Describing the Scope Item and Selling from Stock (BD9)

During business processes, the transactions entered in the system initiate several automatic data-determination functions in the background. The outcomes of these background processes depends on values from master data and configuration settings that act as inputs to the different functions. Examples of these functions are shown in the figure, Sales Processing Functions.

When you create an order, you need information about the available quantity of the ordered materials. Without this information, you cannot confirm a sales order with certainty.

You can influence the scope of the availability check within the material master data. You may do this because you have different availability check requirements for different materials. On the material master record on the Sales: General/Plant Data tab, select the Availability check field to determine whether and how the availability check is carried out for a material during order processing.

There are also various settings in customizing control tables that influence the nature of the availability check. The material availability check can be executed using different strategies (for example, using product allocations). The most important strategy is Available To Promise (ATP).

Using delivery and transportation scheduling, and calculating backwards from the customer's required delivery date, the system calculates several dates for each item in the sales order. The relevant date for the availability check is the material availability date. On this date, enough material must be available in stock to meet the confirmed customer delivery date.

The material availability check in sales orders is performed at the plant level for the corresponding item. The plant can be determined automatically or maintained manually. During automatic determination, the system looks for a valid default value for the plant in the relevant master data. If you enter the delivering plant manually during order processing, your entry overwrites the default value.

You can influence the scope of the availability check with entries in certain customizing control tables. Among other things, you can configure the information that is included in the availability check.

You define the following information that is taken into account:

• Types of stock - for example, safety stock, stock in transfer, or stock in quality inspection
• The inward movements - for example, purchase or production orders
• The outward movements - for example, sales orders, reservations from materials management

When a customer orders material and you create the appropriate sales order, the supply of the corresponding material quantities must be ensured. To achieve this goal, the material requirements arising from the material quantities of the sales order items are automatically transferred and made available for Material Requirements Planning (MRP).

Based on this information, the responsible employee can decide, depending on master data settings, how to obtain the material; either externally through purchase orders, or internally through production orders.

Some customers may always want you to make one complete delivery, that is, the complete quantities of all order items must be delivered together. Others may allow partial deliveries, for example, if a single item cannot be confirmed for the requested delivery date. You can maintain the corresponding parameter for each sales area in the business partner master data.

If partial deliveries are allowed by the customer, you can also determine whether a partial delivery of a single item is possible.

To do so, maintain the corresponding parameters in the customer-material information record and/or in the business partner master data.

The main options for partial deliveries at the item level are:

• Multiple partial deliveries are allowed
• Only one delivery should be created (even if the ordered quantity cannot be fulfilled)
• Only a complete delivery per item is allowed
• There is no limit to subsequent deliveries

As shown by the figure, Partial Delivery Agreement, the customer-material information record has the higher priority when the system determines the value to be used in a sales order.

When you enter a sales order, you can change the parameters manually. This can be necessary if a customer usually prefers complete deliveries (maintained in the business partner master data) but allows a partial delivery for one particular order.

The plant plays a central role in sales and distribution processes. As a result, it is already relevant during the creation of sales orders. Among other things, the plant is relevant for the following functions:

• Tax determination
• Availability check
• Determination of the responsible shipping point

Because the delivering plant is of vital importance to the whole process, when sales orders are created, the system automatically attempts to determine the right plant (at the item level) from the master data.

The figure, Plant Determination, shows the possible sources that can be used to automatically determine the plant from master data and the corresponding access sequence. You can change the value of the automatically-determined plant manually.

If no valid plant can be found in the master data records (because, for example, the field is not maintained there), no delivering plant is set in the sales document item. This means that the specific functions mentioned above (for example, tax determination) cannot be performed, and the document is incomplete.

The shipping point is the organizational unit that is responsible for shipping processing. If you sell physical products that must be delivered to the customer, when sales orders are created, the appropriate shipping point is, like the delivering plant, already relevant for the corresponding items. As evidence of the importance of the shipping point, the following functions are dependent on it:

• Delivery scheduling
• Route determination
• Delivery creation

From an organizational point of view, shipping points are assigned to delivering plants. The figure, Shipping Point Determination, shows the criteria that are used to determine the appropriate shipping point for each sales document item.

The loading group can be found on the Sales: General/Plant Data tab in the material master record. The shipping condition is copied from the business partner master record of the sold-to party (the Shipping tab) into the sales document header. The plant is determined in the sales order from master data entries as previously indicated.

If no corresponding delivery document already exists, you can change the value of the automatically-determined shipping point manually in the sales order.

The route describes the path a delivery takes from a shipping point to the region of the customer's location. The route can comprise one or more sections and legs, as shown in the figure, Route Structure.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud uses the route for several transportation planning functions, including transportation scheduling. To influence transportation scheduling, the route is the source of the following values:

• Transit time: the amount of time the goods are on the road
• Transportation lead time: the amount of time for organizing the means of transport

Route determination can be performed automatically for each delivery-relevant item in the sales document.

