Questions related to ---Item category? Release procedure ? Different movement types ?

24.Question: Is it possible to create a new Item category?

Answer:

 No, its not possible to create a new item category whereas SAP has given predefined item categories for all business scenario.

As I know, we cannot and for developing new category contact ABAP team id they can. But its not required to create new.

              

       25.Question: Difference between with and without classification:

       Answer: Without Classification:

Here we have only SAP predefined conditions like price,         

       Material group, Plant and account category

       Only item level is possible

       Without classification is for PR only      

       Coming to with classification, 

we have our conditions and we can maintain as per our company                    

       Standards, either with header or item level.

       With classification we have PO, Contract, Scheduled agreement and RFQ

We are using with classification method and not sure the working off without classification     method.

26.Question: Configuration step for header and item level release procedure for PR?

Answer: Configuration is same for both header and item level release process.

Whereas we have overall release check in release group and document type settings where we have check option as overall release.

Both the checks mention as header and if both the checks are not there then its item level.

27.Question: Is it possible to configuration PO item level release procedure?

Answer:

No, its not possible to maintain the release procedure for PO item level, Item level release procedure is possible only for PR.

With classification method has PO header level release only possible.

28.Question: Is it possible to assign more release classes in the release group step.

Answer: We can have N number of release groups but only one release class is possible.

For PR, we can have 2 release classes in the release group.

29.Question: Maximum how many release Quotes possible:

Answer: we have maximum of 8 release quotes possible.

30.Question: What is the purpose of changeability function in release procedure?

Answer: changeability function acts as a retriggering of PR/PO approval process.

We have 4 options, which are cannot be changed and new release strategy if there is a value change.

31.Question: Difference between 122, 124 & 161 Movement types?

Answer:  122 – return to vendor

Where we will return to vendor with same document number in which invoice is not paid.

124- return to vendor.

In this vendor we will return the goods from GR blocked stock to vendor, so system we need to use movement 124

161- return to vendor.

Where we return to vendor with other document number which contains return check in PO, where invoice is paid to vendor.

32.Question: Is it possible to create new movement types and what is the requirement of business?

Answer: Yes, we can create new movement type as per our business requirement.

Example: we have our customized movement types for scrap.

Where 551 will be for external scrap and Z51 is for internal scrap storage, so as per the requirement we will create new movement type, but we will not disturb the existing movement types.

Questions related to---PIR? External documents ? Significance? PR/PO new document?

20.Question: Is it possible to create PIR without material master?

Answer: 

Yes, its possible to create a PIR without material master and many cases we will create PIR foe example for consumables and even for services we can maintain and its possible.

Where we have material group, for every material the material group is mandatory and if there is no material then material group should be there to create PIR.

Here we need to maintain material group and short text for identification and price will be pulled from PIR through this.

21.Question: What is the difference between Internal and external purchasing document and how many are there?

Answer: 

PR is an internal document, where we will share these documents internally.

PO/Contract/Scheduled agreement/RFQ is external document and even invoice is also, where we will share the documents to the vendor.

22.Question: Significance of PR and PO document type:

Answer: PR document type controls:

Number ranges, filed selection, release procedure header/Item level, Allowed item categories for document type.

PO Document type:

PO Document type controls

Number ranges, Field selection and Allowed item categories

23.Question: Is it possible to create a new document for PR and PO and in which scenario we  will create?

Answer: Yes, it’s possible to create a new document for PR and PO, and while implementation we did few document type creations by copying from existing document types.

Document type explains the type of procurement business and as per the business requirements we can create new as we handle different types of procurement activities like raw material procuring and in raw material we have hydrocarbon procurement and many high value types, so each type we have different document types.

Even we can create PO document type, where we should divide what type of procurement we are doing more and which chemicals we are procuring, so all these will be useful for reporting purpose and analysis and improvements to the business.

Scenario: Our company acquired small company and they have procurement related to IT, so for easy analysis and reporting purpose we created new document type and maintained new valuation class to reflect the new GL account.

For which business scenario, we will suggest source list and Quota arrangement?

19.Question: For which business scenario, we will suggest source list and Quota arrangement?

Answer: Source list:

We will suggest the source list in terms of agreement-based purchasing.

For specific plants, they require material from only approved vendors, then we will suggest source list as mandatory for plants.

When there is a requirement to block single material/single vendor then we can suggest source list to use.

Forecast based MRP planning- Check

Quota arrangement:

When they are using MRP run with multiple vendors, then its better to go with Quota.

Even in terms of agreement also they can go with quota arrangement, because there will be lot of savings and dependency will not there on single vendor.

