Section 8: Purchase Orders
8.0
Overview SAP Purchase Orders
The Purchase Order is a document used to request items or services from a vendor or
supplier. The purchase order can be created using electronic requisitions manually
entered or via SRM or can be created directly without a requisition. A requisition will be
created for each Purchase Order whenever possible. Purchase orders numbers are
system generated in a numerical sequence, are 10 digits long and will begin with a 45.
The Hospital buyer is responsible to:
 create PO’s for replenishment of CI materials from system generated reqs.
 create PO’s for Direct Purchased Materials (non-stock)
 create Rush Purchase orders for SCI
 Output off all purchase orders created (with the exception of system generated
SCI purchase orders).
 manage open PO’s (Backorder processing)
Note: Regular Purchase orders for SCI are created via an automatic purchase order job
that runs daily which batches all requisitions for Vendor SCI, generates the purchase
orders and sends them electronically through GHX to SCI.
USL stock materials can come from 3 sources: SCI, CI or SAFE. USL stock items are
automatically ordered from their source through the bar code scanning process. When
a stock item is counted at less than its ROP, MRP creates a PURREQ for the ROQ
against SCI or a RESERVATION against CI or SAFE.
8.1
Components of a Purchase Order
The purchase order screen is split into three sections: the header section at the top,
Item Overview in the middle and Item details on the bottom. Details that pertain to the
whole purchase order such as payment terms or vendor address are entered and /or
found in the Header section. Details that pertain to a particular item, such as account
assignment, tax codes, and vendor material number are entered and /or found in the
Item Detail section.
When creating a purchase order in SAP, the system will not allow you to save until all
mandatory fields have been entered and will prompt you to complete these fields each
time you hit the enter key.
Once all fields are complete in the header, line item overview section and the item detail
section, the system will allow you to save. The purchase order number will be displayed
on the bottom left hand corner of your screen.
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Section 8: Purchase Orders
This screen shot displays the layout of a purchase order in SAP.
The following outlines some of the key fields that need to be entered in a
purchase order:
1) Purchasing Organizations
 Select 3SO from the drop down list
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2) Company Code
Select your Hospital from the drop down list: Examples of Company Codes are
BGH; HDH; JMF; KGH; PCC; PSF; QHC.
3) Plant number
Each Hospital site has been assigned a Plant number. For Example: for
Company Code Providence Care, the site for St Mary’s of the Lake is plant
number SML1.
4)
Account Assignment
The Account assignment outlines what type of purchase order it is, For
example, purchase orders with account assignment – K are direct to Cost
center orders, F are internal orders (used at KGH only), W are for Free of
charge (transaction automatically removes the IR requirement), and Z is for
orders that do not require a goods receipt (i.e. Services, or orders for goods
being delivered off-site). Select the correct Account Assignment from the drop
down list.
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Section 8: Purchase Orders
8.2
Creating a Purchase Order:
To get to the Create Purchase order screen you can either:
Using the menu tree go to SAP go to Logistics → Materials Management →
Purchasing → Purchase Order → Create →Vendor/Supplying Plant Known
Or, enter Transaction Code ME21N in the command field.
See BPP_MM CREATE PURCHASE ORDER (ME21N) for procedural steps to
create a Purchase order.
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8.3
Creating Different Types of Purchase Orders:
A. Create Purchase Order for Direct Charge/Non-Stock Materials
Use transaction ME21N and See BPP_MM CREATE PURCHASE ORDER
(ME21N) for procedural steps to execute.
Remember when creating purchase order for stock or non stock items to create
with reference to a contract when the item has a contract or create from the
purchase requisition first which will automatically assign to the purchase order if
there is one. The above BPP is also used to create non stock orders with
account assignment.
B. Assign & Process stock for (CI) ME57
Use this function to prepare the requisitions from central inventory and then
proceed directly to purchase order creation for items to each vendor.
