Empties Management in Sales and Distribution (SD) 

Purpose

You can use this process in the consumer products industry (for example, in the beverage industry for breweries and bottlers) and in retail (for example, for beverage wholesalers) to process the following:

●     Deliveries of full products with tied and untied empties to customers

When you create an order, a delivery, or an invoice, the system can update empties items (tied and untied empties) on a quantity basis and on a value basis as debits in specific empties tables for each customer.

●     Returns of untied empties and returns of full products with tied empties from customers

As with the delivery of tied and untied empties, the system can use the returns order, the returns delivery, and the credit memo to update the empties data for a customer as credits.

Hybrids of both these use cases are possible, as the empties stocks are updated at item level here.

Prerequisites

●     You have made the settings for empties in Customizing for Sales and Distribution under Billing ® Empties Update.

●     You have entered empties-specific master data in the customer master and in the material master.

●     If you also want to use the bill of material in Materials Management, you must use a bill of material of type 5 for the full product material.

You can create or change the sales bill of material of type 5 for a full product material using transactions CS01 and CS02 respectively.

●     You have created an empties material with a material type for which the empties update has been set up in Customizing.

Process Flow

       1.      Create (returns) order (transaction VA01)

You can enter full products, tied empties, and untied empties in the (returns) order. The system automatically creates a sub item of the full product material for the tied empties by exploding the bill of material of type 5. The untied empty is managed as an independent material in a main item.

Depending on the setting in Customizing for the Empties Update and depending on the item category of the empties item, an empties item may later be relevant for the empties update.

       2.      Create (returns) delivery with goods issue(transaction VL01N)

When creating the (returns) delivery with reference to an order, the system copies the full product, and the tied and untied empties from the (returns) order. You can use an empties-specific delivery note form to output empties data on the delivery note.

The system performs a standard goods issue.

When posting the goods issue, the system updates the material stock tables on a quantity basis for the untied empties only. It does not perform the quantity- and value-based empties update in the specific empties tables for all relevant empties items until the billing document is saved.

       3.      Create invoice or credit memo (transaction VF01)

When creating a credit memo or an invoice, the system copies all invoice-relevant items from the (returns) delivery note, including the tied and untied empties.

With the correct billing document type, the system updates all empties-relevant items in the specific empties tables on a quantity and value basis when saving the invoice or the credit memo.

The system updates billing document types that are not entered in table /BEV1/EMFAKTA in Customizing for Sales and Distribution under Billing ® Empties Update and for which the indicator F is not set in table /BEV1/EMLGOFS.

You can use an empties-specific invoice form to output empties data on the invoice.

       4.      Create balance confirmation for empties(transaction /BEV1/EMA)

In addition, the system can create a balance confirmation for the monthly empties balance for an individual customer.

You can define the form to be used in Customizing for Empties Management. The individual empties fields to be created are also set in Customizing.

       5.      Archiving Empties Data

Using empties archiving, you can remove the data records in the empties tables that are no longer needed for the daily business process from your productive system in compressed form.

See also: Archiving Empties Data.

Example

When selling the full product, the producer leaves his customer tied empties (crates, bottles, Big Bags, gas bottles) for a deposit. You can see in the system the quantity of empties left for each customer in the corresponding empties account.

If the empties belong to the producer, they remain the fixed assets of the producer regardless of their disposal.

If untied empties are sold to another company, no deposit is charged and the empties are no longer fixed assets.