Purchase organizational data

Before you can perform purchase procedures, you must specify purchase organizational data, such as the purchase order types that define the mandatory steps in the purchase order procedure, purchase offices that you can use to create purchase contracts, orders, and schedules, and user profiles with user-specific default data.

Specifying purchase order types

The purchase order type determines the activities that are included in the order procedure, and how and in which sequence the order procedure is carried out. When a purchase order type is linked to a purchase order, the purchase order is processed according to the activities specified for the purchase order type.

To specify purchase order types and their activities:

  1. Specify a purchase order type in the Purchase Order Types (tdpur0194m000) or Purchase Order Type (tdpur0694m000) session. In addition to the normal purchase order type, several special order types exist, such as Cost Order, Collect Order, and Return Order. The creation and processing of these orders can differ from normal purchase orders.

  2. On the Activities tab in the Purchase Order Type (tdpur0694m000) session, for the order type, you must specify:

    • The activities (tasks) to be carried out.
    • The sequence in which these activities must be carried out.
    • Whether the activity must be carried out automatically or manually. Therefore, you can automate the processing of purchase orders. For more information, refer to Flexible purchase order processing.
Tip

Ensure that the list of activities linked to an order type is extensive enough to cover all processes that can apply during execution of the order procedure. If an activity is not applicable for the order type, LN automatically skips this activity. You can view the activities that are linked to the purchase order (detail) line and the status of the activities in the Purchase Order Activities (tdpur4113m000) session.

Specifying purchase offices

The purchase office determines the location from which purchase orders, contracts, schedules, requisitions, and requests for quotation (RFQs) are processed. A purchase office is required to complete transactions with buy-from business partners. Various purchase offices can be set up for one company. After you set up the purchase office, you can specify user profiles.

To specify a purchase office:

  1. Define the purchase office as a department in the Departments (tcmcs0565m000) session.
  2. Specify purchase-office-specific data in the Purchase Offices (tdpur0112m000) session. The enterprise unit to which the department is linked informs you about the financial company to which financial transactions for the purchase office are posted. If you want to use purchase offices in combination with purchase orders, purchase schedules, purchase contracts, schedule releases, call-offs, requests for quotations, or requisitions, you must specify the concerned series fields.
Specifying user profiles

User profiles are used to set up default information for purchasing employees, so documents can be processed faster. In the Purchase User Profiles (tdpur0143m000) session, you can link a user to a purchase office, order type, and warehouse for each login code. When the user creates a purchase order, call-off, purchase contract, purchase requisition, request for quotation, approval rule, purchase schedule, or purchase release, the user profile determines the defaults. This accelerates the purchase-related transaction entry processes.

Specifying approval rules

Purchase order approval is a mandatory step in the purchase order procedure. You can validate purchase orders against approval rules before their status becomes Approved.

For more information, refer to Approval rules for purchase orders.

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