Complexities of SAP

Those of you out there who may have only surface experience with this tremendous german software package will concure with the following:

Here I am, a simple Engineer, trying to keep a record of what Purchase Order has been set-up with one specific vendor, and to my amazement have opend up a can of worms no bird would want to swallow. Expecting to find just one reference number I have now been lumbered with at least four (Vendor Number, Contract Number, Purchase Order, Work Order) And to make things easier, I discover that this one particular vendor has actually two vendor numbers (one of which of course was wrong), with the wrong one having a contract number and a PO set up against it, as well as already having some invoices paid out too.

Confused? Well, it could only get better (or worse?). To my further amazement, having informed the data department of their error, I discover later on, that the corrections made were yet again against the wrong Vendor number. But to cut a very loooong story short, the current situation is that I have had three contracts with three different purchase orders set up for the supply of just one item from one and the same vendor. Needless to say, I hoep and pray that it will remain with this third contract. But ... .... just to reflect the cleverness of the data and accounting department, in the interim time a second Purchase Order (PO for those not in the know) was required for a second, different item from the same vendor. So what do I discover ? The wrong vendor number had again been used and the whole procedure has to be repeated again.

Hence the proverbial IT motto - if you can't do it yourself, forget it!
And with SAP you don't want to do it yourself.