Transfer posting between 1 warehouse into 2 plants

[Former Member]

Hi gurus,

This is our future enterprise structure in SAP:

Warehouse Number (WM) ==> W40

• Plant1 (SAP-MM)/Company Code1 ==> A040/1000
• Plant2 (SAP-MM)/Company Code2 ==> B040/4000
• Both Plant1 & Plant2 are linked to 1 Warehouse Number (SAP-WM) ==> W40

W40 is the physical warehouse for the 2 logical plants A040 and B040.

My question is how can we manage/configure the "posting" between WM and MM?

As example, if I do a write-off in WM, how does SAP transfer this stock movement at IM level? How SAP can (if it can) manage the split between the 2 plants/companies? Is this standard or do we have to manage it through enhancements?

PS: Let me know if you need more details on this scenario

Cheers,

Sebastien

[JL23]

No way to know the company in this case without having labels on the goods.

Within SAP you could differentiate inventory at IM level by storage location and batch number

But you have physically no separate storage locations, which means this can't be used in your case. Remains a batch number, but even a batch number is just an identifier, if this identifier is not on the label then you have no chance to match physical stock with SAP stock.

Without a label you can't manage your inventory.

[Former Member]

You got the point: Physically in the warehouse, there is nothing to know the company (or the plant). This is not an issue for inbound (Purchase Order indicates the receiving Plant) or outbound (Sales Order indicates the Shipping plant). But I try to understand how we can manage in SAP standard any internal movement inside the warehouse.

[JL23]

You are mistaken with this saying: This is not an issue for inbound (Purchase Order indicates the receiving Plant) or outbound (Sales Order indicates the Shipping plant)

If your stock cannot be identified with the right owner, then the people in the warehouse take stock that does not belong to this owner. Of course this works well if everything is order and physical stock matches with SAP book stock, but once you get a difference then you don't know to which owner you allocate the difference.

I am sorry but your simplification goes one step too far.

[Former Member]

You got the point. As soon as we get a discrepancy between the physical and systemic stock, we face an issue where the operator will potentially take other company stock. And this is one of the main scenarios which make us thinking there is something wrong in our logic.

[JL23]

I explained several times that you are doing it wrong, it's now totally up to you to make it right, what do you expect further from the community?

[raghug]

If your stock is all going to be in the same warehouse but not truly intermingled - that is, you will be storing the material in different parts of the same warehouse, you could also look at storage location control. Just Google for "storage location control in sap wm" and you will get plenty of information. This will work only if you can segregate the material by storage type.

Once implemented, they do work for the few WM initiated transactions like LQ01 and LQ02.

For inventory, like Jürgen says, the quant (table LQUA) is linked to the plant and storage location. So, any write-ons / write-offs will have the correct plant information associated.

[Former Member]

Hi,

All the problem here is that the stock is mixed between company codes because the warehouse doesn't need/want to have to manage different physical location. There is no need for that.

A scenario could be: Purchase Order for quantity 8 for Company 1 and 2 for Company 2. The stock is good receipt into Quality inspection. After the quality team processed the check, the 10 are move to unrestricted. This movement is done in the warehouse, so in WM in SAP. But how does SAP manage the posting in IM?

[JL23]

Actually you have at least 2 items if not even 2 purchase order for such a case with ordering for multiple companies.

You would get 2 inspection lots and their usage decision will create 2 movements in IM which subsequently would be 2 posting change notices in WM.

So I do not see any chance to create a movement of 10 instead of 8 and 2.

[Former Member]

I got your point which is correct in the system: We have a split between each Company. But physically, in the warehouse, it is only 10 and not 8+2. The operator is not checking 8 for company 1 and then 2 for company 2. He is checking 10.

I really appreciate your replies. It helps a lot to think through all of this. I feel there is something wrong either in the business process or in our understanding of what has to be done in SAP, maybe both.

[raghug]

Definitely business process - if you co-mingle product without any sort of identification on it, there is no system in the world that will tell you or the operator which company an item belongs to. You have to tag it appropriately first and then think about a system after that.

Wait - that was the same thing Jürgen has been trying to tell you!

[Former Member]

Hi all,

Sorry for this late reply as the project was then kind of "on-hold".

A bit of a context, the stock is physically not split between the Companies. For example, if I walk in the warehouse and see Qty 10 of an article, there is no way to determine if the 10 belongs to one or another company. It could also be 2 for one and 8 for the other.

Also, in SAP, we only have MM and Lean WM just to have the link between the Plants. We don't have a full WM (no quants, no bins). The warehouse is managed with a non-SAP software.

The write-off I was talking about is for instance if you loose a product or you break it. Example: In the system we have 10 of product A. The warehouse runs a Physical Inventory at the end of the fiscal year. Count is only 8. We have to write-off 2. How to determine where to remove this quantity at Plant level? 1 each, 2 one and 0 the other?

[JuergenPitz]

Hi,

"For example, if I walk in the warehouse and see Qty 10 of an article, there is no way to determine if the 10 belongs to one or another company. It could also be 2 for one and 8 for the other."

What does you auditor say to that?

"The warehouse runs a Physical Inventory at the end of the fiscal year. Count is only 8. We have to write-off 2. How to determine where to remove this quantity at Plant level? 1 each, 2 one and 0 the other?"

Yes, that is exactly the problem if you do not run a full WM solution. Without WM you can only do th PI in IM, but if you can not differentiate the stock physically, you never know what you have. The problem is not the software, the system can not solve this issue, but what you do with the stock.

Brgds

Juergen

[Former Member]

I exactly asked the same question about auditor to the business and the answer is not clear yet.

Full WM looks to be the right solution but unfortunately that's not an option.

Thank you for your help.

[JL23]

How do you write off in WM? What do you understand in general under "write off" ?

If you have 2 plants or 2 storage locations linked to 1 WM then any quant has this information within and the user also need to specify this explicitly in each transfer order.

Usually a movement in MM is first and in WM you redo it on a more granulated level. IM movement types are linked to WM movement types via reference movement types. SAP has given examples for warehouse 001, and there is also an OSS note explaining it in detail. You may try a search with Google using this search term: OSS note movement type WM site:sap.com

[balaji_ganesan2]

Hi,

Could you please confirm whether your query is that there would be material document generated at the IM side while transfer posting from A040/1000 to B040/4000 since both are managed under the same Warehouse W40?

Thanks,
Balaji

[Former Member]

Hi,

The logic is to do an internal movement within W40: Write-off, Stock type change (Quality to Unrestricted), etc.

The question is how SAP can (if it can) transfer the movement from WM into IM?

Example: W40 quantity is 10 (8 in Plant 1 and 2 in Plant 2), following a physical inventory count, quantity is down to 8. What will be the quantity in Plant 1 and 2?