Mostly, when we are working with multiple vendors scenario.

What is the significance of fixed indicator and block indicator in source list?

18.Question: What is the significance of fixed indicator and block indicator in source list?

Answer: Fixed indicator:

It explains procurement should be done only from this vendor, where its through MRP or Contract or manual.

Ticket: User wants to check the fix for 2 contracts, where he had 2 agreements and he wants to check for both and he is not sure it is having Quota or not.

Solution: We have advised check the source list can be done for single vendor and its not possible for multiple, if required don’t maintain fix indicator and if your quota to work then tick should not be present.

Block Indicator:

If we want any vendor to get blocked for purchasing, then it will not allow this vendor for purchasing.

If we agreements/MRP and manual it will block the vendor for all the purchasing activities.

Ticket: User wants to maintain block indicator of source list for 100-200 items.

Solution: Using LSMW

What is the purpose of MRP indicator in Source list?

17.Question: What is the purpose of MRP indicator in Source list?

Answer:

 MRP- Material requirement planning

If we want MRP run should take their source automatically then MRP indicator should setup and for schedule lines to be generated automatically if MRP is set for 2.

By MRP process we can automate the full procurement, where from PR through MRP with source and PO through background jobs and this completes the PR-PO process automate.

Ticket:

 User raised a ticket for Quote arrangement, where Quota is not working as maintained.

Resolution: 

As we analyzed the query, we see users use to fix the source list and they use to remove the indicator as per there clients request, to work Quote we need source list with no fix indicator and MRP indicates should be 1.

What is the purpose of source list and Quote arrangement?

16.Queston: What is the purpose of source list and Quote arrangement?

Answer: Source list:

To find the list of vendors available/Approved vendors for the material and plant.

We can manage the vendor by blocking or fixing it as per the requirement, Block means feature procurement doesn’t contain any orders to that vendor and fix means all orders will be placed to that vendor.

Ticket: sometimes users use to raise the ticket that for plant they need source list mandatory because PO’s creating with PR vendors directly by users.

Solution: we will maintain SPRO- source list requirement /plant level, so that without maintain source list the users cannot create PO.

!! Quota Arrangement:

Quota arrangement works on a formula where for 1 material it will allocate the source of supply

Or else- Managing multiple vendors for a material by based on formula, lowest quota vendor will be selected for source.

Earlier my company they use to have multiple vendors for single material and users just need to assign the percentage and rest will be taken care by SAP.

It’s always – Allocated Quantity + Base Quantity/Quota percentage

Ticket: User has been raised a ticket that he has request to add a vendor in Quote, but he wants sequence to be continued without disturbance.

Resolution: If they want sequence of vendor selection not to be distributed then maintain base Quantity that equals to Allocated quantity of other vendors, so that for 3 vendors the sequence of order will not disturb.

Types of Info-category in PIR?

15.Question: Types of Info-category in PIR?

Answer: we have 4 types of info-category

1.      Standard

2.      Sub-Contracting

3.      Consignment

4.      Pipeline

Standard- 

Where PIR is optional, but if we maintain PIR there are many conditions flow from PIR to PO.

Price/Lead time/MOQ/Tolerance

Sub-Contracting:

 it consists the material price that belongs to consumables, which will be useful to prepare finished goods. Its mainly deals with subcontracting.

Price of main components and child components.

Consignment:

 few materials we use store in plant for future purpose which belongs to vendor, those material prices are maintained in this category and its Mandatory to maintain.

Pipeline: prices will be stored for materials that belongs to Oil/gas/Wire

What is the purpose of PIR from business angle:

14.Queston: What is the purpose of PIR from business angle:

Answer: 

 Purchase info record acts as a source of information for the purchasing department as we know it’s a master data which contains the vendor and material information, price related/subrange/lead time/tolerance/ERS/GR based IR and even rounding profile.

Info record is mandatory for consignment and pipeline where MRKO report pulls the price from Info-record if not system throughs an error.

Ticket: We use to get lot of tickets related to PIR for UOM discrepancy, Payment is not done.

Solution: There is no action from functional side, where for PO GR/IR is already done, so we requested as – please make reverse all the documents posted and correct the PO by deleting the PIR and repost all documents.

So that issue will gets resolved and after correcting the PIR for long term issues.

Use of partner function and vendor sub-range?

13.Question: Use of partner function and vendor sub-range?

Answer: Partner function explains the role of partner, like one central vendor has many partners where few are OA/GS/PI- OA- where we use to order by sending output(Normally output will be sent to OA address), GS- the partner who carries out goods and supplies to plant from the vendor plant, PI- to which partner the billing should be done.

