Purchase Contracts

Purchase contracts are used to register agreements with a buy-from business partner for the delivery of specific goods.

The agreements can be registered at these levels:

  • Purchase contract lines

    In contract lines, the agreements with a business partner about the delivery of a particular item or group of items for a specified period of time are registered. These agreements are focused on total quantities, prices, and discounts. You can specify an effective period and indicate whether the minimum quantity to purchase is binding.

  • Terms and conditions agreements

    In terms and conditions agreements, detailed terms and conditions regarding orders, planning, logistics, invoicing, and demand pegging regarding the sale, purchase, or transfer of goods, are registered. A purchase terms and conditions agreement must be linked to a normal purchase contract before you can use it.

Contract typesYou can specify these contract types:

  • Normal contracts
  • Special contracts

For each purchase business partner, you can close multiple special contracts in one period. In a specific period, you cannot specify more than one normal contract per item or price group for a buy-from business partner.

Purchase contracts are used as the basis of purchase orders or purchase schedules. The data specified in the purchase contract serves as a parent of the data that you specify in the linked purchase order or purchase schedule.

When creating planned purchase orders or purchase schedules from Enterprise Planning, during the supplier selection process, purchase business partners are searched for who can supply the required item. Based on the priority search levels specified on the Buy-from BP Search tab in the Purchase Schedule Parameters (tdpur0100m500) session and on the Buy-from BP Search Orders tab in the Purchase Order Parameters (tdpur0100m400) session, purchase contracts can be used to search for these purchase business partners. If valid business partners are found, they are sent to and selected by Enterprise Planning.

  • Specifying purchase contracts

    The normal purchase contract procedure includes the creation of a purchase contract header and purchase contract lines with purchase contract price revisions and logistic agreements.

  • Corporate purchase contracts

    Corporate purchase contracts are used by multicompany companies to negotiate contractual agreements with a buy-from business partner, after which price agreements are centrally specified (by purchase contract line), and logistic agreements are decentrally specified (by purchase contract line detail). Corporate purchase contracts allow you to make keen price agreements on a corporate level and to use these prices on local level.

  • Retrieving purchase contracts

    How purchase contracts are retrieved depends on whether the contract must be linked to a purchase order or a purchase schedule.

  • Discount schedules on contracts

    You can link one or more discount schedules to a purchase contract.

  • Delivery contracts

    If you specify a contract and you know the time-phased delivery details, you can create a delivery contract instead of a purchase schedule. A delivery contract is not a real schedule, but a schedule solution to generate purchase orders on time.

  • Evaluating purchase contracts

    If a purchase contract is used for a purchase order or a purchase schedule, you can evaluate the purchase contract during and after the purchase order or schedule procedure. During the contract's effectivity period, you can check if the deliveries take place as agreed in the contract. At the end of the contract's effectivity period, you can check if the agreed quantities were met.

  • Price stages

    You can link a price stage to a purchase contract price revision. Purchase order lines can be blocked based on the price stage of the linked contract.

  • Material price information

    You can link material price information to a purchase contract line. As a result, the (document line) price on the purchase contract line includes material prices.

  • Change requests

    You can use change requests to update purchase contracts in a controlled manner after their initial activation. If this functionality is applicable for purchase contracts, a change request is required to update the purchase contract and its related data.

  • Copying purchase contracts

    You can copy existing purchase contracts to create purchase contracts.

  • Additional processes

    You can use several additional processes in the purchase contract procedure, such as activating or deactivating a range of purchase contracts, printing purchase contract acknowledgements, copying quotations to purchase contracts, creating RFQs from purchase contracts, printing termination letters, terminating and deleting purchase contracts.