The core reference records, customers, suppliers, products, accounts and employees, that every transaction depends on.
Master data is the set of relatively stable records that transactions reference: customers and their TRNs, suppliers and payment terms, products with units, tax codes and costs, the chart of accounts, employees, price lists, warehouses and bills of materials. A transaction such as an invoice is only as correct as the master data it draws on.
It matters because poor master data is the most common root cause of ERP problems that look like software faults: wrong VAT on an invoice because the product had no tax code, a rejected e-invoice because the customer TRN was missing, stock in the wrong warehouse because the location was duplicated. In the UAE, e-invoicing makes master data quality a compliance matter.
In an ERP project, assign ownership of each master data set to a named person in the business, cleanse before migration, and define who may create or change records after go-live. Build validation into the system: mandatory TRN format, mandatory tax code on products, no duplicate customer names. Review master data quarterly rather than waiting for a problem.
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