Carrier Invoice

In an invoice submission process, the process of settlement between you and your service provider is based on a carrier invoice that your service provider submits to you against a freight order. Your service provider has executed the transportation requirements in your freight order. You have a trusted relationship with your service provider, and your service provider uses the SAP Transportation Management (SAP TM) collaboration portal to submit a carrier invoice.

Prerequisites

You must specify a carrier invoice type in Customizing for Transportation Management under Start of the navigation path Settlement Next navigation step Freight Settlement Carrier Invoice Types End of the navigation path .

Integration

The carrier invoice is integrated with the following objects and systems:

SAP TM collaboration portal
Your service provider can use the collaboration portal for the following business reasons:
- To create a carrier invoice
- To communicate notes and agree common ground on an associated dispute case
Freight settlement dispute case
You service provider can perform the following tasks for a dispute case:
- Submit an invoice for one or more freight orders
- Submit changes against the charge amounts or logistics quantities in one or more freight order
SAP TM captures the invoice details submitted by your service provider. If there are differences between the submitted invoice and the original freight order, SAP TM creates a dispute case and links it to the carrier invoice. If your service provider does not submit any changes in the carrier invoice, SAP TM does not create a dispute case.
SAP ERP
You can use the Posting of Carrier Invoices background function to transfer the carrier invoices that are ready for posting to SAP ERP. SAP ERP creates incoming invoices. For more information, see Posting of Carrier Invoices.
You can also post one or more carrier invoice directly from the NWBC screens, as follows:
- Under Freight Settlement, choose Worklist Overview Freight Settlement Documents Carrier Invoices .
- Under Freight Settlement, choose Carrier Invoice Display Carrier Invoice .
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 .

Features

Possible Actions on NWBC Screens

The following table explains possible actions that are available to you on the NWBC screens in SAP TM:

Action	Action Description
Reject Invoice	You can reject a carrier invoice at any time, provided the carrier invoice is not yet transferred to SAP ERP or is not yet posted successfully in SAP ERP. When rejecting a carrier invoice, you can provide notes to your service provider giving your reasons for rejection. Your service provider must create a new carrier invoice for the freight order. When you reject a carrier invoice that has an open dispute case, the system automatically cancels the dispute case. This saves you from taking extra steps to cancel the dispute case manually.
Post to ERP	You can post the carrier invoice to SAP ERP provided the carrier invoice satisfies all of the following conditions: No dispute case exists or the dispute case has a life cycle status of Resolved Has a life cycle status of other than Rejected All associated freight orders have the invoicing status Completely Invoiced All associated freight settlement documents have the status Accurals Posted Has a block status of Not Blocked Has a consistency status of Consistent

Action

Action Description

Reject Invoice

You can reject a carrier invoice at any time, provided the carrier invoice is not yet transferred to SAP ERP or is not yet posted successfully in SAP ERP.

When rejecting a carrier invoice, you can provide notes to your service provider giving your reasons for rejection. Your service provider must create a new carrier invoice for the freight order.

When you reject a carrier invoice that has an open dispute case, the system automatically cancels the dispute case. This saves you from taking extra steps to cancel the dispute case manually.

Post to ERP

You can post the carrier invoice to SAP ERP provided the carrier invoice satisfies all of the following conditions:

No dispute case exists or the dispute case has a life cycle status of Resolved
Has a life cycle status of other than Rejected
All associated freight orders have the invoicing status Completely Invoiced
All associated freight settlement documents have the status Accurals Posted
Has a block status of Not Blocked
Has a consistency status of Consistent

Life Cycle Status

The life cycle status indicates the resolution status of the overall carrier invoice. The figure below illustrates the life cycle status and is followed by an explanation:

This graphic is explained in the accompanying text.

The following table explains what the key life cycle statuses mean:

Status	Status Description
New	Your service provider has not yet submitted the carrier invoice in the collaboration portal.
In Process	The carrier invoice has one or more of the following conditions: Submitted by your service provider but not yet accepted and posted to SAP ERP Has disputes that are not yet resolved Not yet transferred to SAP ERP Transferred, but failed to post in SAP ERP
Ready for Transfer to SAP ERP	The carrier invoice satisfies all of the following conditions: No dispute case exists or the dispute case has a life cycle status of Resolved. Has a life cycle status of other than Rejected All associated freight orders have the invoicing status Completely Invoiced. All associated freight settlement documents have the status Accurals Posted. Has a block status of Not Blocked Has a consistency status of Consistent
Transferred for Posting in SAP ERP	You have transferred the carrier invoice for posting to SAP ERP. SAP ERP is processing your request. If the carrier invoice stays at status Transferred for Posting in SAP ERP for an unusually long period of time after you transfer, you must check transaction SXI_MONITOR (Monitor for Processed XML Messages) to review the status of the XML message and resolve any errors.
Carrier Invoice Posted in SAP ERP	SAP ERP has successfully posted the carrier invoice and created the invoice document.
Rejected	You rejected the carrier invoice for business reasons. For example, the tax amounts in the invoice were incorrect