The figure, Route Determination, shows the different criteria that SAP S/4HANA Cloud uses to determine a route for shipping in sales documents.

The departure zone is taken from the Customizing table for shipping points. The shipping condition is determined from the business partner master record of the sold-to party (Shipping tab). The transportation group can be found in the material master data (Sales: General/Plant Data tab). The transportation zone is taken from the business partner master record of the ship-to party (general data).

SAP S/4HANA Cloud can redetermine the relevant route within the delivery document.

Using delivery and transportation scheduling, the system can check, in a sales document, if a requested delivery date can be met. To check delivery dates, several time components are taken into account as shown in the figure, Delivery and Transportation Scheduling: Components.

If the necessary time components are available, the system can use two kinds of scheduling (backward and forward) to calculate the following dates:

• Material availability date: When a sufficient quantity of goods must be available for picking and packing

• Transportation planning date: When transportation planning should begin

• Loading date: When the loading should begin

• Goods issue date: When the goods must leave the delivering plant so that they reach the customer in time

• Delivery date: When the goods arrive to the customer

  In backward scheduling, the requested delivery date from the customer is assumed to be the relevant delivery date. In forward scheduling, the delivery date is calculated.

Backward scheduling is the first kind of scheduling performed for a sales order item. The figure, Backward Scheduling, shows the concept of backward scheduling.

The system first checks if the requested delivery date from the customer can be met. The requested delivery date is the starting point for backward scheduling. Starting with the delivery date, the system calculates the other relevant dates (such as, the material availability date) backwards using the available time components.

The calculated material availability date and the transportation planning date are of special importance. Depending on when the two calculated dates are relative to the order date, there are the following possibilities:

• After the order date

  If both dates occur after the order date (that is, in the future) and the material is available on the material availability date, the customer's requested delivery date can be confirmed. A corresponding schedule line is created for the sales document item. The date of the schedule line shows that the confirmed delivery date is the same as the customer's requested delivery date.

  The corresponding outbound delivery must be created at the earliest of the two following dates: material availability and transportation planning.

• Before the order date

  If one or both of the two dates occur before the order date, the requested delivery date cannot be confirmed. In this case, the first schedule line of the corresponding item is not confirmed. The system can then attempt to determine a confirmable delivery date using forward scheduling.

Forward scheduling takes into account the parallelism of the processes for picking and packing, and transportation planning. On the one hand, the system defines the earliest date when the material is available in the warehouse as the new material availability date. The pick and pack time is added to that date. On other hand, the system adds the transportation lead time to the order date. The later of the calculated dates is the new loading date, to which the loading time can be added to determine the goods issue date. The transit time is added to establish a confirmable delivery date. The figure, Forward Scheduling, shows the concept of forward scheduling.

If the complete quantity of the ordered material can be confirmed for the calculated new material availability date, two schedule lines are generated for the corresponding sales document item:

• The date of the first schedule line corresponds to the customer's requested delivery date and has no confirmed quantity.
• The date of the second schedule line shows the confirmed delivery date and the confirmed quantity.

If the complete quantity of the ordered material cannot be confirmed for a single date and partial deliveries are necessary, the system creates more schedule lines for the corresponding delivery dates.

The process starts with the creation of a customer and standard sales order. Depending on the customer and the material, various special events take place during order entry, such as customer or material pricing.

If enough material exists in the required storage location, the process proceeds normally. If not, a stock movement takes place. Picking slips are generated to stage the product for shipment to the customer. Once picked, the physically-shipped quantity must be registered in the system to ensure that there are no differences between the sales order and the delivery document.

After the completion of picking, the shipping specialist releases the inventory. This inventory release is the actual recording of the physical quantity that is being shipped to the customer. The cost of goods sold is recorded in financial accounting.

Once the inventory is relieved, you can invoice the delivery and, in management accounting, record the revenue and the cost of goods sold.

The figure, BD9 – Process Diagram, is the process diagram for scope item BD9, Sell from Stock.

The following are the main steps of the process:

1. The Create Sales Order step confirms the intention of the customer to buy the goods and initiates the process.
2. The Create Delivery step initiates shipping of the goods.
3. The Execute Picking step executes picking of the goods from the warehouse and its preparation for shipment.
4. The Post Good Issue step confirms the shipment of the goods.
5. The Create Billing Document step sends the invoice to the customer for payment.

• The Internal Sales Representative creates the Sales Order using the Manage Sales Orders app.

• The Shipping Specialist creates the Delivery using the Create Outbound Deliveries app.

• The Shipping Specialist then executes the Picking using the Manage Outbound Deliveries - VL06O app.

• The Shipping Specialist then Posts the Goods issue, again in the Manage Outbound Deliveries - VL06O app.

• Finally, the Billing Clerk creates the Billing Document using the Create Billing Documents app.

• Alternatively, the Billing Clerk can schedule a background job for creating billing documents.

