Mapping Freight Settlement to Materials Management

Each service entry sheet is based on an external service order. Determining a valid purchase order is required for transfers to Financial Accounting and for settlements. You can also create the purchase order every month for the carrier. Important criteria for the service order include carrier, purchasing organization, purchasing group, plant, and item category.

When the system has automatically determined a valid purchase order, a service entry sheet is created that refers to the purchase order. During posting, you accept services and, in Financial Accounting, an accounting document for generating accruals is created.

During account assignment, the system automatically determines the correct G/L account in Financial Accounting for each cost item and the assignment for Controlling. Account assignment can be carried out at different levels, depending on the level of detail at which you want to track costs.

The transfer to Financial Accounting to establish accruals requires entering and accepting the services rendered. The system automatically creates a service entry sheet. Using the credit memo procedure, also referred to as the Evaluated Receipt Settlement (ERS) procedure, you can settle the freight costs with the carrier without having received invoices. You can choose from different settlement periods. You transfer the calculated freight costs to Financial Accounting. The invoices are verified by the carrier. If the carrier discovers variances, you can post these as subsequent debits or credits.

If you receive invoices from the carrier, you can also verify the invoices manually and create the invoices manually in logistics invoice verification.

After Posting, you can track and check the results if there are posting failures.

You can check in the FSD tab "Application Log" for errors or warnings.

In case that MM configuration is missing, this cannot be alerted upfront, but will be shown in the Application log. Example: G/L account does not match (MM configuration).

In the Application log, the Error messages are listed, and in the long text you get a procedure how to solve the issue.

After completing the missing customizing, the actions "Cancel PO" (only via UI or worklist) or "Reprocess failed documents" (only via Batch report) can be triggered. After PO cancellation, the posting action must be triggered again.

To reprocess failed documents, you must use the /SCMTMS/SFIR_TRANSFER_BATCH. This is done when, for example, the SES creation or cancellation failed due to missing MM customizing. Even for a failed reversal action, the batch report can be used.

You can also monitor the processing of the BGRFC units that will be created when an asynchronous job is triggered. This can be done via backend transaction code SBGRFCMON.

After posting, if FSD confirmation is not received for more than 2 min, go to the BGRFC Monitor and enter the data as shown in the screenshot.

After Executing, you are able to see the background processes.

• If the background process is still processing, then you will see the status as "Unit Blocked/Locked"
• If the background process failed due to some runtime error, then you will see the status as "Unit has errors"

Select the respective entry and click on the details button to see more information.

There can be late changes in the freight order requiring changes to logistical data, which may result in the change in the charges (increase or decrease). These changes can occur at time when the old values are already transferred to settlement documents and / or the settlement documents have also been transferred to financials.

Accruals are posted when the financial liability is known (example: departure or confirmed pickup of the freight by the carrier). However, there can be mid execution changes (example: diversions (consignee changes), loss of cargo (in transit), unavailability of cargo, unplanned costs due to detention, demurrages, loading and unloading activities, tolls, and so on).

These changes may only be known after execution or during the invoicing process (when the carrier sends the invoice).

The system uses the automatic change management process that you specify in the relevant settlement profile. In customizing, go toTransportation Management→Settlement→Define Settlement Profile→Change Process FSD.

TM uses the following elements to determine what approach to take with the change:

• Change Process FSD setting in the settlement profile

• Life cycle status of the freight settlement document

There are two different FSD Update Strategies/ Change Processes available:

When an order is changed and the invoicing status changes to Over Invoiced, the system automatically applies the reverse and repost strategy.

For applying the automatic change process, you use the background function "Creation of Freight Settlement Documents" (program: /SCMTMS/SFIR_CREATE_BATCH) to create, change, and transfer the freight settlement documents to Materials Management (MM). The freight settlement document contains the changes from the freight order.

Alternatively, you go to the impacted freight document from the personal worklist or the individual document, and you create the freight settlement document or apply changes to the charges directly on the UI in a manual way. This would trigger the relevant change process that is defined in the settlement profile, too.

The first stage in our configuration is to define a settlement profile.

The settlement profile consists of a set of parameters with which you can control how the system creates settlement documents.

In the Define Settlement Profile customizing activity, you can define the profile for creating settlement documents.

You can specify the following activities:

• Profile category to determine whether the system can use the profile to create freight settlements, forwarding settlements, or both freight settlements and forwarding settlements
• Data source to determine the type of data that the system uses when creating a settlement document. You can specify planned and confirmed data from forwarding orders or planned data from freight orders
• Split/consolidation strategy profile to split or consolidate settlement documents
• Collective invoice to create one invoice for several orders
• Stage split to create invoices for individual stages in a freight order or forwarding order
• FSD Change Process for determining the FSD update strategy in the case of late changes

To define settlement profiles, in customizing, choose Transportation Management→Settlement→Define Settlement Profile.

