Certain EDI transactions require you to use more control methods because of their direct impact on your company’s revenue. For example, incoming sales orders are often subject to pricing disputes. Automated EDI sales orders with incorrect pricing, if not checked, could cause a lot of turmoil. The company could end up in a situation in which customers are refusing to pay the invoices or, even worse, experience a loss of loyal customers all due to the lack of monitoring and controlling of price discrepancies on incoming sales documents.

As more and more sales orders are received via EDI, it is vital to ensure that all expected incoming pricing is checked against the sales and distribution pricing maintained in your R/3 or ECC system. They both provide standard functionality to help you identify pricing discrepancies between the customer’s expected sales price and the sales price your system determines on incoming EDI sales orders.

The steps below guide you through the process of configuring R/3 to capture the customer’s expected price on incoming EDI sales orders and check that price against a customizable factor of deviation from the actual sales price as determined by the Sales and Distribution (SD) module of R/3. You will also gain an understanding of how to block an incoming sales order from further processing if the price discrepancy is unacceptable, and find out how to access standard reporting tools that allow the release of blocked EDI sales orders within your system. Although my example is from an R/3 system, the process is the same for ECC.

Step 1. Configure pricing condition types. First you must define the pricing condition types applicable to your incoming EDI sales order process. SAP provides two standard condition types, EDI1 and EDI2, which you can use in their standard form without modification or copy and change into custom condition types if necessary.

To configure these condition types follow menu path Sales and Distribution>Basic Functions>Pricing>Pricing Control> Define Condition Types>Maintain Condition Types or use transaction code V/06. Select condition type EDI1 and click on the magnifying glass icon in the top left corner to access details. Figure 1 demonstrates the standard configuration of this condition type. Keep in mind that if you wish to change any of these settings you should copy condition type EDI1 into a new custom one by using the copy as icon (circled in Figure 1).

Figure 1

Configure condition type EDI1

The key difference between condition types EDI1 and EDI2 is the calculation type setting. EDI1 captures the incoming price rate that affects the total value of the sales order through multiplication by quantity. EDI2 captures the requested line item value, which does not vary with changes in quantity. The choice between the two condition types is dictated purely by the business process in place between the two EDI partners.

Step 2. Modify the pricing procedure. Once you choose the appropriate condition types, proceed to the configuration of the sales order pricing procedure. Theoretically different sales orders can have different pricing procedures, depending on the configuration of the pricing procedure determination in your system. I’m going to assume that only one pricing procedure exists for sales orders. If this is not the case, you need to repeat the steps detailed below for each relevant pricing procedure.

Follow menu path Sales and Distribution> Basic Functions>Pricing>Pricing Control>Define and Assign Pricing Procedures>Maintain Pricing Procedures or use transaction V/08 for quicker access (Figure 2). Select the appropriate pricing procedure and double-click on the Control data node in the top left corner. Normally, you should assign both condition types EDI1 and EDI2 to the pricing procedure, as there might be several different processes for capturing the requested price with various EDI partners. Also, typical practice is assign them at the very bottom of the pricing procedure to ensure that the system compares them to values that were already affected by any discounts or surcharges.

Figure 2

Configure the pricing procedure

It is crucial to mark both configuration types as Mandatory (Man) and Statistical (Stat). Two standard alternative calculation routines, 8 and 9, control possible price discrepancies — differences between the EDI expected price provided by the EDI partner and the actual price as determined by your R/3 system. Routine 8 ensures that the difference between the net value of the line item (KOMP-NETWR) and the value of the EDI condition type (XKWER) is not greater than $1.00. Routine 9, on the other hand, ensures that the difference between the net price of the line item (KOMP-NETPR) at the base unit of measure and the rate of the EDI condition type (XKOMV-KBETR) is not greater than $0.05. The choice between the two routines depends on the business process, as only one alternative calculation routine can be assigned to any single condition type within a specific pricing procedure.