See BPP_MM ASSIGN AND PROCESS PURCHASE REQUISITIONS
(ME57) for procedural steps to execute, or steps below
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Section 8: Purchase Orders
Insert your
inventory
Purchasing
Group here.
Then EXECUTE
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Then
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Then select correct vendor for multiple sourced items.
Then
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Then click into the NB (Standard PO).
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Section 8: Purchase Orders
If you are okay with the assignment, then click
Note: When multiple info records exist, multiple selections will be displayed.
Double-click on the preferred assignment (hierarchy is 3PL, contract, PO). This
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Section 8: Purchase Orders
vendor will be assigned to this material. (You may have to scroll across to
validate the purchase unit of measure, if there are multiple info records.)
This will take you to CREATE a PO. Proceed to create a PO as you normally
would, using the requisition.
Repeat for all items.
All items without source (w/o source) must be investigated at the end of the
process.
C. Create Purchase Order for Assets
Creating a purchase order for an asset at any hospital will be done using Create
Purchase order ME21N and using text instead of using material number. The
line will be set up as “K” to cost center account assignment. Finance will advise
what the cost center number will be. They will also supply Purchasing with the
“Asset tag(s)”.
Purchasing when creating the purchase order will enter the “Asset tag number” in
the item details section on “Material Data” tab using field “EAN/UPC”
When purchase order issued the buyer will send the tags to receiving.
When the “Asset” arrives the receiver will complete the goods receipt and
document the serial number on the “item text” field of the goods receipt screen.
D. Create Purchase Order for Free Goods (No Value)
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There are times that a buyer will need to create a purchase order for items that
need to be ordered and received but that has no value and therefore there will
not be an invoice. Create your purchase order using ME21N but select the “W”
for the Account Assignment. This will allow you to create your purchase order
without entering a price which would normally be a mandatory field. For this type
of purchase order under the “Invoice” tab of the item details section the check
box beside “Inv. Receipt” will not be checked.
You can also create this type of order by selecting the check box under the
“Free” column on the line item. This will also allow the price field to be blank and
the invoice receipt box to not be checked.
The check box beside Goods receipt will remain selected meaning a goods
receipt is required.
E. Create Purchase Orders for Consignment items
All consignment items are handled as non-stock materials. The purchase
order will have 2 lines for each item; a line for the item used to be billed by the
Vendor and another line to order the replacement item at no cost.
We handle the replenishment and payment of consignment items via the
purchase order “Cost Assignment” field as follows:
“Z” – acts to authorize payment of the used consignment item – No goods
receipt, item value considered and allows for an invoice to be processed
against this line.
“W” – acts to replenish the item free of charge and requires a goods receipt
(GR).
Any PO which requires the serial number must be faxed to the vendor. The
serial number is added to the text field.
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Section 8: Purchase Orders
F. Create Purchase Order Service
Using transaction code ME21N the buyer will create an order for services using
the standard purchase order create process for material number (service
description).
Difference is if the service has already been completed or there will not be any
goods to arrive at receiving then the “Goods Receipt” check will be removed from
the “Goods Receipt” box on the “Delivery” tab of the item details view.
In addition the buyer will need to go to the Header details section of the purchase
order under “Texts” tab and click on “Header Note”. Then put cursor in the blank
continuous text box and double click. This will open up the text box. If you have
“Standard text” set up go to “Include> text>Standard.”
You will get a pop up window and to search for a standard text you can type. Or
use drop down and under “name” field use part of the text name or use * astrisk
for wild search. Click Execute.
Click the box beside the name you want and click on the Check Mark.
In this case we want to choose “ZPRCH-HEADER NOTE P A/P
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“
It will populate the name in the Text Name field.
Click “Expand Immediately” and click “check mark”.
SAP will populate the original opened text box with the details from the standard
text. This can be adjusted to reflect any changes needed for this specific
purchase order. Now green arrow back out and when pop up box asks “Save
changes in text first” click yes. It will save the text and take you back to out of the
large text box.
