Processing Quotations 

Use

You can create and process quotations in SAP CRM, and convert them into sales orders.

Prerequisites

You have defined Quotations as a transaction type in Customizing, and made the required settings.

Menu path in the Implementation Guide: Customer Relationship Management ® Transactions ® Basic Settings ® Define Item Categories. Choose the option “Initial in Quotation Status” for the Relevant for Quotations flag for the required item categories.

When you have made these settings, and have created a transaction with one of these item categories, it takes on the Quotation status.

You can also set up transaction types that are only allowed when you create quotations, and define texts, actions and user statuses specific to quotations for these transaction types. In Customizing for item category determination, you define that only quotation items may be entered during the creation of these transaction types.

In the standard, the transaction type Quotation (AG) is set so that the item category Quotation (AGN) is determined as the default value, meaning that items are automatically entered as quotation items. The functions for quotations can be found, however, at item level.

Features

Sales Probability

You can assign a sales probability to a quotation item. It flags the probability that an order will be placed, and is used when calculating the expected total net value in dynamically cumulated document data. Sources for sales probability are:

·        The general sales probability of a quotation item defined in Customizing for the item category

·        The success rate of a product

·        Manual entries in the quotation

If the sales probability is 70 %, 70 % of the order quantity is also reserved.

Validity

The system can determine validity data automatically from the Date Profile created for the quotation.

You can also enter validity data in the transaction item manually. At item level, you can enter dates that differ from the header. If you do not do this, the dates in the transaction header are automatically valid for the quotation item.

See Dates in Business Transactions.

Alternative Items

You may not want to commit yourself to a specific product when you create the quotation, but would rather offer the customer a list of several products. Quotation items can be combined into groups, from which the customer can decide on an alternative. For all alternative items, enter the item number of the offered products in the Alternative item field in the item overview. The item you enter here is the leading item when the system calculates the expected product value and net value. When you copy or convert a quotation to a sales order, the transaction remains incorrect if more than one of the items listed for selection were copied.

Actions

Quotations can be linked to actions. For example, you can specify the following:

·        A quotation is automatically completed when the validity is exceeded

·        The follow-up action “Create business activity” is triggered shortly before the validity expires

·        A query is created shortly after the validity start date, to gather initial feedback from the customer

·        The Workflow for Automatic Release can be started from a start condition (for example, net value larger than 100 euros and quotation has status “for release”)

·        Quotations of lower values are released immediately

You can find more information under Actions in CRM Enterprise.

Availability Check in Quotations

Quotation items are checked with a separate ATP Profile for availability, which you can define in Customizing for the item category. You have the following options:

·        If a check is not yet to be carried out in the quotation phase, leave the ATP profile quotation field blank.

·        If the quotation is to be checked as the sales order was, enter the same profile for the ATP quotation as for the general ATP profile for the sales order.

·        If the quotation is to be checked simulatively, that is, confirmed date and quantity are determined, but a reservation is not created, enter an ATP profile that is set in SAP APO for internal, not external requirements update.

Note that the system does not check and confirm with the complete quotation quantity, but with a percentage of this quantity that is calculated from the sales probability.

You can find more information under Availability Information in the Quotation (Using SAP APO).

Success Rate

Part of the quotations created in SAP CRM are accepted by the sold-to parties, so that orders become follow-up documents, for example. Both the quotation data and the order data is forwarded to the SAP Business Information Warehouse (SAP BI). Here, the success rate of a product can be estimated.

You can regularly schedule a report to update the success rate in CRM into the Success rate field of the product master. From here, it is sent to the quotation as a default value for the sales probability for items created in the future for this product.

Accepting Quotations

You can accept a quotation in two different ways, and thereby convert it into a sales order.

·        You create an order with reference to a quotation. In this case, there are two transaction documents: quotation and order.

You can define at item category level whether users are allowed to create multiple orders with reference to a quotation or only one, as well as the quantity that is transferred to the sales order. You make these settings in the Implementation Guide under Customer Relationship Management ® Transactions ® Basic Settings ® Define Item Categorieson screen Customizing Item in fields Multiple References and Fixed Quantity.

·        You convert a quotation to an order by choosing Convert to order. This means that the status of the item is changed. The initial quotation item is converted to a sales order item. In this case, the quotation does not remain as a separate transaction document.

It is only possible to convert a sales order into a quotation if the transaction has not yet been transferred to SAP ECC, or if the distribution lock has been set.

Completing Quotations

A quotation is completed:

·        automatically, once the validity period is exceeded

·        when all items were transferred to one or multiple orders

·        following a customer rejection

Approving Quotations

To avoid a quotation with unclear conditions being sent to the customer, you can use a workflow procedure for releasing (approving) quotations. Information is available under Workflow for Approving Quotations and Workflow for Automatically Releasing Quotations.

Printing Quotations

When you print a sales transaction, the quotation items are displayed in a separate block.

Note that the quotation becomes binding when you print and, if applicable, automatically deliver the quotation. It is therefore a good idea to work with the user status Do not print, so that you can initially avoid printing the transaction. Further information is available under Status Management in Business Transactions and in the IMG under Customer Relationship Management ® Transactions ® Basic Settings ® Status Management ® Define Status Profile for User Status.

Special Features for the SAP GUI

The pushbuttons Convert to quotation or Convert to order only appear when at least one item exists that currently has the status Quotation or Inquiry.

Special Features for the Interaction Center WebClient

·        You cannot make manual entries regarding sales probability.

·        You cannot enter alternative items.

·        In order to convert a quotation item into an order item, you only have to remove the Quotation flag in the sales transaction. It is not possible to create orders with reference to a quotation.