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Purchasing: Distributed Contracts

Description

As of Release 3.0, in an SAP system you can create contracts that are to be made available to other independent SAP systems. Since the central system (in which the contract is created) and the local ones are different R/3 systems, the data must be kept separately in each system. In order for changes to be continuously reflected in all systems and for identical data to be available to participating systems at all times, data is exchanged via SAP Application Link Enabling (ALE).

Procedure

In the SAP System of the "Metal Corporation" in Pittsburg, a contract for 10,000 tons of "steel 1" is created without specification of a plant. The company has a plant in Minneapolis, another one in Atlanta, and a subsidiary, "Southern Metal Co.", in Houston. The latter represents a separate company code. The Metal Corporation is the central system, the Minneapolis plant is local system no. 1, the Atlanta plant is local system no. 2, and the subsidiary (Southern Steel) is local system no. 3.

The central SAP system makes the contract available to the local systems, that is to say, it distributes it to enable the latter to procure material "steel 1" by issuing release orders. The contract is transmitted to the local systems by means of an IDOC via ALE, and is imported into each individual system.

The Minneapolis plant (local system 1), issues a release order for 2000 tons of steel 1 against the contract. After this, the quantity that can still be released against the contract is 8000 tons. This information must be passed on to the central system. For this purpose, an IDOC is transmitted to the central system, causing the release order documentation there to be updated. At the same time, the release order documentation is updated in the local system that issued the release order (quantity released: 2000 tons).

The Atlanta plant creates the next release order for 1000 tons. As a result, the release order documentation is updated both centrally (quantity released according to Pittsburg documentation: 3000 tons) and locally (quantity released according to Atlanta documentation: 1000 tons).

The release order documentation in the local systems is limited to the relevant entity's own release orders. Only in the central system is data on all release orders combined in collective release order documentation. This means that the central system assumes control over the degree of fulfillment of the contract.

As soon as the complete quantity has been released against the contract, the central system can set the blocking indicator, thus preventing the creation of further release orders.

The subsidiary (which represents a separate company code) can issue release orders against the central contract in the same way as the plants, provided that it uses its own purchasing organization with the appropriate company code assignment in doing so.

Change system parameters in customizing

Distributed contracts are distinguished from standard contracts by means of the agreement type. To be able to distribute contracts, you must do the following in MM Customizing:

Set up agreement type
For more on this topic, please refer to IMG up document types and number ranges

Set up message type
For more on this topic, please refer to IMG Access sequences.

Set up purchasing organizations

In this connection, please read the sections on setting up purchasing organizations under "Environment Data and Organizational Units" in the full version of the Implementation Guide.

Set up purchasing groups
For more on this topic, please refer to IMG Create purchasing groups.

Set up number range for distributed contracts
For more on this topic, please refer to IMG Set up document types and number ranges .

SAP Recommendation

Create a separate number range for local release orders in the central system. Since the central system assigns new numbers for the local release orders, it makes sense to differentiate between release orders relating to distributed contracts and other release orders.

Note

To set up the data specific to distribution (for example, the partner profile) please refer to the documentation on Application Link Enabling (ALE).