Data Interchange

Use

SAP provides interfaces allowing data to be exchanged between your system and the vendor’s and for importing external standard service catalogs from data carriers into the SAP System.

You can exchange the following data with your service providers:

RFQs and quotations
Service master data, contracts, purchase orders, and service entry sheets

The following media are available:

File transfer protocol (FTP)
SAP e-mail or Internet mail
Data carriers (diskettes, CDs)

Standard Service Catalog (SSC)

Standard service catalogs are catalogs listing standardized services that are frequently used in specific areas.

The service descriptions are broken down into individual text modules, each with its own number. The standard service number is assembled from the numbers of all the text modules that are necessary to uniquely define the service in question. The advantage of this is that very many similar service descriptions can be stored in the system without any data redundancy.

Standard service numbers are master records which, like service master records, can be used in the creation of purchasing documents.

In German-speaking countries, a large number of standard service catalogs are offered on data carriers (e.g. masonry work and electrical work in the field of construction services). These catalogs are structured according to standards laid down by the German Gemeinsamer Ausschuss Elektronik im Bauwesen (GAEB ) (which can be roughly translated as the Joint Committee for Electronics in Building Construction ).

The advantage of such standard service catalogs is that you do not have to compile and maintain voluminous service specifications in the system yourself. Instead you can simply import already existing ones into the SAP System from data carriers. However, the interface of the external standard service catalog must be adjusted to the SAP format for such catalogs.

Working with standardized service specifications has the further advantage of straightforward communication with a wide variety of service providers.

For more on this topic, refer to Standard Service Catalog (SSC)

RFQs and Quotations

Instead of sending RFQs to your service providers in the conventional way, you can send the RFQs created in the SAP System to potential service providers via diskette, for example. The service providers can then import the data into their systems and subsequently enter their prices against the relevant items. They then return the completed quotations and you adopt their data in the SAP System.

This approach can save you a lot of time and effort in sending voluminous specifications containing possibly thousands of services to a large number of potential bidders and then entering the data you receive in response.

Entry of Services Performed

Exchanging data with the service provider enables you to considerably simplify and accelerate the process of entering (recording) the services actually performed.

The process is as follows:

You transmit service specifications to the vendor in the form of purchase orders, contracts, or service master records, via e-mail for example.
When the service has been performed, the vendor creates the service entry sheet and sends it to you, via FTP for example.
You import the entry sheet into the SAP System.
You then carry out the acceptance process. The release (approval) procedure, which you can define according to your own criteria, is especially suitable in this connection.
You employ the Evaluated Receipt Settlement (ERS) procedure.

This means: you do not wait for invoices from service providers, but pay directly via credit memos based on the data contained in the service entry sheet.

The advantages of this approach are as follows:
- You have no data entry and invoice verification effort.
- The likelihood of variances between the service entry sheets and the invoice is minimal, since the entry sheets originate from the service providers themselves.
- The service provider receives payment without delay.