Basic Settings for the Purchase Flow

This document explains the basic settings for the purchase order flow.

There are more settings you must define, depending on which type of purchase flow you want to set up, for example manual or automatic creation, goods receiving methods, subcontracting, agreements, and so on. These settings are described within each area.

Outcome

The fields described in this document are those in the programs that are related to the basic settings for procurement. These include the programs listed below as well as related programs, which are accessed by selecting options from the following programs.

'Settings - Purchase' (CRS780)

'Internal Addresses. Open' (CRS235)

'Number Series. Open' (CRS165)

'System Calendar. Open' (CRS900)

'Supplier. Open' (CRS620)

'Supplier. Define Purchase & Financial' (CRS624)

'Supplier. Connect Item' (PPS040)

'Item. Open' (MMS001)

'Item. Connect Warehouse' (MMS002)

'Item. Connect Facility' (MMS003)

Uses

You must define basic settings in order to do work in the purchase order flow in M3, such as place a purchase order or receive goods in the system.

How the system is affected

See documents listed in the See Also section.

Before you start

No prerequisites are needed.

Follow these steps

  1. Define general settings for the entire procurement area.

  2. Enter basic data about suppliers and items into the system. You can then use a program to connect suppliers to items. These programs contain many fields, not all of which are necessary for the purchase order flow. The necessary fields are often mandatory in these programs.

    General Settings Supplier Items Purchase Order Goods receiving
    Settings - Purchase CRS780 Supplier CRS620 Items MMS001 Purchase Order Type PPS095 Goods Receiving Method PPS345
    Internal Addresses CRS235 Supplier Purch Financial CRS624 Warehouse/Item MMS002
    Number Series CRS165 Facility/Items MMS003
    System Calendar CRS900 Supplier/Items PPS040

  3. After items and suppliers are entered, some additional settings are needed to place a purchase order. First, at least one purchase order type must exist. An order type is a set of parameters that specify how the order is treated through the purchase order flow. Different order types can be used for different flows, for example, normal order, inquiry order, or delivery schedule.

  4. To be able to receive goods, at least one goods receiving method must be defined. The goods receiving method contains parameters that specify how the goods should be treated in the receiving flow. For example, is direct put-away used? Is quality inspection needed and, if so, when?

    Special functions are also available that can be used in the purchase flow and that require certain settings in the system. For example, agreements, delivery plans, purchase costing, and subcontracting all require special settings.

    The setting programs for purchase orders, goods receiving, and so on are described in the Settings section of each of the procurement documents.

Priority for retrieval of settings

For some of the data, the same parameter can be set in different programs. This reduces unnecessary maintenance of program files. For example, the goods receiving method can be set in any of the following three programs:

'Supplier. Connect Item' (PPS040)

'Item. Open' (MMS001)

'Purchase Order Type. Open' (PPS095).

The retrieval of settings that can be entered in multiple M3 programs is always done in priority order. In the case of the goods receiving method, the priority order is as listed above, that is, 'Supplier. Connect Item' (PPS040) is checked first, followed by 'Item. Open' (MMS001) and finally 'Purchase Order Type. Open' (PPS095) until a valid goods receiving method is found.

If only one goods receiving method is used in a company's goods receiving process, it is easiest to place the goods receiving method in 'Purchase Order Type. Open' (PPS095) since that requires information to be updated in only one place. To avoid conflict about where different data is located, it is always easiest to use only one program for each parameter.

The supplier and item combination

In 'Supplier. Connect Items' (PPS040) you can enter unique data for a specific supplier and item combination. You are not required to enter a record in this program in order to perform work in the purchase order flow. To avoid unnecessary maintenance of the item and supplier files, you should only create item/supplier combinations in this program if they are necessary. An appropriate use of this function is to specify certain terms depending on the supplier/item combination.

Example 1: Quality inspection is needed for one item, but other items purchased from the same supplier do not require inspection. A supplier/item combination for the first item is created in 'Supplier. Connect Items' (PPS040). That record is then connected to a different goods receiving method than the others.

Example 2: The lead times often differ depending on the supplier from whom you purchase. Lead times can be entered in 'Item. Connect Warehouse' (MMS002). However, if lead times for the purchase of the same item differ from supplier to supplier, supplier/item combinations are created in 'Supplier. Connect Item' (PPS040).

Whenever default data for an item or a supplier is required, the system searches for an approved item/supplier match. If the data is not found, it is defaulted from the item or supplier files.

Related topics