The Status Control function enables you to control important statuses during trading contract processing. You can display the overall processing status of a trading contract and check individual statuses in status view.

For example, the following statuses may be important with a trading contract:

• Waiting for someone’s approval
• Approved
• Changed after approval
• Closed

There are two kinds of status:

1. System status

System statuses are pre-defined in the SAP System and control the process of a trading contract. Whenever you process a trading contract, the system checks the status and automatically sets the proper status. The following system statuses are available in the system:

Application statuses for the trading contract can be defined freely according to your own business scenario. Each application status is assigned a corresponding system status.

Then the application status is assigned to the contract directly, which fulfills two functions:

• Informs you that this contract has reached a certain processing level (for example: "Trading Contract has been released")

• Determines whether the following transaction may or may not be carried out (for example: "Creating sales and/or purchase orders is allowed")

The Release Check function controls consistency between a trading contract and follow-on documents. A traffic-light signal is provided:

• Yellow: The trading contract is not approved
• Green: The follow-on documents have been generated successfully; consistent
• Red: The follow-on documents have not been created yet; inconsistent

The Release Check works when you save the document

Go to the status screen during trading contract processing to see the overall status of the trading contract and the consistency between the trading contract and follow-on documents. The combination of the two functions controls the overall status of a trading contract. You can set a status manually, or have the system set the status automatically. The Release Check changes accordingly.

For example, when you change a trading contract after follow-on documents have been generated, the system automatically sets the status to ‘Change after approval’ (system status). The Release Check turns to ‘Red’ showing you an inconsistency between the trading contract and the follow-on documents. You, therefore, need to re-release the follow-on documents.

When the status is set to an application status that corresponds to system status "3" or "7", this contract is closed and no more changes can be made.