Availability Check & Transfer of Requirements configuration in SD

Availability Check & Transfer of Requirements configuration in SD:

When a customer places an order for a material and requests that the material be delivered to him on a specific date. This delivery date can only be confirmed after ensuring the material availability after considering all the inward as well as out ward stock movements.The availability check shall happen and take into account the respective activities that must be carried before a delivery can take place Similarly the procurement department is also to be informed on the quantities which sales require to be able to deliver against the orders received. This information can trigger production orders for manufacture.

If sufficient quantities are not available to cover the requirements, purchase orders, can be created in purchasing on the basis of transfer of requirements planning.The Availability Check and Requirement Transfer help to determine delivery date for a customer.These also help in determining whether the goods are ready or to be produced or to be procured externally.We need to ensure that when availability check fails, i.e., when the requested delivery date cannot be met from the nearest distribution center, then to check in other centers if goods delivery is possible from one of these centers.Another important factor to be taken into account is that some customers might be preferred customers and if availability check fails, provision should be in place to release goods already reserved for some customer order.

Availability Check – Overview

•  Types of Availability Check
•  Scope of the Availability Check
•  Availability Check in Sales Order
•  Control of Availability Check

There are three types of Availability check 

Check on the basis of Available to Promise (ATP) Quantities:

The ATP quantity is calculated from the warehouse stock, the planned inward movements of stock (production orders, purchase orders, planned orders) and the planned outward movements of stock (Sales Orders, deliveries, reservations). This type of check performed dynamically in the transaction. Planned independent requirement are not taken into account here.

Check against product allocation:

Product allocation facilitates period-based distribution of products for certain customers or regions. This type of check is useful in a cases, for example, the production is very low, customer requirement is high.

Check against planning:

The check against planning is performed against independent requirements which are usually created for an ‘anonymous’ market rather than being customer specific.

Scope of the Availability Check:

The following elements can be included in the availability check:

• Stock: Safety stock, Stock in transfer, Stock in quality inspection, blocked stock.
• Inward movement of goods: Purchase orders, Purchase requisitions, Planned orders, and Production orders
• Outward movement of goods: Reservations, Dependent reservations and requirements, sales and delivery requirements

Availability Check:

When you create an order, the system determines the required material availability date on the basis of the customer’s requested delivery date. On this date you must begin picking, packing and loading the goods. Therefore this is the date of significance for requirements planning on which the availability check should be checked.

The following data is required for determining this date:

• Route from the shipping point to the ship to party.
• Shipping point from which the goods are issued.
• Loading group from the material master record.
• Weight group determined from the order using the order quantity.
• Control of Availability Check.

The control features specific to Sales and Distribution are:

1. Checking group: It controls whether the system is to create individual or collective requirements in sales and shipping processing. The checking group can also be used to deactivate the availability check. It is proposed in the material master record on the basis of the material type and the plant, and copied into the sales documents

2. Checking Rule: The use of checking rule to control the scope of the availability check for each transaction in sales and distribution. You also specify the check should including or excluding replenishment lead time

3. Schedule line category: Schedule line category controls whether an availability check and transfer of requirements should be carried out in the sales documents

4. Delivery item category: The delivery item category can be used to control whether an availability check takes place in deliveries.

Prerequisites for Availability Check:

• Requirement Classes

Menu Path: IMGà Sales & Distributionà Basic Functionsàl Availability Check & TORà TOR à Define Requirement Classes

The availability check must be switched on at the requirements class level

• 
  
• Schedule line category level

In order to have availability check in the sales document, the indicator must be set at the schedule line category level.

Menu Path: Display IMGà Sales & Distributionà Salesà Sales Documentsà Schedule Linesà Define Schedule Line Categories

SAP MMBE Stock Overview

MMBE transaction for displaying stock overview. SAP MMBE (Stock Overview) transaction is part of SAP inventory management. So, to better understand what stock overview transaction entails, it is essential to understand the importance of an effective inventory management for companies.

In order to meet their customers’ needs for availability of good while increasing their profits and decreasing their expenditures, companies must use effective inventory management. Order-to-delivery times for a customer are critical when choosing vendors. Therefore, reducing this time to a minimum can provide a competitive advantage to a supplying organization.

