Executing a Source Inspection

During procurement, you can plan the inspections of goods at a different point of time. In one case, the quality technician must execute the inspection of a goods receipt when the goods arrive in your warehouse. In this case, the inspection start date corresponds to the date when you post the goods receipt. That is the classical case. In the other case, the quality inspection must already be done at the supplier´s premises before the goods transport to your warehouse. This approach is called source inspection.

In this case, the inspection must be scheduled before the goods delivery date. Here are some business reasons for using a source inspection: The transportation costs are high. You want to ensure that the good is in accordance with your quality standards or agreements with the supplier - for example, in a make-to-order production.

In the case of a source inspection, the SAP system helps you calculate the right inspection start date. To define the inspection start date, it subtracts an inspection lead time from the expected delivery date. How does that work?

Explore the following figure to identify how the two options are processed in SAP S/4HANA.

From a technical perspective, no inspection lot for the source inspection is created when you post the goods receipt. Instead, the system checks the estimated delivery date in the purchase order and the inspection lead time maintained in the quality info record (procurement). It creates an inspection lot for goods receipt in which the inspection start date corresponds to the expected delivery date minus the inspection lead time. Then, before the goods receipt posts, you can execute the quality inspection results, record inspection results, or defects in the respective inspection lot.

Set the indicator Source inspection instead of GR inspection in the quality info record (procurement). This avoids the system creating another inspection lot after transporting the goods to your premise and posting the goods receipt for this purchase order. In addition, consider that, in this case, quality problems during transport cannot be detected. You do not execute a classical goods receipt inspection. If you want to create another inspection lot when posting the goods receipt, do not enable this indicator in the quality info record (procurement).