SAP Purchase Order Acknowledgement

This tutorial is part of our SAP MM course and it talks about SAP Purchase Order Acknowledgement. We will discuss the business background of acknowledging purchase orders and explain how it is implemented in SAP ERP. You will learn how to manually enter an acknowledgement of a purchase order in SAP.

As a document that shows the intent of a buyer to buy a certain quantity of products at a certain price from a specific vendor, a purchase order is an external document sent to a vendor as a written confirmation of what a buyer need to acquire. Depending on the legal jurisdiction involved, the purchase order can be considered to be a legally binding document. As such, a customer can request a vendor upon reception of the purchase order to communicate its intent in accepting or declining to provide the needed goods or services.

The vendor communication to its customer regarding a purchase order is known as purchase order acknowledgement. This confirmation is manually entered into SAP and called SAP purchase order acknowledgement. The case where a confirmation is loaded automatically is when that confirmation is sent from a vendor using EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) interface. Vendors can communicate in the form of fax, email or EDI (Electronic Data Interchange). These communications are essential for the buyer as they provide updated information on delivery of goods.

A supplier usually sends communications for the following events:

1. Order Acknowledgement
2. Transport Confirmation
3. Advance Shipping Notice (ASN)
4. Inbound Delivery

Each of these four events is configured with a confirmation category within SAP ERP Material Management in order for a supplier to communicate on them upon reception of a purchase order.

Let us talk about SAP purchase order acknowledgment.

SAP Purchase Order Acknowledgement

SAP purchase order acknowledgement is used to ensure that a vendor received a purchase order and is sending back an acknowledgement.

SAP ERP links a purchase order acknowledgment to a confirmation category. Confirmation categories are configured for external and internal confirmations. External categories are defined for manual entries of vendor confirmations, while internal categories are for the supplier confirmations received through EDI. Let us focus on SAP purchase order acknowledgement as an external confirmation category.

Please also note that the numbers that will be mentioned in the tutorial (for example, numbers of purchase orders, etc.) are just for illustrative purpose. Learners are most likely to have different numbers according to their SAP configuration.

SAP Purchase Order Acknowledgment Requirement

SAP ERP allows buyers to require an order acknowledgement from vendors. Let us use the purchase order number 4500019257 to show how. Enter the transaction code ME22N into the SAP command bar.

This transaction code is used to change a purchase order and can be also found following the path in SAP Easy Access menu:

Logistics > Materials Management > Purchasing > Purchase Order > Create > Change

In case the left sidebar is not opened, please click Document Overview On button. Then, click the selection variant button and look for My purchase orders in the document overview (left hand sidebar). Thereby, the purchase orders created before are displayed in the left frame of the window.

In our case, there is no need to open the purchase order number 4500019257, as it is already open on the right frame of the screen. However, if the purchase order you desire to change is not automatically opened, double click on the purchase order number and when it is opened in the right frame of the screen, click on the display/change button to be able to change it.

Next, let us click on the item detail button , then on the Confirmations tab and tick check box.

Let us change the delivery date to 03/20/2017 in the item overview. After pressing Enter button, let us also change the statistical delivery date in the Delivery Schedule tab of the item detail and save the purchase order.

While creating the purchase order number 4500019257, we did not require any acknowledgement from our vendor. By ticking the acknowledgement required checkbox button, that condition is enforced making it compulsory for the vendor to communicate its intents to the buyer upon reception of the purchase order.

There can be also be scenarios where the purchase order is sent without any confirmation key and a vendor is still communicating upon reception of this purchase order.

Configure Confirmation Categories, Confirmation Control Key and Confirmation Sequence

Enter the transaction code SPRO into the SAP command bar.

Then, click on the button and follow the path below:

Materials Management > Purchasing > Confirmations > Define External Confirmation Categories

Click on button to configure the confirmation categories in the page that will follow. On that page, click on button and enter the following details:

• Confirmation category: ZA
• Description: Order Acknowledgement (for Acknowledgement)
• Heading quantity: Confirmed Qty (for Quantity)

Then, also enter these details:

• Confirmation category: ZB
• Description: Ship Notification
• Heading Quantity: Notified Qty

After saving the entries, come back into the configuration page and select the following:

Materials Management > Purchasing > Confirmations > Set Up Confirmation Control

On the screen that will displayed, select an entire record of the confirmation control key on the right frame of the screen. In our case, the line selected is the predefined line with Order Acknowledgement as description. In the case where there is no such confirmation control key description, you can create your own key by clicking on the button New Entries or continue by double clicking on Confirmation sequence on the sidebar of the screen.

Then, in the Confirmation sequence table, change the confirmation category to ZA, which is the confirmation category we set for order acknowledgement and save.

Manually Enter SAP Purchase Order Acknowledgement in SAP

Let us imagine that the purchase order number 4500019257 had been sent to a vendor that has just sent back a purchase order acknowledgement by fax.

To enter this purchase order acknowledgement manually into SAP, let us use the transaction code ME22N.

In case the left sidebar is not opened, please click Document Overview On button. Then, click the selection variant button and look for My purchase orders in the document overview (left hand sidebar). Thereby, the purchase orders created before are displayed in the left frame of the window.

Then, select the purchase order sent to the vendor and if the purchase order you desire to change is not automatically opened, double click on the purchase order number and when the order is opened in the right side of the screen, click on the display/change button to be able to change it.

Next, go to the Confirmations tab in item details and click on the confirmation control dropdown box to search for OrderAcknowlegment. After selection, press enter.

A table will appear under the confirmation control field prompting you to enter some information concerning the order acknowledgement received from the vendor. You should enter the following:

• CC (Confirmation Category): ZA
• Delivery date: 03/20/2017
• Quantity: 20
• Created on: 03/10/2017
• Time: 17:30
• Reference : MM253
• Order Ack.: MM253

After pressing Enter button on the keyboard, let us save the purchase order.

In the case, the acknowledgment required check box was ticked and the Order Ack. field was there for information purposes only. However, there are business scenarios where SAP purchase order acknowledgement can be an important step in the procurement process.

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