Third-Party Processing 

Purpose

In third-party processing, you place a purchase order with a vendor to deliver goods or perform a service for a third party (for example, for a customer).

This means that your company does not deliver the material. You forward the order to an external vendor instead, who then sends the material directly to the customer and invoices you.

Third-party processing is carried out in the components SD (Sales and Distribution) and MM (Materials Management). By creating a third-party item in a sales order, purchase requisition, or purchase order, you can request that the vendor sends the goods directly to your customer. A document can consist of one or more third-party items.

Activities

Entering a Sales Order

You enter a third-party item in a sales order. The system automatically creates a purchase requisition item for each third-party item in the sales order.

Entering a Purchase Order to Vendor

You enter a purchase order with a third-party item with reference to the requisition third-party item.

Delivering Goods to Customer

The vendor supplies the goods to the customer. To document this step in the system, you can post a statistical goods receipt in Inventory Management. However, this is not compulsory.

Entering a Vendor Invoice

The vendor sends you an invoice. You enter the invoice receipt in Invoice Verification. The invoice receipt is necessary before a billing document can be created in SD.

Creating a Billing Document for the Customer

In SD, you create a billing document for the sales order. Depending on the Customizing settings (whether or not the billing-relevant indicator is set for the item category in SD), you draw up the billing document on the basis of the order quantity or on the basis of the quantity specified in the vendor invoice. If the customer is billed on the basis of the order quantity, you can create the billing document immediately after the sales order is entered. If the customer is billed on the basis of the quantity specified in the vendor invoice, you cannot create the billing document until the vendor invoice has been entered in Invoice Verification.

 

If you do not use the SD component, third-party orders can be handled completely in Materials Management. Here you enter a third-party order (or a purchase requisition) manually with the item category S and account assignment category X. In this procedure, the activities Entering a sales order and Creating a billing document for the customer are eliminated.