Availability Control Actions

Use

Using this function, you can define how the system reacts when an activity (for example, a purchase requisition, purchase order, actual posting) in the system exceeds a tolerance limit. The system can react with various actions: With a warning, with a warning and a mail to the budget manager, or with an error message.

Prerequisites

In Customizing for Funds Management, y ou enter the required settings in the following steps:

  • Define tolerances for availability control

For each action, you can define a relative and/or absolute variance from the budget value as a tolerance limit for a combination of FM area, budget profile, and activity group. It is only possible to define an action once for each activity group. For example, in the Funds reservation activity group, you cannot define two different absolute tolerance limits of EUR 1000 and EUR 2000 for action 1.

  • Maintain commitment type profile

For each value type, you can control the actions of the active availability control by assigning the two commitment types "hard" and "soft" to the commitment value types (for example purchase requisition, purchase order). For more information, see Availability Control for Commitments Postings .

Features

You can use the following actions:

  • Action 1 = Warning :

The system informs you that the tolerance limit is being exceeded. However, the posting in question is not rejected.

  • Action 2 = Warning and Mail - that is, a message to the budget manager:

The system sends a message to the budget manager specified in the master record for the funds center, informing him/her of the funds center and commitment item where the excess has taken place, and of the activity causing it. The amount of the excess and the document number are also specified.

If you are working with year-dependent funds centers, it is possible that the relevant funds center was not valid at the time of posting. During posting, the system first checks whether, for the system date, the budget manager has been entered in the part-time interval of the funds center . Therefore, the system cannot determine the budget manager in this case. The budget manager receives a mail, which is valid for the 01.01 of the fiscal year where the posting is updated, as specified by the valid update profile .

  • Action 3 = Error message :

If a posting leads to the tolerance limit for action 3 being exceeded, the system rejects the posting and generates an error message.

This is true if the commitment type "hard" is to be assigned to a commitment value type. If the commitment type "soft" is assigned, the availability control reacts to an exceeding of the tolerance limits - which should trigger an error message - with merely a warning. The posting can be carried out.

Note Note

In the case of budget increases, the system automatically changes an error message (for a budget structure element) into a warning, allowing the budget increase to be carried out. This only happens if the receiving budget structure element has received budget previously and the funds assignments to this element do not change. This is also the case if a budget object already has funds assignments. Example:

End of the note.

  • You define tolerance limits, either for all activity groups or only for the activity group "Budget". When these limits are exceeded, the system reacts with an error message.

  • You have deactivated availability control and made postings, thus accidentally exceeding the available budget.

  • You activate availability control again and then reconstruct the assigned values using the With log option.

  • You receive a list of all the budget structure elements for which the tolerance limit was exceeded.

  • You can now increase the budget for the budget structure elements on the list.