Executing the Shipping Process

Trent’s Bike is now ready for the next step: outbound delivery creations. That’s where Colette comes into play – she is the shipping specialist of the Bike Company.

A delivery document has a similar structure to a sales document and is grouped into two levels: header and item level. In a delivery document, the data is distributed across these levels as follows:

At header level, you have the information for shipping processing included such as ship-to party and deadlines. The document header data is valid for the entire document.

At item level, you have information such as the material, quantities, weights, and stock information. Each delivery document can contain several items, and the individual items can be controlled differently.

Colette, the Shipping Specialist, uses outbound delivery as the basis for posting the goods issue. Posting the goods issue reduces the quantity and the value of the goods in stock. Value-based changes are made to the relevant balance sheet accounts in financial accounting.

When the Shipping Specialist posts the goods issue, the following supporting functions are automatically carried out by the SAP S/4HANA system:

The Material Document contains the following information:

	Stocks and Requirements & Inventory Management	The quantity in inventory management and the requirements in materials planning are reduced by the delivered quantity.
	Material Ledger	The value change in the balance sheet accounts for inventory accounting is posted (the postings from the relevant accounting document are based on the cost of the material).
	Accounting & Controlling Document	Other documents for accounting generated by the system. For example, for Controlling.
	Billing Due List	The billing due list is generated, and the respective delivery can now be used in billing.
	Document Flow	The status in all the associated documents is updated.

While the journey of the bicycle from The Bike Company to Rapid Riders isn’t monitored in the SAP S/4HANA system, the real excitement begins upon its arrival in the store.

Trent is notified that his much-anticipated bike has made it to its destination. He is now ready to embark on an exhilarating first ride.