SAP MM: Outline Purchase Agreement for SAP MM

Definition

An outline purchase agreement is a longer-term agreement between a purchasing organization and a vendor regarding the supply of materials or the performance of services within a certain period according to predefined terms and conditions. (Outside SAP, such agreements may be referred to by a number of terms, including "blanket", "master", "framework" or "umbrella" agreements)

In the SAP System, such agreements are subdivided into:

Contracts

Centrally agreed contracts
Distributed contracts

Scheduling agreements

Scheduling agreement referencing a centrally agreed contract

Structure

Structure of an Outline Agreement

As in the case of other purchasing documents, an outline agreement consists of the following elements:

Document header: containing information relating to the entire agreement. For example, the vendor information and header conditions are in the document header.

Items: containing the information specific to the relevant material or service.

Statistics on ordering activities for the item
Quantity or price of the item
Conditions, such as quantity discounts and surcharges

Texts in Outline Agreements

You can enter different kinds of text for outline agreements. You can create your own texts from scratch or change a text that has been suggested by the system. There are two kinds of agreement text: header text and item text. The texts are further subdivided into text types (shipping and delivery instructions, for example). The text type determines the print sequence on the document printout.

For more information on texts refer to the section Entering Text, Printing and Transmitting Documents (as Messages).