| | Sales SchedulesSales schedules are used to support long-term sales projects
with frequent deliveries. They represent schedules for specific goods that are
used between trade partners. Because sales schedules provide a more detailed way to specify
delivery dates and times for items, use sales schedules instead of standard
sales orders when you require full visibility and time phasing of material
requirement information, for example, in a just-in-time (JIT) environment. Sales schedules can be referenced or nonreferenced. After approval, a sales schedule is a legal obligation to
deliver items according to the agreed terms and conditions, including specific
prices and discounts. The main sales schedule procedure includes the creation and
processing of sales releases to sales schedules, calculation of schedule authorizations
and cumulatives, approval, release to warehousing, release to invoicing, and
processing of sales schedules. Sales releases are used to group, by release type, a customer's sales schedule requirements.
Sales releases are usually received by electronic data interchange (EDI), but can also be manually specified, or received
by a Business Object Document (BOD). Sales releases or separate release lines can be
processed and converted to sales schedules. A sales release represents the
external customer view for schedule requirements, while the sales schedule
represents the internal supplier view. A pick-up sheet is a list of items that a carrier must pick-up
at the supplier’s location for transport in one shipment to the customer on a
specific day. A pick-up sheet is identified by a specific reference number,
called the shipment reference, which originates from the customer. This
shipment reference is used to identify pick-up sheets, shipments, and payments.
Usually, the shipment exactly covers the pick-up sheet requirements, but the
required goods on the pick-up sheet are spread among different sales
schedules. On referenced sales schedules, schedule requirements are
communicated based on (shipment) references. A reference is used to identify
specific requirements that your business partner needs in a specific sequence
at a specific line station of the assembly line. A shipment reference is used
to identify the shipment. If you use pick-up sheets, the shipment reference also identifies the pick-up sheet for the
linked sales schedule line. You can use additional information fields to specify additional
information on sales schedules. These fields are used throughout the process.
For example, they are used in the sales schedule, the warehouse order, and the
shipping process in Warehousing. Sales schedule revision numbers are used to uniquely identify
the revision of the sales schedule. They indicate the sales schedule updates
that are sent by your business partner. You can use planned warehouse orders to decouple schedule updates and revisions from
warehouse orders and to consolidate sales schedule lines by quantity and by
date. You can receive sales schedule lines with a required quantity
of zero. The sales schedule line quantity can also be changed to zero when the
sales schedule procedure is completed. When a sales schedule receives a
required quantity of zero, an attempt to cancel the sales schedule line or the
planned warehouse order is performed. Sales schedule items are shipped based on the requirement type. The Firm requirement type, however, can deviate from the
earlier received Planned requirement type. If you use authorizations, your
sold-to business partners give you permission to fabricate goods or to buy raw
materials for a certain quantity level before communicating the Firm requirement type. By using this process, sold-to business partners must pay for
the fabrication and/or raw materials regardless of whether the goods are
called-off. Cumulatives (CUMs) are the year-to-date totals for quantities
shipped, received, and invoiced. You can use cumulatives to track if the sales
schedule is ahead or behind schedule compared to the demand. Before a non-referenced sales schedule is approved, you can
check the sales schedule for underdelivery and overdelivery. Sales schedules with the Created or Adjusted status must be approved before they can be
processed. After approval, the sales schedule has the Approved status. Material releases and shipping schedules with non-referenced
items can be reconciled, which means that your business partner's Received CUM is matched with your Cumulative Shipped Quantity. If the cumulatives (CUMs) do not match, disputes are generated
that you must resolve. When a sales schedule is approved, planned requirements are
calculated and planned supply is generated in Enterprise Planning based on
the sales schedule's planned and firm requirements. After the ordered items on a sales schedule line are approved,
you can ship them. To ship the items, you must release the sales schedule to Warehousing. After the ordered items on a sales schedule line are partially
or fully delivered, you can invoice the delivered goods. To send the invoice,
you must release the sales schedule to Invoicing. If your relationship with a business partner has ended and you
want to change the sold-to business partner specific item data, you can
terminate the sales schedule. The status of the linked planned warehouse orders or sales schedule lines can affect the termination
process. After the invoice for a sales schedule line is sent, the sales
schedule line has the Invoiced status. You can process and delete sales
schedules that contain lines with the Invoiced status. You use sales schedule history to track the creation and
modification of sales schedules. You can keep certain information after the
original schedule is completed.
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