This text is to advise Accounts Payable that they need to send the invoice to the
department head for signature approval since no goods receipt completed.
8.4
Purchase Order Display and Change
To display a purchase order use transaction code - ME23N
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To open a purchase order in change mode use - ME22N
See BPP_MM CREATE PURCHASE ORDER (ME21N) this will give you
screen shots on what you will see when in ME21N display.
When in display or change you can toggle back and forth by using the following
symbol
. If you opened the purchase order using ME23N to view and then
needed to make a change simply select this icon and it will switch your purchase
order to change mode.
To swich to a different purchase order from the current purchase order you are
in, you can select the
icon. It will then prompt you to enter in the purchase
order number that you wish to go to and then hit <enter> to go to it.
8.5
Attaching Electronic Documents to a Purchase Order
You can attach electronic documents to your purchase orders such as
scanned copies of the quote, the paper requisition, emails, etc.
At the top left hand side of your purchase order look for the following
symbols
. Click on the right side that looks like a black arrow on a white
paper. From the drop down choices select Create and then Create Attachments.
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It will then allow you to browse to find the location of the file that needs to be attached
and then double click on it to select it.
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To see if the document was successfully attached select the left side of icon
and then select the “paper with paper clip” icon to see the list of all
attached documents. To display the document, double click on it.
8.6
Searching for Purchase Orders in SAP:
There are a few ways to search for purchase orders, which are called List
displays, and which search you choose will depend on what information you have
to search with. The following are some searches you may find useful:
A. Search for Purchase orders by Material Number - ME2M - See BPP_MM
PURCHASING DOCUMENTS PER MATERIAL (ME2M)
B. Search for Purchase orders by document number (ie:Purchase Order
number) ME2N - See BPP_MM PURCHASING DOCUMENTS PER
MATERIAL (ME2M) * use this BPP as well for to search for ME2N
C. Search for Purchase orders by Vendor - ME2L
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This Search will provide you a list of all purchase orders for the Vendor you
entered in the top field titled “vendor”. You can add other selection criteria such
as Plant, Purchasing Group or a specific date or date range depending on what
you are looking for SAP to find and display for you.
Once all selection criteria have been entered select “Execute”
Every PO issued to that Vendor that meets the criteria you outlined will be
displayed in a list that looks like the following
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Once you see the PO you wish to view, double click on the PO and it will take you
into that purchase order in display mode.
D. Search for a purchase order by Tracking Number - ME2B – If a tracking
number is entered in your purchase order you can search by it to find the
corresponding Purchase order. See BPP_MM PUR DOCS PER TRACKING
NUMBER (ME2B) for procedural steps to execute.
E. Search by Account Assignment - ME2K - See BPP_MM PURCHASE
ORDER BY ACCOUNT ASSIGNMENT (ME2K) for procedural steps to
execute.
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F. Search by Material Group - ME2C
Use this function to view purchase orders by Material Group. Use the above
BPP as how to complete this search. Only difference is choosing a Material
Group.
8.7
Clipboard Use for Text
Instead of using Standard Text you can set up 5 standard Clipboards to pull into
your purchase orders. Clipboards created are only available for use by the user
that created them.
To create a clipboard:
When you have Continous Text display box open go to “Goto>User
Clipboard>Clipboard 1”. It will open a new text box headed “Change Clipboard
1. You can type any details you want on the screen. Then “Save” document.
Double click in the Header (Must have vendor).
When you want to use in future go to “Include>Storage system>user clipboard>
clipboard 1 or any of the other clipboard numbers. The details in clipboard will
populate on the Header note section.
8.8
Properly Closing a Purchase Order
It is the buyer’s responsibility to run reports for any open orders. When an order
is found and no more goods receipts or invoice receipts are expected then the
buyer needs to correctly close the order.
