = an A/R credit memo; physically taking stock back = a return. Staff call both “sending it back” — Norma must pick the right document from the intent (money back vs stock back).
- “Short” / “shorted” (“we shorted them two cases”) means an under-delivery — a delivery line quantity less than the order line, not a separate document.
- “On the truck already” means a delivery note exists (goods issued) — an invoice may not yet. Aging and cash questions read the invoice, not the delivery.
Industry jargon
The words F&B distribution staff actually use, and where each lands:
- SKU — a stock-keeping unit → a SAP Item. “How many SKUs do we carry?” = item count.
- Case / inner / outer — packaging tiers. The case is usually the selling unit; inners/outers are pack hierarchy on the item, not separate items.
- Catch weight — variable-weight product (a whole cheese, a side of beef) priced per actual kg. Modelled as an item sold by weight; the delivered weight drives the invoice line.
- BBD / use-by / sell-by / code date — expiry variants. All live on the batch. “Use-by” is a safety limit; “best-before” is quality; “sell-by” is retail — Norma reads the batch date, doesn’t judge which.
- FIFO / FEFO — first-in-first-out vs first-expired-first-out picking. FEFO is the perishable norm; it’s an operational picking rule, not a SAP document.
- Cold chain / ambient / chilled / frozen — temperature classes. A warehouse/zone attribute; stock reads can be per zone.
- Shelf life / par level — remaining days of life / target stock level. Par is a reorder heuristic.
- MOQ — minimum order quantity (from a supplier, or imposed on a customer). A rule on the BP/item.
- Drop / route / run — a delivery stop / a day’s set of stops. Each drop = a Delivery Note; the run is operational.
- Shrink / spoilage / wastage — stock lost to spoilage/damage. An inventory write-off (goods issue), not a sale.
- Short / backorder — under-delivered or unfulfilled demand. A delivery line short of the order, or an open order line.
- Recall — pulling a batch from the market → trace by batch to customers who received it.
- EAN / barcode — the retail barcode → an item identifier/barcode field.
Typical asks → what Norma does
- “Quote Bistro Nine for 10 cases of the house sauce.” → Bistro Nine = customer BP, house sauce case = an item + its sales unit, quote = a sales quotation → proposed through the review gate.
- “How much does Kowloon Street owe us and how overdue?” → an A/R aging read on that BP.
- “Which tomato lots expire this week?” → a batch/stock read filtered by best-before.
- “Credit Bistro Nine for the two spoiled cases from Tuesday.” → an A/R credit memo (money back), held for review — not a return.
What Norma will and won’t do here
- Will: read stock/aging/sales, and draft any sales document (quote → order → delivery → invoice → credit) with the human approving the write.
- Won’t: invent prices (they come from the BP’s price list), decide perishability policy, or plan delivery routes — the “run” is an operational grouping, not a SAP object.
Replace this file with your own vocabulary. Keep the habit — your word → the SAP entity — and note the terms that need care. That is all a vertical doc needs to be.