Process Overview
When the transportation process has been physically executed, the financial part of the process needs to be triggered. In the Monitor Execution – Freight Orders app, you have checked out freight orders, which is a prerequisite for financial processing. After you have checked out the last or only pickup stop of the freight order, the system gives the freight order a posting status of Ready for Confirmation
. When your freight orders are in this posting status, you can verify that the planned (calculated) costs are correct, and you can confirm the transportation cost for posting to Financial Accounting. Likewise the Ready for Confirmation
status is set for ocean freight bookings based on status Shipped-On-Board
and for air freight bookings with status Uplift Confirmed
.

Monitor Accrual Postings
Using the Monitor Accrual Postings - Freight Documents app, you can monitor your freight orders and freight bookings to post accruals. You can confirm a freight order / booking to post the transportation cost to Financial Accounting for accruals. You can monitor your freight documents in case there are errors during the posting process. To post the transportation costs to Financial Accounting, you must confirm that the charges for a freight document are a correct reflection of the planned costs to be paid to the carrier. When you confirm a freight document for posting, the system posts the transportation costs to Financial Accounting. You can also identify freight documents for which you have successfully posted the transportation costs.
The system sets the posting status to Posted
when the posting is successful or to Posting Failed
if it encounters errors during posting. In the Errors view, you can show the list of freight documents that have a posting status of Posting Failed
. In the Posted view, you can see the list of freight documents that have a posting status of Posted
.
The Monitor Accrual Postings - Freight Documents app allows you to perform the following tasks:
Confirm transportation costs for posting to financial accounting for accruals
View freight documents that are successfully posted to financial accounting
Cancel postings for freight documents that are successfully posted to financial accounting
Monitor freight documents that have errors when you post them to financial accounting
Display the errors that the system encountered when it posted your freight documents
Post or cancel posting for freight documents for which the system encountered errors during posting
In a freight order or freight booking, charge calculation results are stored in a hierarchical table on the Charges tab. The charge items and charge lines in the hierarchical table correspond to the level at which the system determines the freight agreement and calculation sheets. The system specifies various attributes corresponding to the charge lines and thereby allows you to analyze which and how charges have been calculated.
In the posting process the system creates a service purchase order (PO) and service entry sheet (SES) in MM for carrier settlement and at the same time the system also posts the freight cost to material valuation for an inbound process or expense for an outbound process.
If you receive invoices with unplanned costs associated with freight orders, you can capture the same in the invoice document for the business user to be able to review the invoice and be able to do the further processing associated with the invoice (i.e. review the unplanned costs in the invoice, approve or reject the invoice or perform invoice reduction and post the invoice to financial). However, you cannot change or delete an existing invoiced charge.
Simulation
Watch the simulation Settle Freight Order to learn more about the system-related activities.
Carrier Settlement
For the carrier settlement, the invoice received from the carrier is finally verified against the costs calculated in the freight document, or for the carriers, that agreed to the automated invoice settlement - you can use the Evaluated Receipt Settlement (ERS) scenario. A credit memo can be issued for the carrier in this scenario:
- Invoice verification:
As soon as the carrier invoice is received, the accounts payable accountant can post it with reference to the freight order. The expected transportation costs calculated in the freight order are compared with the amounts of the carrier invoice. Blocked invoices (due to discrepancies) can be released by the purchase manager using a workflow.
In the invoice verification process, the verification is done against the following references:
- Reference document category: Freight Order
- Freight order: <Freight Order Number>
Another option to locate the freight order is to use the search help and enter the carrier.
When the carrier invoice is created, the posting status in the freight order changes from
Posted
toInvoice Verified
. - Evaluated receipt settlement (ERS):
For carriers that have agreed to the automated invoice settlement, the ERS scenario is used where a credit memo is issued.