The second step in our configuration is to assign the settlement profile to the charges profile.

In customizing, choose Transportation Management→Basic Functions→Charge Calculation→Basic Settings→Define Charges Profiles.

The assignment makes it possible to control different settlement creation settings for different organizations. It is also possible to determine the settlement profile at runtime using the BRF+ condition of type /SCMTMS/TCM_FCP_DET. For the assignment of a charges profile to the purchasing organization, see the PPOCE transaction.

In the third step of our configuration, number range intervals are defined for the FSD.

When an FSD is created, a unique number is assigned to it, identifying the document. The number comes from the number range, which is provided for the document type.

You define number range intervals in the Define Number Range Intervals for Freight SDs customizing activity.

In customizing, choose Transportation Management→Settlement→Freight Settlement→Define Number Range Intervals for Freight SDs.

You can use the freight settlement types to specify certain parameters for certain types of FSDs.

To define freight settlement document types, in customizing, choose Transportation Management→Settlement→Freight Settlement→Define Freight Settlement Document Types.

You can specify the following parameters:

• Business partner determination profile to assign business partners to the freight settlement document.
• Number range interval of FSDs.
• FSD categories (to define either a freight settlement document or charge correction advice).
• Separate categories are available to define a freight settlement document and a charge correction advice document.
• Tracking of changes.
• BW relevance.
• Enable Cost Distribution.
• Default UoMs.
• Residence period for archiving.
• Output profile for printing and transferring (by default, this is set to /SCMTMS/TOR_INV_PREP).
• Default view for the charges tab.

The final step in our configuration is the assignment of the FSD type to freight order and freight booking types.

You can assign the FSD type to one or several freight order types in the Define Freight Order Types customizing activity.

In customizing, choose Transportation Management→Freight Order Management→Freight Order→Define Freight Order Types.

You can assign the FSD type to one or several freight booking types in the Define Freight Booking Types customizing activity.

In customizing, choose Transportation Management→Freight Order Management→Freight Booking→Define Freight Booking Types.

TM documents contain different information than MM documents. The TM organizational structure is different to the MM organizational structure. Therefore, the organizational units must be mapped when a MM document (PO) is created out of a TM document (FSD).

To find the Purchasing Organization in MM, in customizing, choose Enterprise Structure→Definition→Materials Management→Maintain purchasing organization.

Maintain the MM Purchasing Organization/group in the corresponding TM Purchasing Organizational Unit:

In the backend, go to transaction PPOME and choose your TM Purchasing Organization.

In the tab Org. Data, field BSG Org. Unit, enter the MM Purchasing Organization.

For each FSD type the following must be defined:

• Purchase Order Type
• Material Group
• Plant
• Purchasing Group

This mapping enables the system to find the right PO type, assigned to the responsible plant and material group to take up the settled charges and create the respective FI and material documents.

In customizing, choose Transportation Management→Settlement→Freight Settlement→Integration for Settlement Posting→Assign Purchasing Information for Posting.

It is crucial to assign the transportation charge item categories, transportation charge item subcategories, and transportation charge types to MM service master records, also called activity numbers, and account assignment categories.

The account assignment category, set to "K" for the cost center, specifies which account assignment data is necessary for an item. The cost center serves as an organizational unit within a controlling area that represents a defined location of cost incurrence.

The MM Service Master Record/ Activity number represents the purchased service based on the TM Charge Type. The services are depicted in the PO Item section. In transaction AC01 the activity numbers can be set-up. Here, they are also linked to a valuation class, which enables the system to find the respective G/L accounts that are updated when services are entered.

In customizing, choose Transportation Management→Settlement→Freight Settlement→Integration for Settlement Posting→Assign Service Master Record and Account Assignment Category.

During settlement cost processing, the system can determine G/L accounts for the transportation costs automatically. This process uses the settings that you configure in the following Customizing activity to find the correct G/L accounts:

In customizing, choose Materials Management→Valuation and Account Assignment→Account Determination→Account Determination without wizard→Configure Automatic Postings.

Here, you define the determination of for example, the GR/IR clearing account, which takes up the accruals for the transportation charges and is balanced when the carrier invoice is received and verified. Furthermore, you set-up the determination of material Inventory and consumption accounts as well as freight clearing accounts.

To enable invoice verification, set up the user parameter TM_INVOICE_CLERK in the user data. With the user parameter TM_INVOICE_CLERK, you control which tabs the user sees when entering or changing incoming invoices in the transactions MIRO and MIR7, in change mode in the transaction MIR4, and in GR/IR clearing account maintenance in the transaction MR11.

In logistics invoice verification (MIRO), the user is now able to see the TM Ref. Tab. Here, you can enter for example, the freight order ID or the carrier ID to bring up the freight settlement transportation charges for comparing them with the carrier invoice.

In transaction SU01 or SU3, enter the respective user name and maintain the parameter ID in the tab Parameters plus parameter value X.