Understanding Purchase Order Confirmation Rules

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to Describe key purchase order confirmation rules that you may wish to adjust from the baseline setting to align with your business process.

SAP Business Network: Order Confirmation Transaction Rules

Purchase order confirmations are a way to gain formal confirmation from your trading partners that they have received your order. Order confirmations may contain useful information such as the delivery date or notice that the item is backordered. Trading Partners can also "Partially Confirm" or "Reject" the Order, providing you the information you need to make informed business decisions about the materials you need.

When considering changes to the baseline settings for Order Confirmations, think about the following questions:

  • Do order confirmations drive existing workflows, or will they in the future? Are they required?
  • How do you handle partially confirmed and backordered items?
  • How are price increases managed?
  • Will you allow trading partners to increase quantity to reduce the unit price?
  • How do you handle orders that need to be changed or cancelled?

Learn more about key purchase order confirmation rules and how they function.

  • Allow Suppliers to send Order Confirmations for Material Orders
    This screenshot shows the Rule “Allow Supplier to send Order Confirmations for Material Orders”.

    If your organization does not allow order confirmations for material orders, "Uncheck" to disable this rule.

  • Allow Suppliers to send Order Confirmations for Service Orders.
    This screenshot shows the Rule “Allow Supplier to send Order Confirmations for Service Orders”.

    If your organization does not allow order confirmations for service orders, "uncheck" to disable this rule.

  • Require Suppliers to create an Order Confirmation for the PO before creating an Invoice.
    This screenshot shows the Rule “Require Supplier to create an order confirmation for the PO before creating an Invoice”.

    It is not recommended to enable this rule because it will create a barrier to Invoicing, however, if you require Trading Partners to provide Order Confirmations for Material Orders, "Check" to enable this rule. Enabling this rule will require the Trading Partners to submit at least one Order Confirmation against a Purchase Order, otherwise a network error will be generated during Invoicing.

  • Send Suppliers an automatic reminder of Unconfirmed Orders after a specified number of days.
    This screenshot shows the Rule “Send Suppliers an automatic reminder of Unconfirmed Orders after a specified number of days”.

    You can choose to send Trading Partners up to three automatic reminders for Orders that are unconfirmed after the specified number of days from the Order date. Enter specified number of days if you would like to enable this rule.

  • Allow Suppliers to reject quantities for material Orders at the line item level in Order Confirmations.
    default transaction rules screen in the system
    • No - If selected, Trading Partners cannot reject material line items.
    • Partially (Recommended) - If selected, Trading Partners can specify a quantity to reject for material line items.
    • Fully - If selected, Trading Partners can only fully reject material line items.
  • Apply line item quantity tolerance to Order Confirmations.
    This screenshot shows the Rule “Apply line item quantity tolerance to order confirmations”.

    SAP recommends setting this to at least 10% to allow flexibility to your Trading Partners.

  • Apply line item unit price tolerance to Order Confirmations.
    This screenshot shows the Rule “Apply line item unit price tolerance to order confirmations”.
    SAP recommends setting this to at least 10% to allow flexibility to your Trading Partners.

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