Objective
When you enter and post goods movements in Inventory Management, system messages (for example, Purchase order item is indicated as delivery completed) are output to inform the user about certain system responses or the status of the data.
You can determine the following types of messages for selected system messages:
The system performs the check using checking rules that you have assigned to the various transactions in Inventory Management, in a similar way to the availability check.
Depending on the checking rules and the checking group from the material master record, the system determines which stocks, planned receipts, and requirements are to be included. In addition, you can use the checking horizon for the GR postings to determine for how many days in the future the check must take into account when checking for missing quantities of the material. Within the checking horizon, an internal mail is sent from Inventory Management informing the MRP controller that there has been a GR for a missing part.
Hint
When posting a GR for a missing part, the warehouse clerk receives a message with information about the missing part situation. This message also contains a hint that the MRP controller will be informed. The displayed message is a warning message. You can activate or deactivate this message for specific users.
Caution
The system sends the missing part message to the responsible MRP controller identified in the material master record when a mail user has been assigned to the MRP controller. Otherwise, the system searches for the central missing part expediter in the plant and sends the message to the expediter. When no mail user has been assigned to the central missing part expediter either, the system cannot send any internal message.
The following table lists the types of missing part messages:
| Type of Missing Part Message | Description |
|---|---|
| Non-summarized | The system sends one internal message with a maximum of five MRP elements for each missing part material. |
| Summarized | The system sends one internal message per material document and plant with the list of missing part materials, but without information about the MRP elements themselves. |
You can maintain the general text for the missing part message (for message type MLFH) in Customizing for Inventory Management under Output Determination.
Goods issue/receipt slips are normally output using printers; however, you can also create them in PDF format. You can control the output generation in output determination by assigning forms.
In Customizing for Inventory Management, you can create the following settings for printing:
You can identify printers by their logical printer names. You specify which printers are barcode-capable and which printers are capable of supporting multiple outputs.
In Customizing, go to Materials Management → Inventory Management and Physical Inventory → Print Control → General Settings.
Assign the printers within the output determination settings.
To print a GR or goods issue slip for a goods movement, a print indicator must be assigned to the movement type. This print indicator controls whether it is possible to print a material document item and the message type that the system uses for the slip.
You can define your own item printout indicator, for example, for a return delivery of materials to a vendor, and assign this indicator to the movement type for return deliveries. You can use various item printout indicators in message determination and thus indirectly for the use of different forms.
The system outputs GR and/or issue slips as well as internal messages for MRP controllers or buyers. This is done using the condition technique.
GR and/or issue slips and internal messages are examples of different output types. You can check all output types using a procedure. The procedure is associated with one or more output types.
Each output type has an associated access sequence. You can use this sequence to search for the condition record(s) in the assigned condition table(s). However, in the case of Inventory Management, the condition records are maintained in Customizing and not in the application menu.
You can determine the printer using the following print parameters:
In this case, you specify the printer for the output of GR and/or issue slips for each combination of output type, plant, and storage location. An entry with Storage Location = ’ ’ (blank) is necessary for printouts for goods movements without specification of a storage location (for example, with movement type 103) or GR for a purchase order item with account assignment. Entries without an output type are valid for all output types (for the same plant and the same storage location) for which no special entry exists.
In this case, you specify the printer for the GR and/or issue slips for each combination of output type, plant, storage location, and user group. Entries without an output type are valid for all output types (for the same plant and the same storage location) for which no special entry exists. You must enter the user group in the user master record with user parameter ND9.
For the application ME (Inventory Management), you can assign a printer for each output type and user.
You can assign a print program and at least one form to each output type for GR and/or issue slips, depending on the output medium. You can either retain the forms supplied in the standard system to print GR and/or issue slips or design some of your own, using the SAPscript, Adobe Forms (PDF) or SMARTFORMS functions.
When you maintain a label type and label form for a material, you can print labels when posting a goods movement. There are separate settings for label printing.
In Customizing, go to Materials Management → Inventory Management and Physical Inventory → Print Control → Set Label Printout.
For label printing, you must maintain a label text.
The fields for label type and label form are in Plant Data/Storage 1 view in the material master.
Hint
SAP S/4HANA-based output management is also available for Inventory Management.
You decide in Customizing whether you want to set up output control via SAP S/4HANA output management or NAST: IMG → Cross-Application Components → Output Control → Manage Application Object Type Activation. By default, SAP S/4HANA output management is active for cloud installations and inactive for on premise ones. The Application Object Type for Inventory Management is GOODS_MOVEMENT.