To handle foreign trade processes with the SAP Global Trade Services (SAP GTS) system, you need an organizational structure that consists of foreign trade organizational units and legal units. The foreign trade organization represents the upper hierarchy level of the two, while the legal unit represents the lower level. You have to define this organizational structure for GTS, and the defined structure has to comply with the legal and customs requirements, to allow execution of your import and export processes. You assign one or more legal units to a foreign trade organizational unit. Note that while you can assign one or more legal units to a foreign trade organizational unit, you can only assign each legal unit to a single foreign trade organizational unit. You always define organizational units as business partners in the GTS system.
The handling of import and export processes is based on data in your logistics feeder systems. The organizational structure - consisting of foreign trade organizational unit and legal units - enables you to map the organizational structures in your feeder system and, by assigning the two organizational structures, transfer the necessary data from the feeder system. You need both master data and transaction data in your GTS system. If the system cannot determine this assignment in the GTS system when transferring master data or documents from the feeder system to the GTS system, you cannot perform the desired foreign trade processes.
The monitoring functions in the GTS system are based on foreign trade organizations and legal units. If you use SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse to analyze your foreign trade processes, the analyses are also based on these organizational units.
If you use SAP ERP as a feeder system, for example, you can assign company codes to foreign trade organizations and assign plants (or combinations of plants and storage locations) to legal units. If the foreign trade organization represents several company codes, you can assign several company codes to that foreign trade organization. However, you can only assign a company code to one foreign trade organization. The same applies to the assignment of plants or plant/storage location combinations to legal units.
If you use SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM) or another system that is not based on company codes or plants as your feeder system, you can assign partner numbers for sales organizations to foreign trade organizational units, and partner numbers for suppliers to legal units.
In addition to the organizational units for legally representing your company to the authorities, you define the organizational units for handling specific foreign trade units in your organizational structure. These include the customs IDs for processing customs procedures with economic impact to identify specific or virtual premises for which you have received authorization from the customs authorities to store and/or process the products for these procedures. The organizational structure also defines the organizational units for which you explode and evaluate bills of material. You use these bills of material, for example, for handling re-exports in legal control, as well as in preference processing.
Process
Caution
If you want to use the Customs Management and Risk Management areas in GTS, you have to define the organizational structure. You also need an organizational structure for the document connection to the feeder system, to perform document-related checks in the Compliance Management area.
1. Open the Customizing tree for GTS and choose Global Trade Services General Settings Organizational Structure .
2. Setting up foreign trade organizations
To set up foreign trade organizations, perform the following activities: 1. Define foreign trade organizations
2. Transport foreign trade organizations to subsequent systems 3. Assign organizational units from feeder systems
1. Company codes if SAP ERP is the feeder system
2. Partner numbers if SAP CRM or another feeder system is used 4. Set up legal units and assign them to foreign trade organizations
Recommendation
We recommend creating one legal unit for each plant and assigning only one plant to each legal unit.
To set up the legal units, perform the following activities: 1. Define legal units
2. Transport legal units to subsequent systems 3. Assign organizational units from feeder systems
1. Plants or plant/storage location combinations if SAP ERP is the feeder system 2. Partner numbers if SAP CRM or another feeder system is used
Note
If you have defined several feeder systems as a group of feeder systems, as they have the same organizational structure, you can map your organizational structure and data to the GTS system at feeder system group level.
To configure the additional organizational units, you have to perform the following activities: ● Define the bill of materials evaluation
When you define the BOM evaluation, you have the following options: ○ Plant-specific evaluation of BOMs
○ Cross-plant evaluation of BOMs ● Configure customs IDs
To enable use of customs IDs, you need to configure the following settings in the SAP GTS system: 1. Define Customs ID for Customs Procedures with Economic Impact
2. Control customs ID for customs procedures with economic impact and technically activate the customs ID
● Control Customs ID for a Foreign-Trade Zone
After you define the customs ID for each foreign-trade zone and specify which customs IDs are relevant for which FTZ, you can fine-tune the customs ID settings for each foreign-trade zone.
● Set the start time at which the FTZ posting day begins.
● Specify the factory calendar, which determines the working and non-working days.
● Enter a FIRMS code and an FTZ zone ID to enable communication with the U.S. customs authority.
Note
For more information, see the documentation in Customizing under SAP Global Trade Services General Settings Organizational Structure
● Define Customs ID for Customs Procedures with Economic Impact ● Control Customs ID for Customs Procedures with Economic Impact ● Control Customs ID for a Foreign-Trade Zone
5.12.1 Defining Foreign Trade Organizational Units
The foreign trade organizational unit represents you company as the legal person to the authorities. To enable integration between your foreign trade processes with the logistics processes in feeder systems, the foreign trade organization in the Global Trade Services (GTS) unit represents the independent financial unit in your feeder systems. Accordingly, the foreign trade organizational unit models the organizational unit at your company that has its own VAT registration number. Within the GTS system, the foreign trade organizational unit acts as the authorization owner, for example, and the applicant for import and export licenses, securities, and CAP licenses. The foreign trade organizational unit is the higher of the two hierarchy levels for the organizational structure in the GTS system. You define the foreign trade organizational unit in business partner maintenance: Create a new business partner and assign the corresponding role for the foreign trade organization. When doing so, you have to make sure that you assign the foreign trade organization to only one country. The system uses the country key for the foreign trade organization business partner for the specific determination routines in the application. In the Customs Management area, for example, the system uses the country of a foreign trade organizational unit to find the legal regulation for the processes. You also model the customs representatives within a corporate structure, for example, at the level of the foreign trade organizational unit.