SAP ERP with its Materials Management module has implemented a set of processes supported by SAP inventory management functionality for all types of stock movements within a plant. As inventory is a matter of quantity and value in a plant, stock movements are entered in real time. For this purpose, several functions and reports are provided by SAP inventory management to give detailed information about all goods and their stock data. SAP MMBE (Stock overview) transaction is one of these tools that can be considered as a display at any given moment of information about the stock situation of an individual material.

This snapshot informing an inventory user of a material status in SAP is also called stock overview transaction. It provides the material stock balance on every organizational level (client, company code, plant, storage location) relevant to inventory management and will also display information for batches and/or valuation types and special stocks if needed.

Let us see more closely what SAP MMBE transaction really looks like and how to use it.

SAP MMBE – Stock Overview

Before discussing the stock overview transaction, please be informed that the numbers mentioned below (for example material, plant, etc.) are just for illustrative purposes. Learners are most likely to have different numbers in their SAP systems.

To call up the stock overview in SAP, enter the transaction code MMBE.

SAP Stock Overview Transaction Code

Alternatively, use this path in SAP Easy Access menu to start it:

Logistics > Materials Management > Inventory Management > Environment > Stock > Stock Overview (MMBE)

Then comes the following screen.

SAP MMBE – Stock Overview Selection Screen

The title of the screen is Stock Overview: Company code/Plant/Storage Location/Batch. This title is listing some organizational levels for which the material stock balance can be provided if the stock overview is not set otherwise. This first screen is introducing us to the stock overview by requesting certain selection criteria with fields subdivided in three groups which are as follows.

Database selections aiming to query the inventory database about the status of a specific material according to either its plants, storage locations or batches.

Database Selections Group

Stock Type Selection inviting the user to filter display of the next screen of the stock overview according to specific stock types.

List Display group inviting the user to further filter the stock overview by including more selective information among which a subgroup of checkboxes called Selection of Display Levels that is inviting the user to select exactly the organizational levels for which they wish to display the stock overview.

Stock Type Selection and List of Display Groups

Let us use the following information in the database selections group and leave the default values and settings in the last two groups of the screen unchanged.

·         Material > R-B209

·         Plant > 1100

·         Storage location > 0001

SAP MMBE – Database Selections Sample Input

Then, let us click on the execution button  below the screen title. The next page to appear will have for title Stock Overview: Basic List.

SAP Stock Overview – Basic List Screen

On this screen, we can see two group: Selection and Stock Overview.

Selection group providing a brief description of the material for which we are requesting the stock status.

Selection Group in SAP MMBE Transaction

Stock Overview group that is displayed as a two-columns table.

Left Column of SAP Stock Overview Listing Organizational Levels

And the right column lists stock types.

Right Column of SAP Stock Overview Listing Stock Types

The following set of buttons above the list of organizational levels in the left column of the stock overview group assists in displaying details about the stock overview.

Set of Buttons

Let’s discuss these buttons from left to right.

·         The first and the second buttons expand and collapse the subtree of the organizational levels.

·         The third button assists in finding a specific cell according to one of the organizational levels identification numbers.

·         The fourth button is providing us with the print view of the stock overview.

·         The fifth button is giving us a detailed display of the stock types listed in the right column and of course is linked to the organizational levels in the left column.

The right column lists different stock types that can be viewed by scrolling the horizontal scroll bar to the right.

For the material R-B209 we can see organizational levels where it exists in the left column (company code 1000, plant 1100 and storage location 0001). However, only two stock types among the listed stock types which are unrestricted use and on-order stock types can be seen on the right side because of the quantities they are showing.

As SAP is logically differentiating quantities of a material in stock using stock types concept for effective inventory management, we can see that there are 40 pieces of R-B209 available in the inventory as unrestricted use stock and 20 pieces are currently on-order.

When these 20 pieces are going to be posted to stock during goods receipt process the available inventory for R-B209 will be 60 pieces under unrestricted use stock type (if posted to the unrestricted use stock type).

The SAP stock types concept will be explained in another tutorial.

Customizing for SAP MMBE Stock Overview Transaction

SAP stock overview transaction is made for display purposes. SAP MMBE gives the information about current material stock levels. It is possible to configure display of stocks in each column and sort the order into which they are displayed by performing customizing in SPRO transaction.

You need to navigate to the following path in SPRO to customize how stock lists are displayed:

Materials Management > Inventory Management and Physical inventory > Reporting > Define Stock List Display

Who am I and What I am doing SAP in Bangladesh

My Name is Dara Zablur Rahman Siddique. Consultant SAP ERP SD Module. Email ID:nayonsiddique@gmail.com.Mobile No:01832241596.