As an alternative to the manual creation of billing documents, you can schedule a background job to create them. As indicated in the figure, Relative Date Selection Concept and Date Functions, this scheduling can use relative date selection functionality to select documents for processing.

A relative date is always defined in relation to the date on which the job is scheduled to run. The system determines relative dates, such as Yesterday (single date) and Previous Month (date range), by using date functions.

• While scheduling a new billing document creation job, go to the Parameters section.
• Use the input help of the Relative Billing Date field to choose the desired date function.
• The job is now set to select all billable SD documents whose billing dates match the specified relative date or relative date range.
• Configure the remaining parameters and settings as needed and choose Schedule to finish.

SAP provides several date functions that reflect commonly understood date concepts.

• Only business users that have the Analytics - Query Design business catalog (SAP_CA_BC_ANA_AQD) assigned to them can access the Manage Date Functions app and use it to create custom date functions. The business role Analytics Specialist (SAP_BR_ANALYTICS_SPECIALIST) contains this business catalog by default.
• If you want to give all business users with the Billing Clerk (SAP_BR_BILLING_CLERK) business role access to the app, a key user can assign the Analytics - Query Design business catalog to the Billing Clerk business role.

With the Manage Sales Orders app, you can search for sales orders according to your filter criteria and display them in a list.

On the list created using the Manage Sales Orders app, you can execute following actions:

• Able to search for sales orders using a free test search
• Able to search orders by entering a value in one or more filter fields
• Able to create a variant for the current filter selection and save it for later reference
• able to hide filter bar
• able to sort sales orders
• Able to hide and show columns in the list

From the list created using the Manage Sales Orders app, you can execute different actions, for example, you can reject all items in a sales order. You can also navigate to related applications, for example, to display sales order details or display the process flow. Navigating to the process flow provides you with a graphical overview of the chain of connected process steps and the corresponding business documents (document flow). For example, you can see the status of a sales order, whether it is relevant for shipping, and if an invoice has been created. Following is a list of transactional features:

• Able to create sales orders
• Able to reject all items for a sales order.
• Able to set or remove header level delivery and billing block
• Able to navigate to the sales order details to either display or change data
• Able to navigate to the customer 360 view app
• Able to navigate to the sales order object page
• Able to navigate to the customer object page
• Able to navigate to the process flow

Using the Create Outbound Deliveries app, you can create outbound delivery runs from a list of sales documents. This app also allows you to display logs with information related to your sales orders or deliveries. For example, if errors occur while you are creating deliveries, the system issues a message to the log. Similarly, the system issues a message to the log if you successfully create a delivery. Following is a list of key features:

• Able to search for sales documents due for delivery using basic filter options. you can also search using additional filter options
• Able to sort table entries by ascending or descending and then select the filter option you want to sort by
• Able to personalize table columns by selecting the columns you want to display in the Sales Documents Due for Delivery table
• Able to display a log that provides information about the delivery run that you have created
• Able to create outbound deliveries from sales documents

With the Create Billing Documents app, you can create billing documents, for example, invoices and credit memos, from items in the billing due list. This includes debit memo requests, sales orders, deliveries, and other Sales and Distribution (SD) documents. You can also generate temporary billing documents that you can review before converting them to final billing documents.

When searching, you can show or hide the filter bar. You can save your filter settings and restore the original settings.

Saved layout variants also save the values that you have set in filters. You can share saved layout variants with other system users. Following are view and Search features:

• Able to search using basic filters; by document number, document category, and sold-to-party for all billing due list items created before and including a certain date
• Able to search using additional features; add additional filters to the filter bar and filter by sales organization, by billing type, by customer project or billing document issue
• Able to select the columns that you want to display
• Able to sort the displayed data by one or more data types
• Able to group the data
• Able to use page variants to save and load custom filter and column layouts that you have created

The Create Billing Documents app has the following transactional features:

• Display details of any SD document in the billing due list (for example, sales order, outbound delivery or credit memo request) by choosing the corresponding document number.
• You can make billing settings so that the system performs intended actions automatically when you create billing documents.
• You can select one or more items in the billing due list to create billing documents for them.
• After you have created billing documents, you can manage them using the Manage Billing Documents app.

According to the billing settings, the following actions are performed by the system when creating billing documents:

• Enter the billing date and type before billing.

  If you enable this setting and choose to create billing documents, the system requests a billing date and the required billing type before creating billing documents.

• Create separate billing document for each item of billing due list.

  If you enable this setting and choose to create billing documents, the system creates separate billing documents for each item of the billing due list that you have selected.

• Automatically post billing documents

  The system automatically posts all billing documents that you create to accounting and triggers output (for example, an invoice by e-mail). Note that if you do not choose to post billing documents automatically, you must post them manually using the Manage Billing Documents app.

• Display billing documents after creation.

  The system generates and displays temporary billing documents for the SD documents that you have selected for billing. You then have the option to save or discard them. Saving converts them to final billing documents, while discarding them returns you to the billing due list.