Confirmations from the Purchasing Viewpoint in SAP MM

Use

When working with vendor confirmations, you have the following options:

• You work exclusively with order acknowledgments.

In this case, the confirmation has informative character only, i.e. you cannot enter any dates or quantities in the system.

• You work with one or more self-defined confirmation categories (order acknowledgment, loading confirmation, inbound delivery, etc.). In this case, you can enter quantities and dates in the system.

If you have an EDI arrangement with your vendor, incoming EDI order acknowledgments and shipping notifications (as inbound deliveries) can be created in your system automatically.

Furthermore, you can monitor confirmations and issue acknowledgment expediters.

Prerequisites

• Working with order acknowledgments only

None

• Working with different confirmation categories

The confirmation control facility must be set up in Customizing for Purchasing.

You can also define which confirmation categories are relevant to MRP in Customizing for Purchasing (Confirmations ® Confirmation control under Confirmation sequence).

Features

Working with Order Acknowledgments Only

In this case, you do not have to enter anything when you create a purchase order (or scheduling agreement). SAP recommends that you set the Acknowledgment requirement indicator, since you can then send out messages urging vendors to submit outstanding acknowledgments.

If the indicator has been set in the relevant purchasing info record, it is adopted in the purchase order.

When your vendor sends you an order acknowledgment, enter the acknowledgment number on the item detail screen. If you wish to assign the same acknowledgment number to all items, you can use the fast change facility. (Edit ® Fast change.)

You cannot enter any dates or quantities, and are thus unable to influence materials planning. Neither can you run any analyses of confirmations.

Working with Different Confirmation Categories

In this case, you must enter a confirmation control key on the item detail screen when creating a purchase order (or outline purchase agreement). This key determines which confirmations are expected from the vendor (e.g. an order acknowledgment and a shipping notification) and in which sequence.

If a confirmation control key has been defined in the relevant purchasing info record, this is suggested. The same applies to the Acknowledgment requirement indicator.

If you create a purchase order with reference to a contract, the confirmation control key from the contract is adopted in the PO.

You can enter a confirmation in one of the following ways:

• You can enter the vendor confirmation in the PO or scheduling agreement. Enter the confirmed (or acknowledged) quantities and delivery dates on the confirmation overview screen (Item ® Confirmations ® Overview).
• You can generate an
Inbound Delivery with its own inbound-delivery document against a shipping notification sent to you by your vendor (Purchase order or Scheduling agreement ® Inbound delivery ® Create). If a confirmation control key with the confirmation category "inbound delivery" exists in the relevant PO item, the data PO item data is updated by the data from the inbound-delivery document.

See also:

Receiving Confirmations via EDI

Monitoring Confirmations

Order Acknowledgment Expediters