My Linkedin Profile

Presently I am working in Exzatech Solution Ltd as a Consultant SAP ERP SD Module. Exzatech Solutions Limited, a successful collaboration between two eminent private players in Bangladesh and India and is a leading provider of SAP ERP in Bangladesh and Integrated IT services to small, medium and large enterprises. Exzatech’s primary objective is to become a global IT Service Delivery and a Consulting Organisation, from Enterprise Solution, Business Analytics, IT advisory, IT and Management Education Service to product innovation and Business Consulting.

Profile:

Over all 7 years’ experience in SAP ERP Software in Sales & Distribution (SD) Module

• Over 7 years of industry experience. Hands on experience of working in 5 SAP projects of which 4 full life cycles implementation using ASAP methodology: from Business Blueprint, Realization, Finalization, to go-live & Support. 

• Nearly 7 years of experience in SAP Sales and Distribution (SD) module and integration of SD with FI, CO, MM, WM and PP modules as a functional consultant.

• Expert knowledge on order to cash (OTC) processes.

• Functional expertise: Pre-sales activities such as inquiry and quotation, and major business activities such as Pricing, Billing, Shipping, Transportation, and Availability check (ATP), Credit Management, Partner Determination, Output Determination, Bill of Materials and Variant Configuration.

• Technical proficient on debugging and user-exits. Good understanding of ABAP codes.

• Proficient in customizing different Sales Orders such as Standard sales order, Rush sales order, Cash sales order. 

• Expert in Shipping Point Determination, Route Determination, Transport and Delivery Scheduling, Backward Delivery Scheduling, Partial and Complete Delivery, Subsequent Outbound Delivery Split and Grouping of Deliveries

• Expert resource for customizing allocation of Free-of-charge items, and customization for Free of charge delivery, Invoice Correction Request, and Return Orders, Credit Memo, and Debit Memo.

• Expert in the customization of customer master data, material master data, and data sharing among sales organizations.

• Pricing Experience: Configuration of Condition Types, Condition Tables and Access Sequences, Determining and Maintaining Pricing Procedure, Creation of Condition Records, Special Pricing Functions such as Condition Exclusion and Analysis of Pricing.

• Billing Experience: Configured Billing Documents based on Billing Types and Item Categories, Customized Invoices. Expert in integrating billing to Accounting and Controlling.

• Credit and Risk Management: Sound knowledge in the configuration of Credit Control Area, Credit Data and Credit Groups. Direct experience of customizing Dynamic credit check process and payment guarantee procedure. Deep understanding of credit card processing.

• Worked on time related and service related revenue recognition procedures. Expertise in configuring Billing Plans, Rebate agreement and Inter-company billing.

• Advanced knowledge on third party sales process and inter company sales. Good understanding of inter company pricing and billing procedures.

• Production support: experienced in unit testing, system integration testing, performance testing and user acceptance testing, and regression testing

• Experience in data cleansing and data conversion using tools like LSMW. Excellent communication, time management, and interpersonal skills. 

TECHNICAL SKILLS: 

ERP Systems SAP R/3 4.6C ECC 5.0 ECC6.0.S4 Hana Operating systems Windows NT, Windows 2010, Vista, XP, 95 Project tools SOLMAN, SharePoint, MS Office Suite, Ms-Project, & Ms Outlook.

Experience:

Exzatech Solutions Ltd.

Joining Date:April 2014 to Till Now.

Project Name: Fair Distribution Ltd (FDL).

Project time Duration: April-2017 to till now. 

Role: Consultant SAP ERP SD Module.

Job Description:

• Conducting workshops to gather the business requirements.

• Meeting with business process owners and departmental heads to identify the business requirement. • Analyzing the client’s AS-IS business process and mapping it to to-be business processes by identifying the gaps.

• Preparing business process documents for the sales and distribution activities.

• Drafted functional requirement specifications (FRSs) for customer master, quotation processing, sales order processing, consignment processing, billing, returns processing, contract processing, rebates processing, and backorder processing.

• Prepared dataflow diagram for all of the business processes to be included in FRSs.

• Drafted user requirement specification (URS) for sales and distribution.

• Identified RICEFW objects to meet the client specific requirement.

