Commitments in Purchasing (MM-PUR-GF-CO) 

Use

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Commitments are liabilities arising from contractual obligations incurred.

A commitment is passed on to other applications for budgetary control purposes for purchase requisitions and purchase orders with account assignment only.

Purchasing passes the data on to other application components and receives from them a return message indicating, for example, whether an appropriate budget exists and can be reserved.

This reservation can be cancelled out or used up by the following transactions (commitment reduction or cancelling-out):

●     Goods movement (goods receipt, return, reversal)

●     Invoice receipt (invoice parked as complete, credit memo)

Commitment management comprises the early recording and analysis of liabilities with regard to their financial and cost effects.

Commitments are managed for objects such as the following:

●     CO production orders

●     Cost centers

●     Networks

●     WBS elements

Integration

Integration with the following application components is possible:

●     Controlling

For more information, refer to the documentation for Controlling under Commitments Management.

●     Financial Accounting

●     Asset Accounting

●     Funds Management
For more information, refer to the documentation for Funds Management under Integration with Materials Management.

Prerequisites

Reduction/Cancelling-Out of Commitment Values

Check how the commitment values are to be reduced/cancelled out:

●     Based on the goods receipt data (valuated GR)

If the Goods Receipt Non-Valuated indicator is not selected, the system takes the goods receipt data into account to reduce or cancel out commitments.

In this case, the system uses the purchase order price for this purpose.

●     Based on the invoice data (non-valuated GR)

If the Goods Receipt Non-Valuated indicator is selected in the purchasing document, the system uses the invoice data to reduce or cancel out commitments.

In this case, the system uses the invoice price for this purpose.

See SAP Note 639523 – Commitment  Reduction Behavior in the Case of Purchasing Documents.

Quantity- or Value-Based Commitment

You can specify in Customizing whether commitments are to be reduced/cancelled out on a quantity or value basis (Customizing for SAP NetWeaver under General Settings -> Check Units of Measurement).

In the case of the items using quantity-based commitments, the commitments are reduced or cancelled out on the basis of the invoice or GR quantity.

Quantity-Based Reduction of Purchase Requisition Commitment

If you have set the Value-Based Commitment indicator in Customizing, note that this setting does not apply to requisition commitments, but only to purchase orders.

If you create a purchase order referencing a requisition, the requisition commitment is always reduced or cancelled out on a quantity basis because the requisition does not have a price.

See SAP Note 355793 - Note: Quantity-Based Reduction of Purchase Requisition Commitment.

Document in Foreign Currency

Note that different currencies in purchasing and invoice documents influence the commitment reduction process.

Features

Note the following with regard to commitments and the commitment reduction process in Purchasing:

●     Commitment Reduction Behavior in the Case of Purchasing Documents

For more information, refer to the SAP Notes 459509 - FAQ: Commitments in Purchasing and 639523 - Commitment Reduction Behavior in the Case of Purchasing Documents.

●     Delivery Costs Are Commitment-Relevant

When you create a purchasing document with delivery costs (such as freight costs) in the pricing conditions, the system creates two commitment entries:

○     A commitment entry for the material/service values

○     A commitment entry for the delivery costs

This enables you to post the delivery costs and materials/services separately when entering the invoice.

See SAP Note 670489 - Commitments for Delivery Costs

●     Multiple Account Assignment

Further information is available in the following SAP Notes:

○     212269 – Commitments: Multiple Account Assignment and Several Delivery Schedule Lines

○     496557 – Changes to Multiple Account Assignment in Invoices

●     Final Delivery, Final Invoice and Deletion

A commitment is completely cancelled out (reduced to zero) in the following cases:

○     You select the “Delivery Completed” indicator in the purchasing document

○     You select the “Final Invoice” indicator in the purchasing document

○     You delete the document item.

For documents with valuated goods receipts, the commitment values should be completely cancelled out when the “Delivery Completed” indicator is set.
See SAP Note 647732 - Wrong Commitment Reduction for “Delivery Completed” Indicator

●     Analysis and Error Rectification in the Case of Incorrect or Missing Commitments

Further information is available in the following SAP Notes:

○     152571 - Collective SAP Note: Missing or Incorrect Commitments contains detailed information relating to the analysis and rectification of incorrect or missing commitments.

○     47992 – No Commitment Displayed in Reporting contains details regarding the prerequisites for the updating of commitments in CO.

○     100406 - FAQ: Posting Commitments

○     534993 - Short Instructions: RKANBU01

●     Business Add-Ins

○     ME_REQ_OI_EXT - BAdI: Activate Requisition Commitment Update from Other Applications

You can specify whether a commitment update is to take place when purchase orders from other applications are created or changed.

○     ME_COMMTMNT_PO_REL_C - BAdI: Check for Commitment Relevance of Purchase Orders

You can control whether purchase orders are commitment-relevant.

○     ME_COMMTMNT_REQ_RE_C - BAdI: Check for Commitment Relevance of Purchase Requisitions

You can control whether purchase requisitions are commitment-relevant.

○     ME_COMMITMENT_RETURN - BAdI: Commitment for Returns Items

You can pass the value of returns items back to the budget.

○     ME_COMMITMENT_STO_CH - BAdI: Commitment for Stock Transport Orders

You can activate commitments for stock transport orders.

Activities

You can display commitment documents in the Enjoy transactions (ME21N and ME51N) only.

To do so, choose Environment -> AC Commitment Documents within either of those transactions.