You can create a contract as follows:
Manually
You enter all data relating to the contract manually.
Using the referencing technique
As reference document (the document you copy from), you can use:
Purchase requisitions
RFQs/quotations
Other contracts
You can also combine the two options. For example, you can copy data from a reference document and then change or supplement this data as required.
Before you create a contract manually, you need the following information:
Account assignment
For each item to be posted to a consumption account, you need the account assignment category and the account assignment data (for example, the number of the cost center to be charged). (See also Account Assignment .)
Plant
As a rule, you need the key of the plant for which the material or service is to be ordered.
However, it is also possible to create a contract without specifying a plant.
A contract created in this way is termed a "centrally agreed contract".
A centrally agreed contract is valid for:
All plants assigned to the responsible purchasing organization
All plants of other purchasing organizations for which the responsible purchasing organization has been defined as reference purchasing organization in Customizing
For further details on this topic, refer to
Centrally Agreed Contracts
and the section
Central/Distributed Purchasing
in
Organization of an Enterprise in the SAP System
.
MPN material number
If you wish to order a material with a manufacturer part number (MPN), you need the MPN material number. ( See also: Manufacturer Part Number (MPN) ).
Purchasing organization/purchasing group
As a rule, a contract is assigned to a certain purchasing organization. When creating the contract, you must therefore specify the purchasing organization and the purchasing group (buyer group). The release order must then also have the same purchasing organization as the contract.
However, you can also set up the system in such a way that a contract belonging to purchasing organization A is also available to purchasing organizations B, C, and D, for example (centrally agreed contract). All the purchasing organizations assigned to the reference purchasing organization A in Customizing can then release (that is, order) materials against this contract.
For more on this topic refer to Organization of an Enterprise in the SAP System and The Centrally Agreed Contract .
Source list
If there is a source list requirement for the plant, you must first maintain the contract and then the source list. Otherwise you will not be able to issue any release orders against the contract.
You can create the source list when maintaining the contract (from the master data menu, which you invoke by choosing
Creating source lists is discussed in the section Source List
Vendor
The vendor must have a vendor master record. You enter the number of the vendor master record when you create a contract.
See also:
Creating an Outline Agreement by Copying or Using the Referencing Technique