Is there a possibility SAP to check when creating a PO if the vendor is preferred?

[Former Member]

Dear all,

I am thinking for an improvement idea and I decided that if SAP can check ( when creating the PO) if the selected vendor is preffered?

I guess we can imput a list of preferred vendors (I am not aware if there is such table/transaction ) and when creating POs to connect somehow the material group used in PO with the vendor code, and if the vendor is not preferred for the respective material group, to send a warning message.

Curently the PR creators and PO creators and two different person and PO creators are responsible to check if the vendor is preffered on the respective material group but on another platform. If SAP could do the check instead of PO creator, big part of their work will be automatic.

Any help would be much appreciated!

Thanks!

[JL23 · Accepted solution]

Message no. ZMM105 means this is a homemade message and not SAP Standard.

Which means your ABAPers have already implemented similar checks, so just talk to them to make your new requirement also possible.

[Former Member]

The vendor is not a preferred vendor for item 00010!

Message no. ZMM105

Diagnosis

The vendor is not a preferred vendor for item &!

Procedure

Please check the offers attached to PR items, according to Procurement policy guidelines.

Procedure for System Administration

[Former Member]

Hi, Jürgen,

Thank you for your interest.

So, let me explain a little the process.

Preferred vendors are added manually in this platform by the buyers (according to procurement guidelines, or sometimes even just because the PR creators need the service/goods very fast and don't have the time to make a bidding or other reasons), the platform is not linked or related to SAP at all.

PR creator submits a Purchase requisition using their desired vendor and the PO creator has to check if the vendor they choose is preferred on the platform (some intranet page). Because there are a lot of PR creators, not all of them are checking on the platform and they might use one that is not agreed by procurement.

So, when the PR reaches the PO creator step, they check in the platform if for the respective material group used , the vendor is preferred.

Let's say the PO is for notebooks, we take the material group used for example 1234 and search on the platform - on the page designated to material group 1234 - if vendor X is available there. We might find other vendors, but if X is not there, we have to return the PR to either correct the material group (to change it to a material group where X is preferred) or to attach bidding, second offer depending on the case.

My question is if we could input this list with vendors preferred on different material group in SAP, and SAP to check instead of PO creator.

I don't want to restrict the usage of vendors, just to transfer the information from the platform to SAP.

My idea came when I saw the yellow error message "The vendor is not a preferred vendor for item 10!" and I am wondering if we can use this functionality for our needs.

Best regards,

[JL23]

What message number has this message? I don't have this message in table T100 which has all SAP standard messages

[JL23]

How do you define "preferred vendor"? What are the criteria?

SAP has the source list to filter potential sources. You can define one vendor as fixed vendor and to be used for MRP, you can allow only a few vendors for to be used during a certain period, you can block vendors for procurement there.