Procurement of External Requirements: How it
Works 
Purpose
This process describes the procurement of external requirements, that is, the procurement of indirect and direct requirements that have been generated in systems other than SAP Enterprise Buyer (external systems). The process does not cover the planning of requirements in SAP APO.
¡ If you are planning procurement of direct materials in SAP APO, see Direct Materials Scenario with Planning in SAP APO.
¡ If you are planning procurement of direct materials in another system, see Direct Materials Scenario: Other Planned External Requirements.
Prerequisites
Enterprise Buyerhas as a prerequisite that the external requirements have already been approved in the sender systems.
Process
Procurement of an external requirement
1. A planning system sends an external requirement to SAP Enterprise Buyer.
2. Enterprise Buyer carries out sourcing automatically for the requested product. Depending on the Customizing settings, the system transfers the requirement to the purchaser’s Sourcing application. Here the professional user has numerous sourcing instruments at his disposal. He can use these, for example, to create contracts for requirements or to trigger a bid invitation process.
For more information, see the Supplier Relationship Management Implementation Guide (IMG): SRM Server ® Sourcing ® Define Interactive Sourcing for Product Categories.
3. Enterprise Buyer generates a purchase order. You can park the confirmation and invoice for a requirement locally. The execution of the requirement and the subsequent processing of the purchase order can occur locally or in an external executing system.
4. After the purchase order has been created or changed, Enterprise Buyer informs the planning system that the requirement has been met.
See also:
· Procurement of External Requirements