Reminders and Urging Letters (Expediters) (SAP Library

Reminders and Urging Letters (Expediters)

Use

If you have specified reminder levels under the item details of a purchasing document, the system is able to generate reminders and urging letters (expediters) automatically.

You can enter up to three reminder levels. For example, the reminder levels 10-20-30 mean that urging letters are issued 10, 20, and 30 days after the due date for submission of a quotation or for the delivery of ordered goods. (Note: in the SAP System the term "reminders" is often used to denote such messages issued before the due date, whereas the term "urging letter" or "expediter" commonly stands for a perhaps more strongly worded admonitory message issued after the due date. However, this distinction is not consistent, and may not apply outside the SAP environment. The corresponding term for "urging letter" in the FI component is "dunning letter", and relates to overdue payments.)

A negative number means that a reminder is to be issued prior to the deadline for submission of quotations or the delivery date for ordered goods. For example, if you enter 5- as the reminder level, a reminder will be sent 5 days prior to the quotation submission date.

Prerequisites

The message determination facility has been set up in Customizing for Purchasing.
You can also work with the standard settings. For further information, see Tips for Fast Message Determination Set-Up in the Implementation Guide (IMG).

Message records must have been created through master data maintenance (Purchasing menu).

The purchasing document involved must have previously been transmitted to the vendor.

Activities

You first generate messages for all purchasing documents for which reminders or urging letters need to be issued and then output these messages.

Generating a Message

Choose <Purchasing document> ® Messages ® Urging/reminders.

Enter the selection criteria for the documents that should be checked with regard to the necessity of issuing reminders or urging letters.

Enter a reference date. The system takes this date as the basis for calculating the periods after which reminders or expediters are due.

Select the List untransmitted messages field to ensure that the list also includes those documents whose reminders and urging letters are in the message queue but have not yet been outputted.

Choose Program ® Execute.

You see the documents in respect of which due dates are approaching or have been exceeded.

Select the documents for which you want to generate reminders or urging letters. Then choose Edit ® Generate messages.

Save your selections.

Outputting Reminders or Urging Letters

To output the message, choose <Purchasing document> ® Messages ® Print/transmit.

Enter the same selection criteria as in step 2 and then execute the program.

Select the messages to be outputted (printed or transmitted) and then choose Edit ® Output message.

Generation of Messages: System Procedure

The system checks which documents require expediting on the basis of the reference date. In the process, it also takes account of vendor confirmations. A prerequisite is that the confirmation category has been flagged as "subject to reminder" (expediting) in Customizing for Purchasing.

Example

You have ordered 100 tons of Steel 1 for 05.15. You have specified 10-20-30 as the reminder (urging) levels. The vendor confirms that delivery of the 100 tons will take place on 05.17.
If you then wish to expedite this item and enter 05.26 as the reference date, the item will not be suggested for expediting. However, if you enter 05.28 as the reference date, it will be suggested.

In the case of RFQs, the deadline for submission of quotations is taken as the basis for expediting, not the delivery date.

In the case of purchase orders, the basis for expediting is the delivery date (either the original date or the one confirmed in an order acknowledgment or shipping notification).

In the case of scheduling agreements with release documentation, the dates from the last-transmitted SA release are taken as a basis, not the dates shown in the current overall delivery schedule stored in the system.

See also:

Outputting Messages