Working with Purchasing Info Records

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to manage purchasing info records

Overview of Sources of Supply

The following are the various sources of supply:

  • Purchasing info record:

    The purchasing information record (or info record for short), is part of the master data of the purchasing department. It contains data concerning the relationship between a material and a vendor or a material group and a supplier. The conditions in the info record are maintained at the purchasing organization level or at the purchase organization/plant level. The conditions and other data stored in the info record are used as default values in purchasing documents such as purchase orders.

  • Outline agreement item:

    An outline purchase agreement is a long-term agreement between a purchasing organization and a supplier covering the supply of materials or the provision of services subject to predetermined conditions. These apply for a predefined period and a predefined total purchase quantity or a certain total purchase value. The two types of outline agreement are contracts and scheduling agreements.

  • Plant:

    An external procurement can be made by stock transfer from another plant. In this case, you do not need to maintain any special data in Purchasing, because normally an internal settlement will take place. However, it is also possible to create plants as suppliers. To do this, a plant assignment must be entered when maintaining the business partner (additional general data).

Purchasing Info Record Data

Info Records

Info records contain the following information:

  • Prices and condition supplements for a particular purchasing organization (with or without plant reference)
  • The supplier material number
  • Supply options (available from/to)
  • Origin data
  • The last purchase order number
  • The quotation number (if the info record was generated automatically from a quotation)
  • Price determination date control
  • Tolerance limits for over-deliveries or under-deliveries
  • The planned delivery time for the material

An info record can apply to either all plants or just a single plant of a purchasing organization. You can create info records manually or generate them automatically when you create a quotation, a purchase order, or an outline agreement.

In the SAP Fiori launchpad, you can use the following apps to maintain purchasing info records:

  • App to select, create, change and display purchasing info records: Manage Purchasing Info Records

    Note

    With this app, you can only enter a gross price, but no other condition types, such as freight conditions or discounts.

  • Apps that correspond to GUI transactions:

    Create Purchasing Info Record, Change Purchasing Info Record, Display Purchasing Info Record
  • App Monitor Purchasing Info Record Price History

In the SAP GUI on the SAP Easy Access screen, you choose the following menu paths to maintain purchasing info records:

  • Logistics → Materials Management → Purchasing → Master Data → Info Record → Create (ME11)

  • Logistics → Materials Management → Purchasing → Master Data → Info Record → Change (ME12)

  • Logistics → Materials Management → Purchasing → Master Data → Info Record → Display(ME13)

In addition, list display functions for info records enable the buyer to search for the following:

  • Info records by Supplier / Material / Material Group (transactions ME1L / ME1M / ME1W and the corresponding apps)
  • Order price history / Quotation price history (transactions ME1P / ME1E and the corresponding apps)

Purchasing Info Record Structure

Hint

To save conditions at plant level, this must be allowed in Customizing for Materials Management under Purchasing → Conditions → Define Condition Control at Plant Level.

Purchase Order Default Price

The current valid conditions from the info record are always suggested. You can use the pricing date category to find other conditions, for example, those valid on the delivery date.

If you use the GR Date pricing date category, you can determine the price again when the goods are received. This means that you do not have to make changes to purchase orders if the price changes between the time of the order creation and receipt of the goods.

If there are no conditions maintained in an info record, the system can propose the price from the last purchase order. With the EVO user parameter (default values for purchaser), it is possible to suppress this proposal.

Info records can be created manually or automatically when a quotation, a purchase order, or an outline agreement is created. Purchase order data is automatically updated in the info record if the InfoUpdate indicator has been selected in the purchase order.

Hint

Conditions are never created or updated on the basis of the InfoUpdate indicator in a purchase order.

Texts

For an info record with reference to a material master record, you can specify whether only the info record purchase order text is to be displayed and printed in purchasing documents. To do this, select the No MText indicator in the purchasing organization data of the info record.

Texts in info records can be maintained at purchasing organization level with or without plant.

Note

The SAP Fiori app, Manage Purchasing Info Records, currently doesn’t support text settings or text maintenance.

Create a Purchasing Info Record

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Create Texts in Info Records

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Learning

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