Claim
Management 
Use
Claims are a new type of notification for your project processing. They are a means of documenting cost or schedule variances from your project plan, naming who is responsible for dealing with the variance, and initiating follow-up activities. For example, you can create a claim if difficulties with a supplier lead to delays. You enter the following,among other things, in the claim:
- Reason for the variance
- Responsible person or group
- Actions and measures initiated because of the variance
The Project System includes the following Claim Management functions:
- Create and display claims
If you detect a
variance from your project plan, you create a claim in the R/3 System or using
an internet application. That is, you can document the variance in any
computer with Internet access, not just in the R/3 System. This makes for
easier entry - for example, by means of a laptop at construction site, on
customer premises, or when travelling.The user interface, which you can
configure to suit your individual requirements, also makes claim entry
easier.
You can assign the
claim to a project, either when you create it or at a later time. This
assignment enables you to use the information system to display all claims
created for a project or WBS element.
You can enter
detailed explanations of the claim in the form of long texts, which you can
then group per various classifications by, for example, assigning the reasons
for and consequences of a variance to different long text types. Four long
text types are available; you can give them any names you want. You can access
information per long text type.
You assign detailed
additional information to the claim in the form of business or technical
documents.
You can access all
the information you have entered for the claim at any time, using the R/3
System. You can access the most important information via the Internet. This
ensures that everyone involved in the project can access claim information at
any time, even if they do not have direct access to the R/3
System.
- Process claims
As claims usually
lead to additional costs, you can enter the costs you expect to occur when you
create the claim, or later when more detailed information is available. You
have the following options:
- You enter the costs estimated, claimed, and accepted manually.
- You create a unit costing from the claim, or link the claim to an existing unit costing.
The R/3 System
offers two high-performance claim processing tools - status management and
workflow. By linking claim management to status management, you can make claim
processing dependent on the relevant status. For example, you can stipulate
that a claim may only be closed when all tasks are completed. With workflow,
you can have information distributed automatically within your business. For
example, if you create a claim that requireds approval, the person who must
give the approval receives a work item in his or her inbox.
When you have
processed and closed your claim, you can archive it. A deletion program
deletes the database records of the successfully archived claim.
- Evaluate claims
The worklists for
notifications and tasks contain an overview of the claims to be processed and
the related tasks.
For detailed evaluations of the claims, refer to the overview reports for the claim in the information system.
For detailed evaluations of the claims, refer to the overview reports for the claim in the information system.
There is also an
evaluation program available to analyze the data from claims already
archived.
Effects on Customizing
Before implementing Claim Management, you need to make the following settings in customizing:
- Define catalogs, fill them, and classify them per code groups
When you create a
claim, you fill the input fields for which a particular number of input
options are available. You define the number and type of input options using
appropriate claims, which you create yourself. For example, you create a
catalog that describes events which can cause variances (such as human error
or force majeure) or possible places where errors occur (such as construction
sites).
The catalogs are
divided into code groups. The catalog "Error Location" can contain the code
groups Construction Site with codes for sites A and B and
Warehouse with the codes for warehouse C and D.
- Define report structure
As you can use your
catalogs for all notification types in the R/3 System, you can use the report
structure to assign the permitted code groups to a particular notification
type.
- Define notification type
The standard system
we deliver contains the notification types "Claim on customer or vendor" and
"Claim by customer or vendor". You can create more notification types if you
require them.
- Set up screen masks for your notification types
You stipulate how
the input/screen temple is to look for each notification type.
- Define number range for notification type
You assign a number
range to one or more notification types.
- Define partner structure for notification type
You use the partner
structure to stipulate which partner roles (examples: ordering party, person
responsible) are allowed or required for claim processing. bzw. obligatorisch
sind.
- Stipulate priority types
The system uses the
priority type to which you assign a relative start and finish date to find the
desired start and finish date, taking the entry date as its starting
date.
- Define codes for long texts
You can assign up to
four long texts to a claim and call them what you like. You use the catolog to
assign a code and code group to each long text.
As customizing is preconfigure by SAP, you do not need to maintain customizing if you want to use the standard Claim Management delivered.
See also
For more information, go to the SAP library and choose Project System > Claim.
For more information on archiving, go to the SAP library and choose CA Archiving Application Data > PS Project System.