Supply Source Determination

 

Supply source determination is part of the purchase price determination function used for calculating sales prices. It is used to find appropriate vendors (sources of supply) for selected articles on a particular organizational level, based on what has been previously defined in the system. Sources of supply can be either internal vendors (distribution centers) or external vendors.

Prerequisites

You can determine whether a supply source should be found when the system determines purchase prices. You can do this in Customizing for Retail Pricing, by defining purchase price determination sequences via the supply source determination type. The following supply source determination types are defined:

Supply source determination type

This means:

A

No supply source determination

B

Supply source determination without error handling

C

Supply source determination with error handling

Various settings in the article and site master (store and distribution center views) are important for supply source determination.

  • Supply source indicator in the article master

    This indicator enables you to control whether the article is to be procured from an external vendor or by transferring it from an upstream organizational unit (such as a distribution center). If both sources of supply are possible, you can define which source of supply has priority. The indicator has the highest priority in supply source determination

    The supply source key can be maintained in thBasic Data tab or in the logistic views for stores and distribution centers.

  • Settings in the Site Master Data

    The purchasing organization responsible for the site is maintained on the Organization/Calendar tab. If no valid vendor is found for the purchasing organization entered in the Organizational data group box, the system uses the purchasing organizations maintained for supply source determination under Purchasing organizations for site.

    Note Note

    The relevant reference purchasing organizations are taken into account for each purchasing organization.

    If no purchasing organization has been maintained for a site, the system uses the purchasing organization assigned to the sales organization to which the site belongs.

    End of the note.

The Purchasing/distribution tab page contains additional parameters relevant to supply source determination:

  • Regular vendor

  • Source list requirement

  • Supply region

  • Special Settings for Two-Step Calculations

    If the article is procured by stock transfer, you must enter settings required for two-step price calculations in the master data of both distribution center and store (see Two-Step Calculations for Stores).

Features

The system uses the supply source determination function to find the relevant vendor (external supplier) or distribution center (internal supplier) for each pricing item (combination of article and organizational level). This involves analyzing data which includes master data fields for the article and site for which the sales price is being calculated.

Note Note

If prices are being calculated for distribution chains, price lists or site groups, the system uses the settings for the reference site.

End of the note.

For the system to determine the purchase price, it usually has to find a source of supply. If the purchase price determination sequence A is used and the supply source is an external vendor, the purchase price is determined on the basis of a purchase price calculation schema. If the source of supply is an internal vendor, the purchase price is determined on the basis of a calculation schema defined for sales price determination.

For further information, see Using the Condition Technique in Calculating and Determining Prices and Purchase Price Determination.

If the system finds more than one possible external vendors as a source of supply, it uses the regular vendor for the fields requiring default values. If no regular vendor exists, it uses the vendor with the least expensive purchase price (based on the purchase price and associated supplementary conditions).

The vendor found and the purchasing organization responsible for the vendor are displayed in the pricing table in list fields LIFNR and EKORG..

Note Note

If required, you can change the vendor in the pricing table. You can also display the allowed vendors as defined by the supply source key by pressing F4 on the vendor list field. To do this, position the cursor on the vendor list field and press F4.

End of the note.

An external and an internal vendor can be entered on the selection screen of the sales price calculation. How the system uses this information depends on which supply source key has the highest priority in supply source determination.

  • If the supply source key 1 applies to the pricing item, the system checks if the external vendor entered here is an allowed source of supply. If it is, this vendor is then used in the calculation. No other supply source parameters, such as the regular vendor indicator, are of any relevance. If the system finds that the external vendor is not an allowed source of supply, it displays an error message and does not continue with the calculation. Any internal vendor entered is of no significance in the case of supply source key 1.

  • In case of supply source key 2, the system checks the internal vendor entered. Any external vendor entered is of no significance here.

  • In the case of supply source key 3, the system proceeds as with supply source key 1 and checks the external vendor. If the system finds that the external vendor is not an allowed source of supply, it performs a second step to find a supply source:

    If an internal vendor was also entered, it runs the supply source determination function for this vendor. If the vendor is not an allowed source of supply, the system issues an error message to this effect.

    If no internal vendor was entered, the system runs the supply source determination function. If an internal vendor is found, this is used in the sales price calculation. If, an external vendor is found, the system does not proceed with the calculation, as a specific external vendor was entered on the selection screen.

  • In the case of supply source key4, the system proceeds as with supply source key 3. The only difference in the above description is that the terms internal and external vendor are swapped. This means, for example, that the first step would be for the system to check the internal vendor. The second step would then differ depending on whether an external vendor was also entered.

    Note Note

    The external vendor is also used to narrow down the articles selected.

    End of the note.