Outlining Consumable Purchasing

The scope item, Consumable Purchasing (BNX), belongs to the business areas Operational Procurement and Invoice Management, which are part of the Sourcing and Procurement line of business.

This module gives a brief overview of the procurement of consumable materials (consumables) and introduces the account assignment category necessary for this procurement process.

In a company, certain materials, such as office supplies, are procured directly for cost centers. These materials are not subject to inventory management at the storage location.

In an SAP S/4HANA Cloud system, a material is called a consumable material if it is not procured for stock. Such materials can include raw materials for production that are processed during the production process, or a machine that is used as an asset in the company for several years with an assignment to an asset account.

A consumable material is a material that is subject to a procurement transaction and whose value is recorded in the cost element or asset accounts. Consumable material is thus procured directly for an account assignment object. Examples of consumable materials are office supplies and computer systems or machines.

You can certainly procure stock material not only for stock, that is, to be placed in storage, but also directly for consumption. You may purchase trading goods for a customer (sales order), for instance. You can thus enter an account assignment for each item of an external purchasing document or purchase requisition if it is destined for direct consumption. In certain cases, however, account assignment is mandatory.

You MUST enter an account assignment for an item under the following circumstances:

• A pure consumable material: If a material that is not subject to inventory management, is ordered. It follows that such material is posted directly to consumption.
• If an article for which no material master record exists is ordered
• If an external service is ordered
• If a material is to be procured as a consumable, you must specify an account assignment category and other account assignment data in the document item of the relevant requisition or external purchasing document.

The figure, Consumable Purchasing Process Overview, shows the process diagram for the scope item Consumable Purchasing (BNX).

This scope item contains the creation and approval of purchase orders for consumables. The procedure provides the process steps for creating purchase order, approval, goods receipt of consumables, and invoice receipts by line item.

Consumable items can be entered either with or without a material number. The purchase order is subject to approval based on predefined parameters before being issued to a supplier. There is no inventory in the system for consumable goods. By posting a goods receipt, the value of the goods is expensed to a cost center. Upon receipt of invoices from the vendor, they are entered with reference to a corresponding purchase order. This allows for the purchase order value, goods receipt value, and invoice value to be aligned.

The key process flows are as follows:

• Process Purchase Requisitions
• Manage purchase orders
• Manage goods receipts
• Manage invoices