After you define the foreign trade organizational unit, you assign it to the corresponding unit in the feeder system (or group of feeder systems) in a subsequent step. Therefore, you have to define at least one foreign trade organizational unit to represent your company and comply with statutory requirements and customs regulations.
Note
The administrative unit represents the highest hierarchy level in the organizational structure for preference processing. The administrative unit and the foreign trade organization can be identical, however. Therefore, check whether the requirements for an administrative unit match those of your foreign trade organizational unit, and if they do, assign the role for the administrative unit to your foreign trade organizational unit as well.
Prerequisites
You have assigned external numbers for the business partners that you defined in the GTS system. For more information, see Assigning Number Ranges for Business Partners [page 80].
Procedure
1. Open the Customizing tree for GTS and choose Global Trade Services General Settings Organizational Structure Define Foreign Trade Organizations .
2. The Maintain Business Partner screen appears.
3. Choose Organization to create your foreign trade organizational unit as a business partner with role Foreign Trade Org. (SLLFTO).
5.12.2 Transporting Foreign Trade Organizations to a
Downstream System
When you define foreign trade organizations as business partners, the system saves this information in the master data. As a result, this data is excluded from the general transport of Customizing settings. If you use the recommended system landscape for your implementation project - with different systems for Customizing, testing, and live operations - you have to transport the organizational units explicitly. The setting in this activity lets you automate this process for each organizational unit. You can define the foreign trade organizations in your development or test system and transport them to downstream systems, such as the live system.
Prerequisites
You have defined the RFC destination in the source system. The origin of the foreign trade organization must be defined in the target system. Therefore, perform the following steps:
● You have defined the source system as a logical system in the target system. For more information, see
Defining a Logical System [page 13].
● You have assigned the logical system of the source system to a group of logical systems. For more information, see Assigning Logical Systems to Logical System Groups [page 22].
● The group of logical systems that contains the logical system of the source system must be a separate group, and must differ from the group of other feeder systems.
Procedure
1. Go to Customizing and choose SAP Global Trade Services General Settings Organizational Structure Transport Foreign Trade Organizations to Downstream Systems .
2. Enter the business partner numbers that you want to transport to downstream systems. 3. In the Target System field, enter the RFC destination.
5.12.3 Configuring Control Settings at Foreign Trade
Organization Level
You perform these IMG activities to connect SAP Global Trade Services (SAP GTS) with SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence (SAP NetWeaver BI). To do so, you assign units of measurement to your foreign trade organization (FTO). Make sure you have set the BI indicator to activate the transfer of business transaction data to SAP NetWeaver BI. You can control the transfer of transaction data at three levels:
● Foreign trade organization ● Document type
● Item category
Caution
To ensure customs document data is transferred successfully from SAP GTS to SAP NetWeaver BI, you must set the BI indicator not only in this IMG activity, but also in the following two activities:
● Customs Management General Settings Document Structure Define Document Types ● Customs Management General Settings Document Structure Define Item Categories
Prerequisites
You have defined at least one foreign trade organization and maintained the appropriate units of measurement.
Procedure
1. Go to Customizing for SAP Global Trade Services and choose General Settings Organizational Structure Control Settings at FTO Level for SAP NW Business Intelligence (BI) .
2. Enter the units of weight and units of measurement in which you want to display the data for a foreign trade organization in SAP NetWeaver BI.
3. Set the indicator to activate data transfer from SAP GTS to BI and save your entries.
5.12.4 Assigning Company Codes to the Foreign Trade
Organizations
To enable data transfer between SAP Global Trade Services (SAP GTS) and feeder systems such as SAP
Enterprise Resource Planning (SAP ERP), you have to assign the appropriate company code in the feeder system to the foreign trade organizational unit in SAP GTS. You can assign more than one company code to an
organizational unit.
You can assign company codes to foreign trade organizations at two levels: ●
● If only one feeder system exists, or if several feeder systems have different organizational structures, you can assign the company codes at feeder system level.
● If several feeder systems have the same organizational structure, you can assign the company codes at feeder system group level.
If the system cannot determine an organizational unit in SAP GTS when a document is posted in the feeder system, then no further processing can be carried out on that document.
Procedure
Go to Customizing for SAP Global Trade Services and choose General Settings Organizational Structure Assignment of Organizational Units from Feeder System to Foreign Trade Org.