When a line item is open for goods receipt and no longer needed to close this go
to the “Delivery” tab of the item details section and click “Delivery complete” box.
This will close the line item and keep the requisition closed.
When a line item is open for invoice receipt and we will not be getting one you
need to manually fix this. Go to “Invoice” tab in the item details section and click
on the “Final Invoice” tab. This will close the order.
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8.9
Purchase Order Output (Print/Fax) and EDI - ME9F
Once a purchase order is created you will need to then output that purchase
order to the Vendor. The possible output choices are 1) print a hardcopy
(NEU1); 2) Fax using the SAP system called autofax (FAX) and 3) send via EDI
(NEU). The options available for output will depend on the capabilities of the
Vendor and SAP will be set up to provide the output options allowable for that
vendor’s capabilities.
Use this function to choose how you are going to transmit your purchase
document to the vendor -See BPP_MM MESSAGE OUTPUT PURCHASE
ORDER (ME9F) for procedural steps to execute.
To determine if the Purchase Order was successfully faxed, execute the
following process:
Go to Business Workplace.
Go to Documents.
Go to Outbox.
Review all documents by date. All red boxes should be investigated and
corrected. Vendor Master changes should be generated for any incorrect fax
numbers.
8.10
Reprinting a Purchase Order
8.10.1To Reprint a PO That Has Not Been Changed
Open PO in change mode
Go to messages
Pick an output line .
Input NEU1 and Print Output
Save
Can be put in yellowed line if available.
Display Pur. Order :Output
Input into LOGICAL DESTINATION
*
, then select your printer.
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Check the box PRINT IMMEDIATELY.
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Enter green check and green arrow back
Then save
The PO should be printing.
These steps must be followed twice to print a PO in its entirety
The first print will print only changes.
The second print will print the entire changed PO.
8.10.2. To Reprint a PO That Has Been Changed
The Purchase Order must be completed prior to reprinting. To reprint the PO,
Enter the PO number into PO Change (ME22N). Then open the Order Header
and check the version complete box.
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Then proceed to print the PO as per normal process ME9F.
8.11
Purchase Order Partners – No Payee on the Purchase Order
8.11.1 Purchase Order Partners (Payee side)
When a purchase order is created using a particular vendor number the partner tab in
the header of the purchase order is automatically filled in if there is a valid payee set up
for that Hospital (Company Code). If the payment goes to the same address as the
purchase order then the Partner will be the same Vendor number. If the payment is
sent to a different location then the partner will reference the Vendor number that
corresponds to that remit to address.
If a purchase order is created using a purchasing vendor where the payee side is not
created for that particular hospital then the partner tab will remain blank.
When it is noticed that the partner does not automatically fill in then the buyer needs to
complete a vendor master request form and send it to 3SO to have the payee side
created or extended. Once this is done, all purchase orders already created for the
Vendor will need to be updated by purchasing using the process below. For all future
purchase orders using that Vendor the correct Partner should automatically populate in
the partner tab of the PO header.
8.11.2 Adding a Partner to a Purchase Order
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How to add a partner into a purchase order after 3SO has extended the payment side of
a vendor:
Go to purchase order change (ME22N) and enter purchase order number:
In purchase order header, select the Partners Tab - the screen should look blank - see
below:
Go to 1st line and add the following:
Under Funct - select PI from the drop down list:
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Next enter the SAP vendor number in the Number field and hit enter - SAP should fill in
the Vendor Name automatically:
Next, save the purchase order
and advise A/P that it is ready to be processed.
8.11.3 Updating all Purchase Orders with the Correct Partner by Vendor
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Once it is identified by AP that a Vendor did not have a valid partner and it is requested
to be created or extended, all purchase orders created prior to the system update will
need to be corrected manually. The following process explains how to clean up by
vendor:
Use transaction code ME2L to run a list of all purchase orders created for that particular
vendor. Add Vendor number and execute
.
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