Often it is necessary to change the standard pricing discrepancy barriers of $1.00 for value and $0.05 for rate. To change a barrier, follow menu path Sales and Distribution>System Modifications> Routines>Define Formulas For Pricing or use transaction code VOFM. Keep in mind that this step requires an ABAP developer and an access key. In the top menu, choose Formulas>Condition Value and create a new routine by assigning a routine number within the allowed namespace between 501 and 999. Then provide an informative description and assign the new routine to application V (Figure 3).

Figure 3

Create a custom condition value routine

You can copy the actual syntax of the routine from routine 8 or 9, depending on the requirement, and change it accordingly. Figure 4 demonstrates the possible syntax for ensuring that the value is no greater than $10.00, instead of the usual limit of $1.00. The syntax in Figure 4 was copied manually from routine 8 and modified to reflect the new pricing discrepancy barrier (1000 assigned as the maximum difference in the routine actually constitutes $10.00). Once you create and activate the routine, assign it to the EDI1 or EDI2 condition type in the pricing procedure, similarly to the assignment of routines 8 and 9 in Figure 2.

Figure 4

Create custom routine syntax

Step 3. Maintain the incompletion procedure. Now that you have assigned the EDI1 and EDI2 condition types to the pricing procedure along with the relevant condition value routines, you must maintain the incompletion procedure. This blocks further processing of incoming EDI sales orders that contain items that did not pass the pricing discrepancy requirements specified in the routine.

Follow menu path Sales and Distribution> Basic Functions>Log of Incomplete Items>Define Incompletion Procedures or use transaction OVA2. I’ll demonstrate the configuration steps by copying a standard incompletion procedure, 20, into a new custom incompletion procedure, ZY. If you already have a custom incompletion procedure defined, you can avoid the copying and go straight to the assignment of the new field.

Ensure that you are in change mode by clicking on the glasses and pencil icon. At the Groups node level, select the B: Sales – Item group on the right and click on the Procedures node on the left pane. In the resulting screen (Figure 5), select incompletion procedure 20 and click on the copy as icon in the top left corner.

Figure 5

Copy incompletion procedure 20

Provide a two-character incompletion procedure ID starting with either a Y or a Z and an informative description and press Enter. Click on the Copy all option on the pop-up screen to proceed. Select your new incompletion procedure ZY and double-click on the Fields node in the left menu. Now click on the New entries button and add the Expected price field to the incompletion procedure. Figure 6 shows an example of such an entry. The status of the entry determines which further process needs to be blocked — for example, delivery processing and invoicing. Save your new incompletion procedure.

Figure 6

Maintain the incompletion procedure

Make sure to assign the new incompletion procedure ZY to all applicable item categories — for example, standard sales order item category TAN. To do so, go to IMG menu path Sales and Distribution> Basic Functions>Log of Incomplete Items>Assign Incompletion Procedure> Assign procedures to the item categories or use transaction VUP2.

Step 4. Monitor incoming sales orders. Once you have completed the configuration detailed above, you can use some of the standard R/3 reporting tools to monitor, identify, and release incoming EDI sales orders that were blocked due to pricing discrepancies outside the acceptable range. Proceed to SAP Easy Access menu path Logistics>Sales and Distribution> Sales>Information System>Worklists> Release Customer Expected Price or use transaction code V.25 for quicker access. The user can select any number of EDI sales orders blocked by the system due to pricing discrepancies and release them for further processing (Figure 7).

Figure 7

Release sales orders for processing

A proper business process should be in place to ensure that blocked sales orders are processed correctly. You can send back an order acknowledgment document to the customer via EDI, stating the actual sales price as determined by your system. Sales personnel can either change the pricing on the sales order manually to reflect a price that is closer to what the customer expected, or simply release the sales order as-is. In the end, it is always your sales price, as determined by the SD module, and not the customer’s expected price, that drives the value of the sales order and ultimately the invoice in your R/3 system.

Anton Karnaukhov

Anton Karnaukhov is a senior IT manager at Pacific Coast Companies, Inc., in Sacramento, California. He earned an MBA degree at Heriot-Watt University and a BS/BA degree with a specialization in computer information systems at Western Carolina University. Anton has more than eight years of SAP implementation and development experience focusing on business intelligence and logistics modules in the manufacturing and resale industries.

You may contact the author at anton.karnaukhov@paccoast.com.

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