• Prepared functional specification for the development of Reports, Interface, Conversion, Enhancement, and Forms. Prepared unit test scripts and checklist to be included in the functional specification. Tested RICEF objects.

• Configured customer master and partner determination. Added customized partners in the customer master record.

• Designed customer master and customer account group.

• Worked in customer master conversion. Analyzed legacy customer records to map properly to the SAP systems and successfully migrated the customer master records using LSMW.

• Successfully worked on pricing conversion, material listing conversion, open sales order conversion, contract conversion, and CMIR conversion.

• Worked on designing the pricing procedure.

• Configured pricing procedure, condition types, access sequence, and built custom pricing tables.

• Configured account determination, and identified account keys to post to the related G/L.

• Prepared test scripts for the Sales and Distribution.

• Trained testers to execute the test steps in SAP and recording the test results in HP Quality Center.

• Designed smart forms for order acknowledgement, invoice, and rebate credit memo

• Defined user roles and security matrix for SD activities.

• Fixing configuration to support testing activities.

• Working on integration testing and mock 2 preparation.

Exzatech Solutions Ltd.

Project Name: Bashundhara Paper Mills Ltd (BPML).

Project time Duration: May-2016 to December 2017

Role: Consultant SAP ERP SD Module.

Job Description:

• Conducting workshops to gather the business requirements.

• Meeting with business process owners and departmental heads to identify the business requirement. • Analyzing the client’s AS-IS business process and mapping it to to-be business processes by identifying the gaps.

• Preparing business process documents for the sales and distribution activities.

• Drafted functional requirement specifications (FRSs) for customer master, quotation processing, sales order processing, consignment processing, billing, returns processing, contract processing, rebates processing, and backorder processing.

• Prepared dataflow diagram for all of the business processes to be included in FRSs.

• Drafted user requirement specification (URS) for sales and distribution.

• Identified RICEFW objects to meet the client specific requirement.

• Prepared functional specification for the development of Reports, Interface, Conversion, Enhancement, and Forms. Prepared unit test scripts and checklist to be included in the functional specification. Tested RICEF objects.

• Configured customer master and partner determination. Added customized partners in the customer master record.

• Designed customer master and customer account group.

• Worked in customer master conversion. Analyzed legacy customer records to map properly to the SAP systems and successfully migrated the customer master records using LSMW.

• Successfully worked on pricing conversion, material listing conversion, open sales order conversion, contract conversion, and CMIR conversion.

• Worked on designing the pricing procedure.

• Configured pricing procedure, condition types, access sequence, and built custom pricing tables.

• Configured account determination, and identified account keys to post to the related G/L.

• Prepared test scripts for the Sales and Distribution.

• Trained testers to execute the test steps in SAP and recording the test results in HP Quality Center.

• Designed smart forms for order acknowledgement, invoice, and rebate credit memo

• Defined user roles and security matrix for SD activities.

• Fixing configuration to support testing activities.

• Working on integration testing and mock 2 preparation.

Exzatech Solutions Ltd.

SAP Project Name: USHA Implementation for Madiana Group.

Role: Consultant SAP ERP SD Module.

Project time Duration: March-2015 to February 2016

Job Description:

• Conducting workshops to gather the business requirements.

• Meeting with business process owners and departmental heads to identify the business requirement. • Analyzing the client’s AS-IS business process and mapping it to to-be business processes by identifying the gaps.

• Preparing business process documents for the sales and distribution activities.

• Drafted functional requirement specifications (FRSs) for customer master, quotation processing, sales order processing, consignment processing, billing, returns processing, contract processing, rebates processing, and backorder processing.

• Prepared dataflow diagram for all of the business processes to be included in FRSs.

• Drafted user requirement specification (URS) for sales and distribution.

• Identified RICEFW objects to meet the client specific requirement.

• Prepared functional specification for the development of Reports, Interface, Conversion, Enhancement, and Forms. Prepared unit test scripts and checklist to be included in the functional specification. Tested RICEF objects.

• Configured customer master and partner determination. Added customized partners in the customer master record.

• Designed customer master and customer account group.

• Worked in customer master conversion. Analyzed legacy customer records to map properly to the SAP systems and successfully migrated the customer master records using LSMW.

• Successfully worked on pricing conversion, material listing conversion, open sales order conversion, contract conversion, and CMIR conversion.

• Worked on designing the pricing procedure.

• Configured pricing procedure, condition types, access sequence, and built custom pricing tables.

