Posting the Goods Issue for a Sales Order

When fulfilling customer orders, picking and posting a goods issue are necessary process steps. Other examples are supplying materials to production, or issuing goods internally for a cost center or an internal order.

When selling to an external customer, a sales order is created. A manufacturing order (production or process order) is the source document in production that could require materials to be able to execute the production process. For internal usage of materials, an outbound delivery might be the only document needed. This document could be created manually from the Inventory Management solution in the system, but it could also be created directly in SAP EWM. This is easier in many cases.

When you create a sales order in SAP S/4HANA, the sales order is scheduled according to some Customizing settings and the set-up of the master data records used in the process. Scheduling means that times are calculated for certain steps in the process. Examples are as follows: the goods loading time and the date/time on which the material needs to be available for the system to be able to confirm the sales order on the requested delivery date. This calculation (which is executed for each document item) is dependent on for example the sales document type that you select when creating the sales order (normal order versus rush order).

For the scheduling of the sales order, some other information needs to be determined first per sales order item. First of all, the (Delivering) Plant for a sales order item. The (delivering) plant plays a central role in sales and distribution processes and is therefore already relevant during the creation of a sales order. Among other things, the plant is relevant for the determination of the Shipping Point. The shipping point again is required for the calculation of the Route. All these elements are used when scheduling the sales order and when calculating the Material Availability Date. This is the date on which the material needs to be available in order to be able to confirm the sales order on the requested delivery date. If the actual Material Availability Date is later than this requested date, the sales order will be confirmed late.

Plant Determination

Because the delivering plant is of vital importance to the whole process, the system automatically attempts to determine the delivering plant (per item in the sales order) when sales orders are created.

For the determination of the (delivering) plant, the system uses a priority sequence. This sequence is as follows:

• Customer-material information record

• Ship-to party master record

• Material master record

If no valid plant can be found in these master data records (for example, because the field (delivering) plant is not maintained in any of these records), no delivering plant is automatically set in the sales document item. This means that the document will be incomplete. The user can then manually enter the (delivering) plant per sales order item.

A shipping point is the organizational unit that is responsible for shipping /outbound processing. If you sell physical products that have to be delivered to a customer, the appropriate shipping point is, like the (delivering) plant, already determined for the corresponding sales order items when the sales order is created.

From an organizational point of view, shipping points are assigned to (delivering) plants.

Shipping Point Determination

As shipping points are of vital importance to the process, the system tries to determine the right shipping point for every delivery-relevant item within a sales order automatically.

The shipping conditions are copied from the business partner master record of the Sold-to Party (Shipping tab page). They are copied into the sales document header. If certain shipping conditions are assigned to the sales order type (in the configuration of the system) that is used, then these overrule the shipping conditions from the Sold-to Party. This way you can use special sales order types for special processes which need a different shipping point (and a different sales order scheduling). Examples could be Rush Orders (standard order/document type RO) or Cash-Sales Orders (standard order/document type CS).

The loading group can be found on the Sales: General/Plant Data tab page within the material master record.

You can change the value of the automatically determined shipping point manually, but only to some other allowed shipping points as per the customizing tables where this is controlled.

The route describes the way the materials belonging to an outbound delivery need to be transported when moving from a shipping point to their destination. This destination depends on the Ship-to Party selected for the sales order item. This Ship-to Party could represent a specific address in the region where the customer is located. The route can consist of one or more sections and legs. It can also contain information on the service provider, the means of transportation and the actual transit time needed.

Route Determination

Route determination is performed automatically for each delivery-relevant item in the sales document, using specific data from the customer master, material master, and from the shipping point and if needed the document type of the sales order (for example, Rush Order).

Route determination depends on a successful shipping point determination. The system copies the value for the departure zone field out of the shipping point (maintained in the configuration of the system).

As in shipping point determination, the shipping conditions are determined from the customer master of the Sold-to Party. Again, the field value can be overruled by shipping conditions maintained in the sales order/document type (like Rush Order (RO)).