Assign company codes at the feeder system level 1. Choose Assign Company Code at Feeder System Level
2. You can carry out the following activities in the next dialog box: 1. Automatically Transfer Company Code
We recommend using this function as the first step, to transfer all the company codes from your feeder system to SAP GTS and ensure the data is transferred correctly. In the selection screen, you enter the feeder system and the foreign trade organization to which you want to map all the company codes from the feeder system. However, it is important that you manually edit the automatic assignments
afterwards to ensure the assignments are those you want.
Note
To test the assignment, select the Simulation Mode checkbox. This ensures that no data is written to the database. You can completely reassign all the company codes from your feeder systems by selecting the Overwrite Existing Records checkbox.
2. Manually Assign Company Code
You can check automatic assignments and manually assign new company codes to foreign trade organization units now.
1. To edit an existing entry in the table displayed, select the appropriate line and double-click to change the foreign trade organization of the assignment.
2. To make a new manual entry, choose New Entries and select a feeder system.
3. Enter the company code in the Feeder Sys. Org. Unit field and use the input help to assign the foreign trade organization.
4. Save all your changes and entries.
Assign company codes at the feeder system group level 1. Choose Assign Company Code at Feeder System Group Level. 2. You can carry out the following activities in the next dialog box:
1. Automatically Transfer Company Code 2. Manually Assign Company Code
Note
5.12.5 Assigning Partner Numbers to the Foreign Trade
Organization
To enable data transfer between SAP Global Trade Services (SAP GTS) and the feeder systems, you have to assign the appropriate organizational unit in the feeder system to the foreign trade organizational unit in SAP GTS. The mapping between partner numbers in the feeder system and the foreign trade organizations in SAP GTS is available for the generic assignment of these units, This lets you configure the transfer of data from feeder systems such as SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM), SAP Extended Warehouse Management (SAP EWM), or non-SAP systems.
You can assign partner numbers to foreign trade organizations at two levels:
● If only one feeder system exists, or if several feeder systems have different organizational structures, you can assign the partner numbers at feeder system level.
● If several feeder systems have the same organizational structure, you can assign the partner numbers at feeder system group level.
Note
If the system cannot determine an organizational unit in SAP GTS when a document is posted in the feeder system, then no further processing can be carried out on that document.
Note
Mapping of SAP CRM and SAP GTS:
An organizational unit of SAP CRM must be mapped to a foreign trade organization of SAP GTS. To do this, you assign a CRM sales organization with the partner role 'O' to a foreign trade organization in SAP GTS using the partner number. The partner number must be the ID of the sales organization - not the business partner number of the sales organization.
Note
Mapping of SAP EWM and SAP GTS
An organizational unit of SAP EWM must be mapped to a foreign trade organization of SAP GTS. To do this, you assign a sales organization of EWM with the partner role 'O' to a foreign trade organization in SAP GTS using the partner number. The partner number must be the business partner number of the sales organization - not the ID of the sales organization as in mapping for SAP CRM.
Procedure
Go to Customizing for SAP Global Trade Services and choose General Settings Organizational Structure Assignment of Organizational Units from Feeder System to Foreign Trade Org. .
Assign partner numbers at the feeder system level 1. Assign Partner Number at Feeder System Level 2. Choose New Entries.
3. Select the feeder system in the Logical system field and assign a business partner role. 4. Choose Partner Number Mapping to assign a logical system to a business partner. 5. Choose New Entries.
6. Enter an external business partner number in the feeder system and the foreign trade organization to which you want to map the business partner data in SAP GTS.
7. Save your entries.
Assign partner numbers at the feeder system group level 1. Assign Partner Number at Feeder System Group Level 2. Choose New Entries.
3. Select a logical system from your group of feeder systems and assign a business partner role. 4. Choose Partner Number Mapping to assign a logical system group to a business partner. 5. Choose New Entries.
6. Enter an external business partner number and the foreign trade organization to which you want to map the business partner data in SAP GTS.
7. Save your entries.
Note
You can edit each manual assignment by calling the partner number mapping table in this IMG activity and selecting the relevant line. You can then change and save your entries again in the maintenance screen.
5.12.6 Defining and Assigning Legal Units
Use
A legal unit represents a subunit within your company. To integrate the foreign trade processes with the logistics processes in feeder systems, the legal unit in SAP Global Trade Services (SAP GTS) reflects a logistics unit in your feeder systems. Legal units are used as presentation sites, for example, or other authorized locations of goods within SAP GTS. Moreover, authorizations, import licenses, and export licenses must always be available for the entire premises of a legal unit.
The legal unit is the lower of the two hierarchy levels in the SAP GTS organizational structure. You define the legal unit in business partner maintenance: you create a new business partner and assign the role of legal unit. The system uses the business partner address of a legal unit to determine specific values in the application. In SAP Customs Management, for example, the system uses the country of the legal unit to determine the country of departure for exports and the country of destination for imports.
Note
If you use the Preference Processing service, a plant represents the lowest hierarchy level of the organizational structure. Each plant in Preference Processing represents a plant in the feeder system, for which you want to use the aggregation of long-term vendor declarations or preference determination. Therefore, first create a