Group Logistics Company Process
The figure below illustrates an example of a process flow for a group logistics company scenario. The graphic is followed by an explanation:

Example of a process flow for a group logistics company scenario
The table gives an example of the agreements that you can put in place:
Agreement Type | Organization | Business Partner |
|---|---|---|
Internal Agreement | Sales organization of Company_1000, the group logistics company. Company_1000 is a forwarding house with both a purchasing role and a sales role. | CO_2000, the company behind sales order 2 and CO_3000, the company behind sales order 3 |
External Agreement | Purchasing organization of Company_1000, the group logistics company. Company_1000 is a forwarding house with both a purchasing role and a sales role. | External logistics service provider (LSP) |
The group logistics company puts an internal agreement in place that covers one of the following charge calculation situations:
Charge for the actual freight cost for each of the companies, based on the distributed costs in the freight order
Charge a mark-up in addition to the actual freight cost based on the distributed costs in the freight order
Use a rate table for a pricing structure that is different to the freight costs
As the group logistics company, you have the option of distributing costs in the following business documents:
Freight order
You can distribute costs in the freight order at SAP ERP item level for each of the transportation requirements in the freight order for the following business reasons:
You want to use the distributed cost as the basis for creating internal settlement documents.
You want a breakdown of your own transportation costs and the transportation costs of the internal shipper companies. For example, Company_1000 distributes costs in the freight order, and uses the distributed costs to create internal settlement documents for Company_2000 and Company_3000.
Freight settlement document
As a group logistics company, you can distribute costs in the freight settlement document for the following business reasons:
Transport your own cargo along with the cargo from the other internal companies
Pay the external LSP for all the transportation costs
Post the freight cost to the underlying transportation requirement in SAP ERP, for example, the sales order item, the delivery item, or the purchase order item
Internal settlement document
You can distribute costs in an internal settlement document if the shipper companies in your group of companies need to post the freight cost to the underlying transportation requirement in SAP ERP. The underlying transportation can be a sales order item, a delivery item, or a purchase order item.
For example, Company_2000 and Company_3000 distribute costs in their respective internal settlement documents to post the freight cost to sales order 2 item 20 and sales order 3 item 30 respectively.
Company_1000 uses the following process to pay the external LSP for the transportation services:
Company_1000 receives the transportation requests from the internal shipper companies as order-based transportation requirements (OTRs) or delivery-based transportation requirements (DTRs) in SAP Transportation Management (SAP TM).
Company_1000 uses the OTR or DTR to create a freight order or freight booking. It uses the freight order or freight booking to purchase transportation services from the LSP. Company_1000 can distribute costs in the freight order or freight booking. This enables it to use the distributed cost as the basis for creating internal settlements and to establish what its own share of the freight costs are.
Company_1000 creates a freight settlement document. It can distribute costs in the freight settlement document to establish what its own share of the freight costs are. It can also account for its own share of the costs in SAP ERP.
Company_1000 creates a service purchase order and a service entry sheet (SES) in SAP ERP for the entire freight order cost.
Company_1000 creates an agency business document to transfer its own share of the costs to its account either as an expense or for material valuation.
The LSP (not shown in the graphic) invoices Company_1000. Company_1000 pays the LSP the total amount for the full transportation costs.
Company_1000 uses the following process to recover the costs of providing the transportation services from Company_2000 and Company_3000:
Company_1000 uses the freight order or freight booking to create an internal settlement document for each of Company_2000 and Company_3000.
Note
The life cycle status of the freight order must be In Execution
before you can create internal settlement documents for the items in the OTR or DTR. By default, the system uses the billing schedule you specify for the business partner as the invoice date. You can specify the billing schedule under .
The system uses the billing schedule for Company_2000 and Company_3000 to determine the invoice dates in the internal settlement documents for Company_2000 and Company_3000. Company_2000 and Company_3000 are customers of Company_1000. Company_1000 acts as a forwarding house and sells the transportation service.
Company_1000 uses an internal agreement to calculate costs.
You specify Company_1000 as a forwarding house. The agreement is between the purchasing organization of Company_1000 and each of the business partners for Company_2000 and Company_3000.
The agreement can use standard rates, cost pull, or cost pull plus a mark-up as a basis for calculating charges. For more information, see Charge Calculation.
Company_1000 uses Company_2000 and Company_3000 as the bill-to parties in the respective internal settlement documents.
Company_1000 has the option of distributing costs at SAP ERP item level in both internal settlement documents. This enables Company_2000 and Company_3000 to post the freight cost to the underlying transportation requirement, for example, to the sales order item, delivery item, or purchase order item.
Company_1000 transfers the internal settlement documents to SAP ERP. SAP ERP creates two intercompany billing documents for the group logistics company CO_1000. CO_0002 and CO_0003 pay for the freight costs.
SAP ERP uses the output type configuration of the intercompany billing document to create an IDoc. The IDoc posts an incoming invoice for each of the companies CO_2000 and CO_3000, recording the accounts payable to Company_1000. For more information about the settings that you need in place in SAP TM, see SAP TM Prerequisites for a Group Logistics Company Process.
If you enable cost distribution in the internal settlement documents, SAP ERP creates an agency business document for each of CO_2000 and CO_3000.
The agency business document contains the following:
A line item for the underlying transportation requirement item. This is the ERP item on the SAP TM side. For example, this can be a sales order item, a delivery item, or a purchase order item.
An amount in the line item that matches the distributed amount of the ERP item in SAP TM.
Note
You must have a single SAP ERP client environment to create an intercompany billing document and subsequently to use an IDoc to trigger the corresponding incoming invoice.
You can start a change process from SAP TM for an internal settlement document that you have already transferred to SAP ERP. You can take one of the following steps:
Cancel the internal settlement document that you have already created
Change the charges and recalculate in the existing internal settlement document
When you transfer the new or changed internal settlement document to SAP ERP, SAP ERP cancels the already existing intercompany billing document. For the new internal settlement document, SAP ERP creates a new intercompany billing document. For a changed internal settlement document, SAP ERP creates a new intercompany billing document that contains the changes. SAP ERP also takes the following actions:
Uses an IDoc to reverse the accounts payable document for the purchasing company
Cancels the agency business document that contains the distributed freight costs
Uses an IDoc to create a new Financial Accounting (FI) invoice document that updates accounts payable for the purchasing company with the new or changed values
Creates an agency business document that contains the new or changed distributed freight costs
SAP ERP updates the following documents in SAP TM:
Freight settlement document with the purchase order ID and SES ID
Internal settlement document with the Sales and Distribution (SD) billing document ID
SAP ERP does not update SAP TM with the following information:
Agency business document ID
FI invoice ID for the accounts payable
In SAP ERP, you can use the Freight Cost Distribution Report
(transaction WLFLTM
) and the Overview of Freight Cost Distribution Documents
function (transaction WLFLTM2
) to determine the agency business documents that are linked to the freight settlement document and the internal settlement document in SAP TM.
Subject | See |
|---|---|
Overview of the business process for a group logistics company | |
Comparison between the standard settlement process for shippers with the process for a group logistics company | Comparison: Standard Shipper Process and Group Log. Co. Process |
Prerequisite settings you must specify in SAP TM | |
Prerequisite settings you must specify in SAP ERP |