Note

You can change the shipping conditions manually in a sales order. If you do change the shipping conditions in an order, the system re-executes the shipping point determination and the route determination.

The transportation group can be found in the material master record (Sales: General/Plant Data tab page). The transportation zone is taken from the business partner master record of the Ship-to Party (General data).

Based on time elements maintained in the shipping point and also in the route in a sales order item, the system is able to propose dates for the following shipping activities:

• Material Availability Date

  The date on which a sufficient quantity of the material must be available for picking and packing to be able to confirm the sales order item on the requested delivery date.

• Transportation Planning Date

  The date on which transportation planning should begin.

• Loading Date

  The date on which the loading of the means of transportation should begin.

• Goods Issue Date

  The date on which the goods must leave the delivering plant/shipping point/warehouse so that they reach the customer in time.

When a sales order item is scheduled first, the system uses a technique called Backward Scheduling. The system first checks if the requested delivery date of the customer can be met. The requested delivery date is the starting point for backward scheduling. The system calculated backwards to determine the (required) Material Availability Date.

The planned dates are calculated by subtracting from the requested delivery date the number of days maintained for each of the following four time elements (as indicated on the slide):

• The Transit time (coming from the route) is subtracted from the requested delivery date to determine the Goods Issue Date.

• The Loading time (coming from the shipping point) is subtracted from the Goods Issue date to determine the Loading Date.

• The Pick/pack time (coming from the shipping point) and the Transportation lead time (coming from the route) are subtracted from the Loading Date to determine the (required) Material Availability Date and the Transportation Planning Date. The earliest creation date for the Outbound Delivery document is either the Material Availability Date or the Transportation Planning date, depending on which date is earlier. As can be seen, picking/packing and planning of the transportation are activities that are scheduled in parallel.

If the system encounters a problem when performing backward scheduling from the requested delivery date of the customer (for example: no stock is available for a material on the required Material Availability Date), the system tries to propose a realistic material availability date. The system will calculate a confirmed delivery date, starting to schedule from a date as soon as the material is available. The system then adds the four time elements to this newly calculated Material Availability Date to reach a new confirmed delivery date for the customer. This process is called Forward Scheduling.

In Customizing in SAP S/4HANA, you can specify for a sales document type (if needed) that the system is only allowed to perform backward scheduling. This means that unconfirmed or partially confirmed sales order items are more easily visible in the system.

There are different ways to create outbound deliveries for sales orders.

An order type can be set up in such a way that the outbound delivery is created automatically when a sales order is saved. This is a useful feature for special sales orders, like Rush Orders (RO) or a Cash Sales Orders (CS).

You can create outbound deliveries manually with or without a reference to a sales order. When creating an outbound delivery without reference to a sales order, certain fields which are normally determined in a sales order must now be entered manually in the outbound delivery.

Usually, outbound deliveries are created using collective processing transactions. This can be done manually, which enables the user to control what deliveries should be created, or it can be done with a batch job at a scheduled time.

During the creation of an outbound delivery, the calculated dates, the shipping point, and the route are copied from the sales order item into the outbound delivery. While these details are on item level in the sales order, they are copied into the delivery header in the outbound delivery. The shipping point and the route then work as split criteria. Split criteria means that if there are different shipping points or routes in the items of a sales order, this causes the system to create multiple outbound deliveries.

The route can also be re-determined in an outbound delivery; the weight of the materials in the outbound delivery can then also influence the determination of the route.

The previously calculated times can also be re-scheduled when creating an outbound delivery. That is important if, for example, the planned creation date of the delivery is actually already in the past.

Determining the Pick Storage Location

For a sales order, the delivering plant is determined. During the creation of the outbound delivery, the system determines the storage location (in Inventory Management) to be used for picking.

Determining the Warehouse Number

You can assign a warehouse number to the combination of a plant and the determined storage location. If a warehouse number has been assigned, it is in this warehouse number that picking now needs to be executed (see next figure).