Partial Delivery and Complete Delivery 

A customer may specify that he or she will only accept complete delivery of an order. However, the customer may also agree to accept several partial deliveries for an order or an order item.

You enter the appropriate indicator in the customer master record or in the customer material information record to control this. The indicator is copied into the order. You can change the indicator there. You can also enter the indicator manually in an order. You can also enter the indicator manually in an order. When you process an order or create a delivery, the system checks this indicator to determine whether complete delivery is required or whether partial delivery is permitted.

Complete Delivery Indicator

If a customer requires his or her orders to be delivered completely, you must enter the appropriate indicator.

Entering the Indicator

There are two places where you can enter this indicator:

This indicator belongs to the shipping data for a customer within a sales area. You enter an X in the Complete Delivery field on the shipping screen of the customer master record. The indicator is copied into the order header.

You can also enter the indicator X in the Delivery field on the business data screen of the order header.

How the System Reacts

If you try to partially deliver an order to which you have assigned a complete delivery indicator, the system will inform you that the customer requires complete delivery of the order. All items must be delivered at the same time. The items cannot have different delivery deadlines.

If the system cannot include all the items with the total order quantity in the delivery, you receive a message that the customer requires full delivery.

If you enter the complete delivery indicator X, you must set the partial delivery indicator to C (no partial deliveries allowed).

Partial Delivery Indicator

If a customer allows partial deliveries for his orders, the delivery can be executed in different ways. You enter the respective indicator, depending on the partial delivery agreement that you have made with the customer.

Partial delivery agreements are taken into account during the availability check in the order. These indicators are once again checked when the delivery is created. The delivery must observe the partial delivery agreements in the order.

Possible Indicators

The following partial delivery indicators are defined in the standard version of the SAP R/3 System:

Standard Partial Delivery Indicators

Indicator

Importance

"Blank"

Up to maximum number of partial deliveries permitted are allowed

A

One delivery attempt carried out on requested date

B

One delivery attempt carried out on any date

C

No partial deliveries allowed

D

Any number of subsequent deliveries allowed

Entering the Indicator

You can enter the indicator in various places, such as the:

This indicator belongs to the shipping data for a customer within a sales area. You enter the indicator on the shipping screen in the Part.delivery/item field. The indicator is copied into the order items.

You enter the indicator on the item details screen of an information record in the Part.delivery/item field. The indicator is copied into the order items when the system reads the information record. It does this when the order is created.

You enter the indicator for an order item on the shipping details screen in the Part.delivery/item field.

Maximum Number of Partial Deliveries

The check carried out for the delivery indicators is influenced by the number of partial deliveries permitted for a customer. You enter this number on the same screens in the customer master record and in the order item as you enter the partial delivery indicator, in the Max. part. deliveries field.

If, for example, you specify a maximum number of 3 deliveries, an order item must be fully delivered after three deliveries have been created. If the entire order quantity for the item is not fulfilled once you enter the third delivery, you receive a warning message.

Only if the order item has been assigned the partial delivery indicator D or " " does the entry for maximum number of partial deliveries influence the creation of the delivery.

How the System Reacts

The system responds differently depending on which partial delivery indicator is set in an order item. The different reactions are illustrated by the following example. You create a delivery for an order item of 10 pieces. Only 5 pieces are available.

You can enter as many partial deliveries as you wish for an order item until the maximum number permitted is reached. If the last delivery does not result in the entire outstanding order quantity being reached, you receive a warning message.

In this situation, you can create a partial delivery of 5 pieces for the example. The order item is then regarded as partially delivered. Once the material becomes available again, you would create another partial delivery. This process would continue until the item is fully delivered or the maximum number of deliveries has been reached.

If the delivery quantity on this date is not the same as the outstanding order quantity, you receive a warning message. If the delivery quantity is greater than zero, the system marks the order as complete. This indicator is used, for example, when the customer wants you to ship as much as possible on a particular date. If the delivery quantity falls short of the order quantity, the customer wants the order to be marked as complete (that is, wants no backorders).

This delivery should fully satisfy the order quantity. If the delivery quantity does not correspond to the outstanding order quantity, you receive a warning message.

Any delivery quantity, even zero, completes processing of the order. This indicator can be used, for example, for customers who want no backorders to be generated, even when a delivery quantity is zero.

In Customizing for Sales, you can define for each delivery type whether or not zero delivery quantities are allowed.

If only part of the order quantity can be delivered, a delivery is created and the order item is then regarded as completed.

You can create a delivery for 5 pieces for the order item in the example. The order item is then regarded as completed.

Complete delivery is required for an order item.

You receive a warning message if you try to create a partial delivery of 5 pieces for the order item in the example.

You can enter any number of subsequent deliveries for an order item until the maximum number of partial deliveries permitted is reached. You can over deliver the original order quantity in the process. An order item can only be assigned the completed status manually. After you assign this status, no further deliveries can be created.

You can create a partial delivery of 5 pieces for the order item in the example and then go on to create any number of subsequent deliveries as long as you do not manually mark the item as completed.