Handling Differences (SAP Library - Warehouse Management Guide)

Handling Differences

Use

It is possible that you discover stock differences in your warehouse, for example, during inventory or when you are executing a stock transfer.

In a stock transfer, you confirm more goods or less goods than provided for in the transfer order.
Goods turn up at an expected location.
A storage bin is discovered to be empty although there should actually be material in it.

Prerequisites

You have assigned the difference indicator for storage bins in Customizing for Warehouse Management under the path Activities ® Confirmation. Here you define to which storage type and storage bin the stock difference is to be posted. There are three different ways to specify storage bins for a difference indicator:

You assign a pre-defined bin coordinate.

The system debits the specified storage bin with the difference in the column Diff.SB.

You assign a dynamic bin coordinate.

If you set the indicator TO, the system generates the storage bin coordinate on the basis of the transfer order number, should a difference occur during confirmation.

You assign the source storage bin as a bin coordinate to the transfer order item.

If you set the indicator Srce bin, the system debits the source storage bin of the movement type with the stock difference.

If the source storage type does not allow negative stock balances, the system checks whether the stock balance is going to be negative (see Negative Stock Check).

If you use this type of difference indicator, the transfer order item cannot contain a return quantity. Furthermore, you cannot use this difference indicator for stock picks from bulk storage areas.

Features

In the Warehouse Management System (WMS), you can classify stock differences by cause (for example, breakage, theft) using the difference indicator.

If you determine discrepancies during the confirmation process, you post the difference quantity to a logical interim storage type. The interim storage type is not a physical location since it does not occupy space in a warehouse; it serves merely as a type of clearing account.

In order to ensure that you have the same stock levels in Inventory Management (IM) and Warehouse Management (WM), you must pass on to Inventory Management all the stock differences that you determine in WM and subsequently correct them using the difference storage type (see also Clearing Differences).

In the standard version of the Warehouse Management System (WMS), the following two movement types are defined for handling differences:

For differences where the quantity does not exist in the storage bin but is recorded in the books, use movement type 711. In this case, the difference must be cleared from the warehouse and posted to the interim storage type for differences.

For differences where the quantity does exist in the storage bin but is not recorded in the books, use movement type 712. In this case the difference must be cleared from the interim storage type for differences and posted to the warehouse.

As soon as you have confirmed the transfer order item, the system posts the difference to the storage bin that has been specified for the respective difference indicator.

Activities

You create a transfer order with a movement type that is provided for handling differences. The system posts the respective quant to the interim storage type for differences.

After you have posted the difference quantity to the interim storage type for differences, you can clear it from there as an inventory difference and then post the quantity to inventory management.