Confirmations
MM-PUR Training
Business Process Example:
A purchase order (PO) is sent to vendor.
Vendor initially sends an OA referencing the PO. He may then follow this up e.g. with a shipping
notification referencing the PO. There is no direct link between an order
acknowledgment X and a shipping notification Y (the information provided by the latter is firmer, more precise, more up-to-date).
The GR can be posted with reference to the purchase order (PO) or with reference to the shipping notification. When a confirmation category is entered, the MRP element BS-EIN is replaced by BS-AVI in the stock/requirements list (transaction: MD04). When the GR is entered, the MRP element BS-AVI disappears.
Expediting confirmations:
If confirmations are to be expedited, the Acknowledgment required flag
must be set on the purchasing document item detail screen.
As of Release 4.5A, the following enhancements are available in connection
with reminders and expediters relating to purchasing documents:
Up to Release 4.5A, the system used the current date to calculate whether the
reminder period had been exceeded. As of Release 4.5A, you can enter a
reference date with which the calculation is to be carried out.
Up to Release 4.5A, acknowledgment/confirmation dates were not taken into
account. As of Release 4.5A, the system uses the acknowledgment or
confirmation date in addition to the reference date to calculate the reminder
periods. A prerequisite is that the confirmation category is flagged as “subject to
reminder/expediting” in Customizing for Purchasing.
Prerequisites to work with confirmations Material with material master
Confirmation control key on item detail screen Optional: Acknowledgement required flag
Confirmation maintenance options
Via Idoc: Order acknowledgement (no document is generated)
Shipping notification (a document is generated analog to VL31) Rough GR (a document is generated analog to VL41)
Note:
Only one OA can be updated per item via Idoc. So if one OA over a partial order quantity is received and then a second OA relating to the remaining quantity, the first partial quantity is also expected in the second OA, because old OAs are completely overwritten.
Via SAP transaction: VL31 (Create Shipping Notification) VL31N as of Release 4.6
VL41 (Create Rough GR) functionality comes from Retail In the PO: Via Item -> Confirmations -> Overview (no documents are Generated)
Customizing (transaction OMGZ)
External confirmation categories
You can define any kind of external confirmation
categories.
Internal confirmation categories
Internal conf. categories give you the option of using Idocs. Only the
aforementioned 3 Idocs are supported by SAP. The customer cannot define any further internal conf. categories.
The internal definition is especially important with regard to the use of Idocs because the structure of the later depends on this definition.
Confirmation control keys
You can define different confirmation control keys.
1.Confirmation sequence
You define the sequence in which the confirmation categories are expected. Note:
You can work with a maximum of 8 confirmation categories, the numbers 1 to 8 are reserved for it. The schedule line in the PO is internally assigned the number 0 and the GR the number 9.
The “GR-reference” indicator should always be selected for the last confirmation category expected in the sequence (i.e. prior to the GR). This is required
Confirmations - Sanjeev Shrivastava
Note: You can find the values in the right column in the requirements list (MD04).
Confirmations - Sanjeev Shrivastava
Why was the SL offset, and not the OA?
Offsetting logic:
1. SN has the sequence number 2. It can offset (reduce or cancel
out) all SLs and confirmations that have a lower number (SL = 0 and
OA = 1).
2. Date check: Quantities with an earlier date are offset (reduced or
cancelled out) first. Thus in this case the SL is offset first, then the
confirmation (here: order acknowledgment). Since in this case the
SL quantity is greater than the SN quantity, the latter can only partly
offset (i.e. only reduce, not fully cancel out) the former, leaving the
full OA quantity still MRP-relevant.
Confirmations - Sanjeev Shrivastava
Example 3: Same example as 2 but with different delivery dates
Prerequisite: Customizing transaction OMGZ, confirmation control key 0003 set as follows:
Why was the OA offset, and not the SL?
Offsetting logic: 1. SN has the
sequence number 2. It can offset (reduce or cancel out) all SLs and confirmations that have a lower number (SL = 0 and OA = 1). 2. Date check: Quantities with an earlier date are offset (reduced or cancelled out) first. Thus in this case the OA is offset first, then the SL.
Confirmations - Sanjeev Shrivastava
SN for 65 pc, confirming delivery on 03.17.01 => View: MRP-reduced quantity:
In a similar way to example 2, first the remaining 35 of the SL are offset (earlier date and lower sequence no.), then the 25 of the first OA.
Only then do the remaining 5 of the SN offset (reduce) the quantity of the second OA (with the delivery date 03.18.01).
Tip:
The total of the MRP-relevant quantities must agree with the SL quantity in each step as long as no GR has yet taken place.
Confirmations - Sanjeev Shrivastava
Symptom: Confirmations AND schedule lines are shown in MD04, i.e. reducing as not taken place correctly. => Check that the sequence number of the confirmation is <> 0 in Customizing.
(Prior to Rel. < 4.0 there were no checks in Customizing, so that the value 0 was accepted as the sequence number by the system.
As of Rel. 4.0, the entry of 0 is no longer accepted).
Symptom: Second confirmation overwrites the first -> check ekes-etens is not ‘0000’.
Over-/underdelivery tolerances relate to the GR quantity and PO quantity, NOT to the confirmation quantity. Non-MRP-relevant confirmations are for information only and do/are not reduced.
Correction reports
Note 215072: Correction of quantities reduced (MRP) for GR assignment Note 202875: Correction report: Redistribution using batch input
Release dependant functionalities
As of 4.0: Change affecting Customiying tables>
Previously there was one GR/assgt. Indicator for each confirmation category
With Rel. 4.0, you can define an indicator per BSTAE and confirmation category for a more fine-tuned control. As of 4.5: GR can be posted using VL transaction