13.1 How do you create partner functions?

Answer: First we will define partner functions as per our company standards

Once we have partner functions, we will assign to Account group, now we will define a partner schema and assign to vendor account group to get displayed in vendor master.

Vendor Sub-range:

As we have business partner to maintain our business, they may have child companies as per there standards and once they have, we use from procure from child vendor to our local plant to decrease the costs and customs. 

`

In this case we can maintain the vendor sub-range to the central vendor like sub-range in purchasing and partner functions.

Purchasing is for allowing local currencies to pay to the vendor and partner functions is for maintaining OA and GS as local vendor (local vendor means company plant place).

What are the requirements to maintain sub-range?

We must do settings in vendor account group- vendor sub-range/Plant.

Assign partner schema in account group which we defined as per A/c group.

Ticket: User tried to add Z5 as partner to PO, where it shown error partner not allowed.

Resolution: First partner needs to be maintained for that document type as per the business approvers, then we can add it to account group upon approvals.

Level 3 ticket: Region in vendor master cannot be controlled by field settings:

Solution: Worked with ABAPer to maintain that field setting as mandatory by customizing the existing code.

Name important material master and vendor master table names?

12.Question: Name important material master and vendor master table names?

Answer: 

Few of the important material master tables are:

MARA- Material master general data

MARC- Material master plant data

MARD- Material master storage location data

MAKT- Material master description

Vendor master:

LFA1- General data for vendor

LFB1- Company code for vendor

LFB2- Purchasing data for vendor

LFB1- Purchase organization data

Scenario:

In our company users don’t have se16n, so they requested the consultant for vendor list where for how many vendor communications is email and fax.

Scenario 2: 

Output condition record: they are many conditions 2 maintain an output condition record, users use to duplicate the OCR by maintaining in different conditions.

Finally, they use to request us to delete the duplicate OCR, so just we need to find out the OCR duplication and give it to them or else we will inform to Superuser to do this request.

Resolution for future: 

we informed to client that we can use one or two conditions to maintain OCR, so that there will be no duplication.

What is the significance of procurement type in material master and its types?

11.Question: What is the significance of procurement type in material master and its types?

Answer: Procurement types tells what type of procurement.

We have Internal procurement and external procurement also both, we can control this in 2 ways.

1.OMS2

2.Material master-MRP2

OMS2- mention Internal/External purchase orders

0/1/2-Options- If required for all materials under this one.

MM01-MRP2

Procurement type:

F- External procurement with material level (One material)

X- Both Procurement types

Blank- No procurement

Scenario: 

Once the buyer requested to change the procurement type for 1 material type, where he received a workflow contract from stakeholders in that procurement type mentioned as X and buyer wants it as F, because of region issues.

Solution: 

We mentioned X is both procurement like internal and external and again we requested please check the plants is it within your region or out of scope region.

Let me know if it’s a wrong routing then we will forward this ticket to Basis consultant to look forward.

Significance of material type and vendor account group?

10.Significance of material type and vendor account group?

Answer: 

Material type and vendor account group controls many things related to that master data.

Material type:

Material type defines the type of material they are dealing, the main significance involves

1.Number ranges (Internal or External)

2.Field selection (Which field to be mandatory)

3.Quantity and value updating (It involves checking whether the material will be managed on Quantity basis or value basis)

Eg: if there is quantity check then when we post MIGO, the material document will gets posted

When you check both quantity and value then both material document and account document get posted.

4.Internal or external purchase orders allowed or not.

5.User departments (Which departments can use this material for business purpose)

6.Valaution classes (respective valuation class will get triggered)

7.Price Control

Vendor Account group:

Vendor account group controls many things

1.Vendor master number ranges

2.Field selection

3.One-time vendor (It mentions the vendor is one-time vendor or regular vendor)

4.Vendor Subrange (Subrange for purchasing and partners)

5.Partner functions

In Your previous project how many material types you are using and examples?

9.Question: In Your previous project how many material types you are using and examples?

Answer:

 In our previous projects we were using around 40 material types, we have in raw materials around 10 different types of Raw and even for consumable materials we have material type, and few mentioned below.

Raw material:

ROH- ZROH Raw materials

ZROS- Raw Serial material

ZRND- Research material

Packaging:

VERP- ZPAK-Packaging

ZPAS- Packaging serial material

Semi-Finished:

HALB-

ZNRW- Semi finished

Finished:

FERT- Finished

Few other similar material types are:

ZFIP- Finished marketing

ZFIS-Finished serial material

ZHDC- Hydrocarbons

ZINV- Inventory materials

ZLEI- Returnable package material

Y-Series:

YQBM- Bulk Materials

YQBP- By-Products

YQCP- Co-Products

YQNM- Non valuated materials

YQPM- Pipeline materials

YQSM- Sample materials

ZALE- Sale material

As per the business requirements can we have new material type? Requirements

8.Question: As per the business requirements can we have new material type? Requirements

Answer: 

Yes, it’s possible to create a new material type and there are many reasons for that.

