Managing Freight Orders

In SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition, freight orders are managed in the Manage Freight Orders app. As a transportation manager, you might need to keep track of freight orders on a daily basis and be aware of any issues such as execution backlogs and delays. The app contains all the information that you need to keep you up-to-date with transportation orders (freight orders) and to identify any potential problems. Using this app, you can create deliveries and perform charge calculations for a selected freight order.

You can do the following with the Manage Freight Orders app:

• Create, edit, copy, view and cancel freight orders.
• Monitor freight orders
• Search, filter, sort, and group the list of freight orders by relevant criteria such as execution status, planned departure, ship-to party, freight agreement, and carrier
• Assign or unassign existing freight units
• Insert or remove railcar items or containers
• Perform subcontracting and communicate the freight order details to the carrier
• View transportation charge details and manually calculate charges
• Create deliveries for selected freight orders by pressing the Create Deliveries link above the list

• Print CMR Waybills (Europe) and ADR Dangerous Goods (DG) Notes (Europe) for road freight orders.

• Create note texts and include attachments

Selecting a freight order in the list view takes you to a more detailed view. The General Data tab displays the most important information, like the responsible purchasing organization and group as well as the carrier to whom the freight order is subcontracted. Additional tabs grouped under Business Partner, Statuses, Charges, Subcontracting, Execution etc. provide more detailed information. The detailed information enables you to take swift action to remedy any possible issues. For example, if you notice on the header that there has not been the expected progress in creating deliveries, you can view further details of the order underneath. If you see a problem, you can investigate it by opening the relevant tabs and take appropriate action.

Compliance with dangerous goods regulations is an important component of product compliance to ensure safe transportation of dangerous goods. To support your compliance with dangerous goods regulations, dangerous goods data is integrated into checks that are carried out in the processing of freight units, freight orders, and freight bookings. If a product has been marked as relevant for compliance in the product master, the system checks dangerous goods data as the transportation document is created or edited. If an item in the document has been classified as a dangerous good, the system also checks if all necessary dangerous goods data is available, and whether transportation of the product is allowed, forbidden, or restricted. Depending on the outcome of this check, the system issues warnings, or blocks the document. No TM specific configuration is required for this.

In the freight order, you can review and edit the following information.

While above description primarily focuses on road transportation, there are some mode-specific deviations. For rail freight orders the General Data tab includes the number and types of railcars that have been subcontracted as well as if there are multiple executing parties involved in the execution of the rail freight order. On the Items tab you can insert, copy, or delete railcars and enter equipment groups and equipment types. For charge calculation, you can specify whether the railcar is owned by the shipper. The Stages tab allows you to specify an invoicing carrier and an executing carrier for each stage. For the rule 11 scenario that is applicable in North America, you can assign different carriers for the stages. In this case, one carrier accepts the actual order but the invoices for the individual stages are submitted by all of the carriers involved.

For sea and air freight, similar information is maintained for the ocean / air freight booking in the Manage Ocean / Air Freight Bookings app.

A consignment order represents a business document that groups several transportation requirements that have the same source and destination locations. Consignment orders are created locally in a freight order, after the freight units have been assigned. Local consignment orders are marked with the qualifier local in the item hierarchy. In multi-modal scenarios the consignment order is build at the first freight document (freight order, freight order for pick-up).

In the outbound process, the system sends an advanced shipping notification via EDI based on the consignment order. To be able to send out advanced shipping notifications, you must set up the communication scenario SAP_COM_0850 (Transportation Management – Advanced Shipping Notification Integration). The consignment order document is created after you set the execution status of the freight order to Ready for Transportation Execution. After the goods are packed at the warehouse and goods issue is posted for the delivery, the goods movement status in the consignment order document is set to Completely Processed. This is the trigger to automatically create an advanced shipping notification and send it to the ship-to party. The advanced shipping notification can be checked on the Output Request and Communication History tabs.