Dispute Case Status in a Carrier Invoice

In an invoice submission process, your service provider submits a carrier invoice against one or more freight orders. You service provider can also submit a change to the charge amounts or logistics quantities in the freight order. SAP TM subsequently creates a dispute case so that you can come to a consensus on the disputed items with your service provider. The dispute case status reflects the processing status of the dispute on the carrier invoice. The following table explains what the individual dispute case statuses mean:

Status	Status Description
No Dispute	The default status of a carrier invoice, where there are no dispute cases on the charges or logistics information in the freight orders covered by the carrier invoice.
Awaiting Your Approval	You as the service requester must act to approve, make a proposal, or reject the dispute created by your service provider.
Awaiting Carrier Approval	Your service provider must take action on a dispute case. This means you as the service requester have taken one of the following actions: Rejected the claim from your service provider. If your service provider agrees with your decision, they must accept the dispute. Proposed a solution that is acceptable to you against the claim from the service provider. If your service provider agrees with your decision, they must accept the dispute.
Resolved	Both you as the service requester and your service provider have agreed on common ground in the dispute and you both have agreed on a decision. You have accepted the dispute case. Alternatively, you as a service requester reject a carrier invoice from your service provider that also has an associated open dispute case. Resolved indicates that you don’t need to take any further action.

Block Status

The block status prevents the system transferring the carrier invoice to SAP ERP. For example, your service provider can use an invoice number reference from their own transportation system, such as a forwarding order number, a waybill number, or an invoice number. When your service provider submits a carrier invoice, SAP TM checks to ensure that your service provider has not used the same invoice number reference ID to submit an invoice previously in the same day. If your service provider has used the same invoice number reference previously in the same day, as standard SAP TM blocks the carrier invoice and displays the reason Invoice number reference already used on the carrier invoice screen. This protects you from creating duplicate invoices when you submit invoices electronically, for example, when you use machine-to-machine (M2M) messages or B-to-B (B2B) messages.

You can specify your own additional blocking checks. For example, you can block a carrier invoice if the freight orders in the carrier invoice have a delivery date that is later than the current date. As the shipper, this enables you to pay for a transportation only when all of the parts of the transportation are completed. For more information, see Customizing for Transportation Management under Start of the navigation path Business Add-ins (BAdIs) for Transportation Management Next navigation step Settlement Freight Settlement Freight Settlement Dispute Management BAdI: Additional Checks for Blocking Carrier Invoices End of the navigation path .

You cannot further process a carrier invoice when it is blocked.

To unblock the carrier invoice, choose Unblock on the carrier invoice screen. For more information on block statuses, see Customizing for Transportation Management under Start of the navigation path Basic Functions Next navigation step General Settings Define Block Reason Codes End of the navigation path .

Confirmation Status

You can use the confirmation status to track the integration of SAP TM with SAP ERP. The status indicates the result of the last integration interaction between SAP TM and SAP ERP. The following table explains what the main confirmation statuses mean:

Status	Status Description
Not Transferred to SAP ERP	SAP TM has not transferred the carrier invoice to SAP ERP.
No Confirmation from SAP ERP	SAP TM has transferred the carrier invoice to SAP ERP and the status in SAP ERP is not yet known.
Confirmation from SAP ERP	SAP ERP successfully created and posted the carrier invoice.
Invoice Posting Failed	SAP ERP could not post the carrier invoice.

Tax Handling

Your service provider can enter tax amounts at charge type item level on the collaboration portal. The collaboration portal uses the charge management master data settings in your SAP TM system to calculate charges. SAP TM includes the charge amounts and tax amounts when it creates the carrier invoice.

SAP TM does not verify the tax amounts. Instead, SAP ERP verifies the tax amounts when you post the invoice to SAP ERP.

If there is a discrepancy between what your carrier has entered and what SAP ERP expects to pay, SAP ERP does not post the carrier invoice. You must manually reject these carrier invoices in SAP TM. You can find the carrier invoices that contain a discrepancy by filtering the following statuses:

Life cycle status In Process
Confirmation status Invoice Posting Failed

More Information

Subject	More Information
Background processing function for posting carrier invoices to SAP ERP in batches	Posting of Carrier Invoices
Individual aspects of dispute management	Features of Dispute Management
SAP TM collaboration portal	Collaboration Portal