Processing a Goods Receipt for a Purchase Order

The second step of the simple external procurement process is posting the goods receipt.

Meet Arielle, who, in her role as Warehouse Clerk, is managing the efficient flow of goods within the Bike Company. She offers Trent some insights into the process of the goods receipt.

From a system’s perspective, goods receipts are entered with reference to the corresponding purchase order. Once the receipt of goods is recorded, the system suggests all open items from the purchase order.

This facilitates both the entry and checking of incoming goods. Among other things, you can check the following:

• If the right material has been delivered.
• If the right quantity has been delivered, and if there is an over or under delivery.
• If perishable goods are within their minimum shelf life.

If the supplier only delivered a fraction of the ordered goods, for example, due to shortages on their side, several goods receipts can be entered against one purchase order item until the order is fully delivered.

When posting the receipt of goods into the warehouse, the system generates a material document. This document contains several pieces of information.

1. Details about the material delivered.
2. Information about the delivered quantity.
3. Insights into plant and storage location, where the material is stored.

Master data information from the material master is also considered, for example, the storage location information maintained in the view. In addition, the system generates an accounting document to update the value of your goods in stock.

All these processes happen in the inventory management part of SAP S/4HANA which is responsible for the management of material stocks on a quantity and value basis.

By recording all stock-changing transactions, an overview of the current stock situation of a material is always available. In addition to managing stocks by quantity, inventory management also manages the stock by value. With each goods movement, the system automatically updates stock quantities and stock values, the general ledger accounts for financial accounting, and the account assignments for cost accountings.