Buying one-time materials (SD/MM integration)

[former_member504446]

Dear gurus,

SAP SD always requires a material number in an order item.

Now, in some cases, we do not have a material number for an item a customer orders and we do not want to create a new material master for it because it may be a one-time order (i.e. that specific material will not be ordered by any customer ever again).

What is the standard way to deal with this? Especially how can I buy that material from my vendor and ship it to my customer?

I thought about creating a material number “Other materials” that could then be used in the SD order. After that, I would create a purchase order in SAP MM to buy the material from our vendor. But I am not sure about the order-account assignment. Could that purchase order be assigned to the SD order directly? Is there any way to create a purchase requisition from that SD order?

Cheers

Alicia

[moazzam_ali · Accepted solution]

Hi

I have never seen anything similar to one time customer or vendor for material master in SAP.

For your query, Yes! we can create PR from sale order but before suggesting something I would like to know how do you manage cost of this sale order? Is it charged to material or to order? In MTO we can charge cost to sale order and create PR the way you want. I am quite hopeful we can also do this for third party sale order as well. We can also create PR w.r.t sale order in third party sale.

For materials you can create a generic material and change it's description in every order. This is not a good solution as concerned to costing of this sale order. Check the costing parameters and update.

Thank$

[Jelena · Accepted solution]

In addition to MoazzaM's post - make sure to consider how will you report such sales, how you'll do the receipt from vendor, taxation and other financial requirements. If you only sell one of those items at a time it's a bit simpler, but if you ever run into having two materials for separate orders from separate vendors delivered at the same time, how would you keep track of inventory?

It may seem simple, but it's easy to make a mistake here that will cost a lot more to resolve than making an extra entry in material master.

[former_member504446 · Accepted solution]

Dear MoazzaM,

I am afraid I do not really know what type of information you are requesting. What do you mean by "costing parameters"?

I still would very much appreciate any information on how to create a PR from those sales orders.

Cheers

Alicia

[former_member504446 · Accepted solution]

Dear Jelena,

thank you for your reply.

We are aware that there will be limitations concerning reporting using dummy materials. But we feel it is no better alternative to create many many material masters that will be used only once.

Iventory is not an issue though because we'd like to have our vendors to deliver directly to our customers (third-party order).

Cheers

Alicia

[Jelena · Accepted solution]

Alicia, I think you have enough input here already to work on your requirements in more detail and build a prototype.

I don't know enough about the third party orders, but with a unique material you'd have some cost information in material master and vendor price information in the info record. With a "dummy" material all this would have to be manual, I believe.

As was noted, there is no "one time material" solution in SAP per se, you'd just need to test such setup and see if it works for you. Don't forget to review all the financial postings - too frequently people get too wrapped up in trying to squeeze the order in then hit problems down the road in COPA and FI.

[moazzam_ali · Accepted solution]

Hi

From costing parameters I meant so say how would you handle cost price of this material? You said you won't maintain inventory of this material. It will be delivered directly from vendor to your customer. This is third party sale and we can create PR in third party sale. Just Google it and see what TW has suggested in below post.

Thank$

[Former Member]

Hi Alicia,

In Such a case why dont create a Text Material and use it for every such Miscellaneous Orders?

I will prefer to create a Dummy Material and see that it is Non-Valuated and use it for such occasions,

Thanks,

Ajay Kaushik YGR

[Jelena]

Ajay, there is no 'Text material' type in MM01, from what I see, and Alicia already noted an option for the "dummy" material ("Other material") as a possible solution in the first post.

Also this post is dated July 2nd and if you click on Alicia's profile you'll see that she hasn't logged in since July 10th. We do expect the SCN members to follow up on their discussions and close them if they are resolved but, unfortunately, not everyone does that.

[former_member182378]

Jelena,

maybe what Ajay wants to suggest is in sales order there is an option of giving the description and skipping giving material code. This can be used even if no material master created for the "onetime material".

Alica,

You need to test, in sales order omitting material code; and only giving description and quantity. Check 3rd party related configuration of item category TAS and schedule line category CS. also read the SAP help documentation for 3rd party.

TW