Let’s take an example, where we are dealing with packaging materials, and sometimes we will receive packaging materials with seals because there are few material seals is mandatory.

For packaging sealed materials, we need a new material type – that name should reflect as packaging sealed.

The material type controls many things to manage business like filed selection with number ranges/User departments /Internal and external procurement/Account determination/Price control- as per the requirements we will adjust above settings.

Example 2: When we are dealing with raw materials, we have many types of raw materials and our company they use to divide with hydrocarbons as separate material type and accounting entries also different because those materials are high value and they want to monitor separately.

8.1 Question: Mention SAP defined material types:

       Answer: ROH/FERT/HALB/VERP/PIPE/HAWA

Important: UNBW- Non valuated materials

What is the requirement to have multiple valuation class for 1 material type?

7.Question: What is the requirement to have multiple valuation class for 1 material type?

Answer: 1 material type contains 1 account category reference, and account category reference contains multiple valuation classes.

So, while creating material through account category reference we see some valuation classes will pop-up, as we are handling material types the hierarchy of material types contains group/class- so to differentiate financially to which GL account it should hit.

*Multiple valuation classes explain different type of materials in one material type.

Electronics- we have Phones/Laptop and Washing machine/Refrigerator.

Scenario: Ticket has been created for one material type, where there organization has acquired 1 small company which belongs to IT and this has been taken as roll out project and asked for creation of new material type for IT goods, so that they can maintain new valuation class(Scenario Assumed) by using existing material type.

In those we will define a new valuation class and assign to account category reference for that material type to reflect in material master.

7.1: Question: What is the requirement to have multiple valuation class for 1 material

Answer:

·        one material we use for purchasing/sales then we would like to have 2 valuation class for 1 Material.

·        One material we have separate Quality like Q1/Q2/Q3, the prices needs to be differentiated by split valuation.

·        One material that procured from vendor and same material it may be manufactured in same plant then prices needs to be maintained differently.

But for this split valuation must be activated in the configuration.

How to change vendor account group? Effects

6.Question: How to change vendor account group? Effects

A) We can change the vendor account group in XK07, whereas before changing we need to remember few things.

·        Account group controls number ranges/Field selection, both the account groups should have the same filed selection to process further.

·        Partner schema has partner functions which must be same for both account groups-Its good to have a same partner schema for both account groups, if not then both partner schema contains same partner functions.

Normally once we tell all this prerequisite to business user, they would request to create a new vendor by deleting the old vendor.

If they accepted to delete, then follow below.

Open PR/PO

GR Pending/Waiting for Invoice

Pending payment, ensure above 3 conditions are fully closed then process further.

Scenario: 

Changing vendor to internal vendor from external vendor.

1.      Preferred vendor to non-preferred vendor (Both the ways possible)

2.      Changing vendor account group from KRED to ZARG.

Question: 

what are the SAP predefined account groups?

Answer: 

KRED-Vendors

CPD- One-time vendor (Int number assignment)

CPDL- One-time vendor – Ext number assignment

LIEF- Vendors

Vendor master is created at what level?

5.Question: Vendor master is created at what level?

Answer: We can create vendor master at Company code level and Purchase organization level.

Company code level: Basic data of vendor and Accounting will be company code data

Purchase Organization level: Basic data of vendor and purchasing data will be maintained in this level.

Example:

if we are creating a PO, then vendor master should contain purchasing data as mandatory.

If we are invoicing any vendor for payment, then accounting view with bank details need to be maintained, without this data invoice will not be paid.

We can have 2 different vendors for this, 1 vendor for purchasing and 1 vendor for accounting.

Scenarios:

If we want to block any vendor for payment purpose, then we can block in FK05

Where accounting data gets blocked and no payment process further, whereas if we want only purchasing block and not finance block then we can achieve in MK05.

Example 1:

Once User has blocked the vendor for purchasing and raised a ticket that he wants to create PO for plant with that block.

Resolution: Even this vendor belongs to same purchase organization, the user cannot create PO with this vendor with any plants.

So, we can request him to block at source list level, so that only that plant with purchase organization will gets blocked and you can create a PO for the same.

Single plant- Sigle vendor-1 Purchase organization= we can block in source list and not in MK05/FK05