Purchase Order Determination 

Use

The purchasing document for an item in an inbound delivery can be determined automatically when:

• Automatic purchase order determination has been defined in Customizing for the delivery type
• The item is not a sub-item or a generated item
• The material is not a supersession material or a manufacturer part number

If the system finds more than one possible purchasing document in transaction VL60, it displays a dialog box where you can select the appropriate purchasing document. In IDoc processing, the purchase order cannot be determined

Otherwise you can enter the purchasing document manually from the Items tab page of the item overview of the inbound delivery.

Integration

Purchasing document determination is included in inbound processing for shipping notifications. This means that the purchasing document is automatically determined when an IDoc triggers the generation of an inbound delivery. The system must determine only one purchasing document. Otherwise, the inbound delivery is saved without a reference to the purchasing document status On Hold, if permitted). The IDoc status is set to Application Document Posted, and the inbound delivery is included in the work list for incomplete inbound deliveries.

Prerequisites

You have set the indicator for automatic purchasing document determination in Customizing for Service Parts Management (SPM) under Extended Inbound Delivery Processing (SPM) ® Settings for SPM Inbound Delivery Processing.

Features

The system automatically determines the purchasing document once when you create a new item in an inbound delivery. It does not re-determine the purchasing document if you subsequently change the data, even when no purchasing document was determined. You can, however, manually call the determination by choosing PO determination.

The purchasing document is determined in the following steps:

• The number of the purchasing document or the purchasing document item are known

The purchasing document number and the item are transferred to the inbound delivery item when you enter them or when the data is in an IDoc. The system searches for the material number in the purchasing document when only the number of the purchasing document is known. An error is generated for the incoming IDoc when the material is not in the purchasing document or there are several items with the material. The system can save the inbound delivery without the purchasing document when you have made the appropriate settings in Customizing for the delivery type. A dialog box appears when you work online where you can select a purchasing document or save the inbound delivery without the purchasing document.

• The purchasing document number or line number is unknown

The system has to determine the purchasing document when the purchasing document number or the item number cannot be found in one of the two previous steps.

The system uses the source list records, the outline agreements (contracts or scheduling agreements), and the purchasing documents for a material to determine the preferred purchasing document at a particular time. The vendor must be known.

The system first checks whether there is an entry in the source list for the material. Only source list records that are not locked are taken into consideration.

The system uses an outline agreement for a material that is flagged as preferred in the source list, even when there are other possibilities, when:

When no outline agreement for a material is flagged as preferred, the system selects all permissible outline agreements in the source list and all individual purchase orders and scheduling agreements for which delivery is not yet completed and the source list is not a requirement.

The above-mentioned restrictions also apply for checking the documents.

The system generates a message when the source list entry is not valid on the delivery date of the inbound delivery. The type of message depends on the settings in Customizing.

The purchasing document is no longer taken into consideration when an error message is output.

A system issues a warning when the purchasing document is not valid on the delivery date of the inbound delivery.

As you can change and edit existing purchasing documents, the following are not checked:

Whether the vendor is locked

Whether the vendor is marked for deletion

Whether the material is marked for deletion

Whether the purchasing document is subject to a release strategy

If the system determines several sources of supply, it displays a dialog box where you can select the appropriate purchasing document. If you do not select a purchasing document, the system saves the inbound delivery as an inbound delivery on hold, when you have made the appropriate settings in Customizing for the delivery type.

The determination of purchasing documents is included in the inbound IDoc function for shipping notifications. One unique purchasing document must be determined. If this does not happen, the inbound delivery is put on hold.

The system uses the unloading point to distinguish between several valid purchasing documents when processing IDocs. The scheduling agreement is selected in the following sequence:

¡        The scheduling agreement with the transmitted unloading point as the unloading point

¡        The scheduling agreement with the transmitted unloading point as the previous unloading point

A log record is written for the purchasing document determination when the determination fails or leads to potential inconsistencies, that is, when more than one purchasing document is determined and the unloading point is the deciding factor between the purchasing documents. Inbound deliveries with a log are highlighted in the goods receipt posting step.