• Configured account determination, and identified account keys to post to the related G/L.

• Prepared test scripts for the Sales and Distribution.

• Trained testers to execute the test steps in SAP and recording the test results in HP Quality Center.

• Designed smart forms for order acknowledgement, invoice, and rebate credit memo.

• Defined user roles and security matrix for SD activities.

• Fixing configuration to support testing activities.

• Working on integration testing and mock 2 preparation

Exzatech Solutions Ltd.

SAP Project Name: Bashundhara Food & Bevarage.

Role: Consultant SAP ERP (SD Module).

Project time Duration: Apr 2014 – Jan 2015.

Job description:

• Conducting workshops to gather the business requirements.

• Meeting with business process owners and departmental heads to identify the business requirement. • Analyzing the client’s as-is business process and mapping it to to-be business processes by identifying the gaps.

• Preparing business process documents for the sales and distribution activities.

• Drafted functional requirement specifications (FRSs) for customer master, quotation processing, sales order processing, consignment processing, billing, returns processing, contract processing, rebates processing, and backorder processing.

• Prepared dataflow diagram for all of the business processes to be included in FRSs.

• Drafted user requirement specification (URS) for sales and distribution.

• Identified RICEFW objects to meet the client specific requirement.

• Prepared functional specification for the development of Reports, Interface, Conversion, Enhancement, and Forms. Prepared unit test scripts and checklist to be included in the functional specification. Tested RICEF objects.

• Configured customer master and partner determination. Added customized partners in the customer master record.

• Designed customer master and customer account group.

• Worked in customer master conversion. Analyzed legacy customer records to map properly to the SAP systems and successfully migrated the customer master records using LSMW.

• Successfully worked on pricing conversion, material listing conversion, open sales order conversion, contract conversion, and CMIR conversion.

• Worked on designing the pricing procedure.

• Configured pricing procedure, condition types, access sequence, and built custom pricing tables.

• Configured account determination, and identified account keys to post to the related G/L.

• Prepared test scripts for the Sales and Distribution.

• Trained testers to execute the test steps in SAP and recording the test results in HP Quality Center.

• Designed smart forms for order acknowledgement, invoice, and rebate credit memo.

• Defined user roles and security matrix for SD activities.

• Fixing configuration to support testing activities.

• Working on integration testing and mock 2 preparation.

IBCS-Primax Software Pvt. Ltd.

Joining Date:August 2013 to February 2014.

SAP Project Name: Project Zenith.

Role: Consultant SAP ERP (SD Module).

Project time Duration: September 2013 – Jan 2014

Job Description:

• Conducting workshops to gather the business requirements.

• Meeting with business process owners and departmental heads to identify the business requirement. • Analyzing the client’s as-is business process and mapping it to to-be business processes by identifying the gaps.

• Preparing business process documents for the sales and distribution activities.

• Drafted functional requirement specifications (FRSs) for customer master, quotation processing, sales order processing, consignment processing, billing, returns processing, contract processing, rebates processing, and backorder processing.

• Prepared dataflow diagram for all of the business processes to be included in FRSs.

• Drafted user requirement specification (URS) for sales and distribution.

• Identified RICEFW objects to meet the client specific requirement.

• Prepared functional specification for the development of Reports, Interface, Conversion, Enhancement, and Forms. Prepared unit test scripts and checklist to be included in the functional specification. Tested RICEF objects.

• Configured customer master and partner determination. Added customized partners in the customer master record.

• Designed customer master and customer account group.

• Worked in customer master conversion. Analyzed legacy customer records to map properly to the SAP systems and successfully migrated the customer master records using LSMW.

• Successfully worked on pricing conversion, material listing conversion, open sales order conversion, contract conversion, and CMIR conversion.

• Worked on designing the pricing procedure.

• Configured pricing procedure, condition types, access sequence, and built custom pricing tables.

• Configured account determination, and identified account keys to post to the related G/L.

• Prepared test scripts for the Sales and Distribution.

• Trained testers to execute the test steps in SAP and recording the test results in HP Quality Center.

• Designed smart forms for order acknowledgement, invoice, and rebate credit memo.

• Defined user roles and security matrix for SD activities.

• Fixing configuration to support testing activities.

• Working on integration testing and mock 2 preparation.

Coordinator:

Successfully engaged with " Association of SAP Professionals in Bangladesh" as a coordinator from last 3 years.

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