Freight Settlement Dispute Case
A freight settlement dispute case is an individual business document that captures differences in logistics item quantities or charge amounts in a freight order or carrier invoice. As a requester of transportation services, such as a shipper, you own the information in the freight order. Your provider of transportation services, such as your carrier, checks the accuracy of the charge and logistics details in your freight order.
In the self-billing process, the service provider uses the SAP Transportation Management collaboration portal to create a dispute case against a freight order.
In the invoice submission process, the process of settlement between you and your service provider is based on an invoice that your service provider submits to you for a freight order. Your service provider can use the collaboration portal to submit such an invoice. For example, your service provider can submit an invoice that contains changes to logistics details such as gross weight or gross volume, or changes to charge details such as rate or an additional charge line for an unplanned charge. In these situations, the system captures the changes in a dispute case and links the dispute case to the invoice your service provider submits.
If the dispute case fails the tolerance limits you specify in Customizing, you must manually review the dispute case on the Freight Settlement Dispute Cases
NWBC user interface (UI).
Structure
General Data
The General Data
tab page contains high-level information about the dispute case and associated freight order or carrier invoice, for example:
Carrier name, carrier invoice reference, and freight order reference
Source location and destination location
Logistics information, such as gross weight, gross volume, and total distance at freight order level
Status information
Amount information, at freight order level
Logistics Details
On the Logistics Details
screen area, the system displays logistics dispute information for a dispute item submitted by the service provider on the collaboration portal. For example, your carrier claims the total distance is 510 km, and not 500 km as you expect. The system displays 500 km in the Order Quantity
field, and 510 km in the Dispute Quantity
field.
The system also displays the dispute resolution status of each logistics item in a dispute case.
Charge Details
On the Charge Details
screen area, the system displays the charge dispute information for a dispute item submitted by the service provider on the collaboration portal. For example, your carrier adds an unplanned cost for 4 hours detention at the rate of USD 50 per hour, totaling USD 200. The system displays the following information on the Charge Details
screen area:
Dispute Item Description: New Charge Line
Charge Description: Detention
Currency: USD
Order Amount: 0
Dispute Amount: 200
The system also displays the dispute resolution status of each charge item in a dispute case.
Dispute Charge Amounts
The system displays the proposed charge amount from the service provider for the total freight order or carrier invoice on the Dispute Charge Amounts
screen area. This is what your service provider expects to be paid in total and is how the freight order or carrier invoice would look if you accept the proposal from your service provider.
For example, the total order amount (total amount in your freight order) is USD 5,000. In a self-billing process, your service provider submits a dispute case for an unplanned cost for detention of USD 200. The system displays USD 5,200 in the Dispute Charge Amounts
screen area.
In an invoice submission process, your service provider adds the unplanned cost for detention of USD 200 to the carrier invoice. The system displays USD 5,200 in the Dispute Charge Amounts
screen area of the carrier invoice.
Proposed Charge Amounts
You accept, reject, or propose a change for the dispute items on the logistics details and charge details screen areas. The system displays the effect your decision has on the total charges in the freight order.
For example, the total order amount is USD 5,000. Your carrier submits a dispute case for an unplanned cost for detention of USD 200. You reject the dispute item. The system displays USD 5,000 in the Dispute Charge Amounts
screen area.
Taking Action on a Dispute Case
In both the Logistics Details
and Charge Details
screen areas, you as a requester of transportation services can perform the following tasks:
Choose the
Approve
button to accept a dispute item.Choose the
Propose
button to propose a change to a dispute item.Choose the
Reject
button to reject a dispute item.
For information about dispute case statuses, see Statuses in Dispute Management. You can also save your work without sending your decisions to the service provider in the collaboration portal. This enables you to save a draft while you finalize your decisions. When you save and confirm a dispute case, you finalize your action on the dispute case.
You can also use the Publish Freight Settlement Dispute Cases
background processing function (program /SCMTMS/SET_CARRIER_RELEVANCE
) to automatically save and confirm the dispute cases that pass the tolerance check criteria. This function also protects you against your service provider guessing and exploiting your tolerance settings. For more information, see Publication of Freight Settlement Dispute Cases. The system publishes your decision for your service provider on the SAP TM collaboration portal.
Notes
On this tab page, you can add any relevant notes, enabling you to share information all though the process of dispute resolution. You can use notes to collaborate with your colleagues internally, and with your service provider externally. Your service provider can also submit notes when they submit a dispute case from the collaboration portal.
Attachments
On this tab page, you can upload relevant files, enabling you to share files all through the process of dispute resolution. You can use attachments to share information with your colleagues internally, and with your service provider externally. Your service provider can also submit an attachment when they submit a dispute case from the collaboration portal.
Tolerance Check Log
On this tab page, the system displays the following information:
Success messages for the charge type dispute items that are inside your tolerance limits and that the system passed automatically
Failure messages for the dispute items that are outside your tolerance limits and that the system failed automatically
The system displays the dispute cases that failed the automatic tolerance check on the Freight Settlement Dispute Cases - All Freight Settlement Dispute Cases
personal object worklist (POWL) screen. You must manually review these dispute cases.
You can specify tolerance limits in Customizing for Transportation Management
under 
Settlement
Freight Settlement
Freight Settlement Dispute Management
Define Dispute Tolerance Rules
.
Work Items
The system displays information on the work items created for the dispute case, including the approval level, the status of the work item, the approver, and the time key events in the lifecycle of the work item take place. For more information, see Workflow for Dispute Management.
Integration
Freight settlement dispute cases are integrated with the collaboration portal because you use the collaboration portal to communicate and agree common ground with your service provider. For more information, see Self-Billing (Collaboration Portal) and Invoice Submission (Collaboration Portal).
Freight settlement dispute cases are also integrated with freight orders. When you accept a change in a dispute case, the system uses the dispute resolution details from a dispute case to update the changed charge information in the freight order. For more information, see Freight Order Management.
SAP ERP
Freight settlement dispute cases are integrated with freight orders. You create freight settlement documents from freight orders. The system transfers freight settlement documents to SAP ERP. The system does not create a freight settlement document from a dispute case. For more information about integration with SAP ERP, see SAP Help Portal at http://help.sap.com/erp
. In SAP Library, choose SAP ERP Central Component
Logistics
Logistics - General (LO)
integration of SAP ERP with SAP Transportation Management
.Freight settlement dispute cases are integrated with freight orders. You create freight settlement documents from freight orders. For the freight orders for which you have resolved disputes, you use the background processing function
Creation and Transfer of Freight Settlement Documents
to update the changed charges.The system transfers freight settlement documents to SAP ERP. The system does not create a freight settlement document from a dispute case. For more information about integration with SAP ERP, SAP Help Portal at http://help.sap.com/erp
. In SAP Library, choose SAP ERP Central Component
Logistics
Logistics - General (LO)
integration of SAP ERP with SAP Transportation Management
.
More Information
Subject | More Information |
|---|---|
Introduction to dispute management | |
Necessary Customizing settings required before you can use dispute management | |
Individual aspects of dispute management | |
Details of how SAP TM updates SAP ERP |