CT-e solution based on TM Consignment Orders

[Coracini35]

Hello TM experts,

One of the main challenges of TM projects carried out in Brazil is to adapt freight calculations to the reality of CT-e entries, the carriers' tax collection document. All the solutions presented so far are unable to fully cover the needs of calculating and distributing costs in a linear planning model. Let me explain:

The CT-e is a tax document that is based on the origin and destination of the goods to charge and NF-es. Therefore, if I have 3 deliveries/NF-e departing from plant XXXX and arrives in different locations, three CT-es will be generated by carrier, each with the plant as the origin and the delivery location as the destination. In this way, we use the calculation by stage in the documents. And that's where the problems begin.

As I said, we need the origin and destination of the goods to calculate the CT-e, but when performing the calculation by stage, and using a calculation base that searches for data from the source location (like city location code, transportation zone) ​this data ​are searched from the source location of the stage and not from the load point location. Also for quantities "calculation bases" like weight, volume or goods value, everything that is present in that stage is taken into consideration, and not only what will be delivered, which makes sense for calculating the CT-e.

The same occurs when calculating the cost distribution, performing the prorating based on what is in the resource in the stage and not only what will be delivered. Below is a diagram that demonstrates this problem:

There are some solutions that avoid one or another custom development, but I haven't seen any that meet all the necessary requirements.

In order to mitigate the need for all these developments and continue using linear planning in freight orders, I created a new solution based on consignment order documents. These documents are logical groupings and when created from an FO, they have the exact parameters to calculate charges and cost distribution. Origin, destination, weight, volume and items that should be grouped in the same CT-e are grouped correctly without the need for developments.

It is possible to determine the correct time for automatic generation of the CO through the consignment building profile (https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_S4HANA_ON-PREMISE/e3dc5400c1cc41d1bc0ae0e7fd9aa5a2/5985ebe395b64038814...). I created a basic prototype to demonstrate how it is possible. For this purpose, I created the document list below, with the same origins and different destinations. However, this solution would also work for different origins and destinations:

Based on the Freight Units created, I planned all of them in a single freight order with a linear planning type. Each FU created a new stage in the freight order.

Here you can see all the stages created.

To demonstrate that our calculation will be based only on the weight of the freight units in our stage, I created a freight agreement with a rate table based on gross weight.

At this point I add our carrier. However, my freight order is not enabled to perform the charge calculation.

In this configuration example, when updating the FO status to "Ready for transportation", consignment orders are automatically created.

The charge calculation is automatically performed, based on the weight of the freight unit stage. If there were more than one FU with the same origin and destination, they would be grouped in the same consignment order.

As I said before, the weight considered in the calculation is only for the delivered FU, and does not contain data from other Freight units.

Note that the stage is based on the FUs and not on the linear stages from freight order. In this way, the FO continues with all the planning capabilities and the CO with the data necessary for calculating CT-e.

After this, the freight settlement is created. In this case, charge distribution was activated in this document. It is possible to see that only the items related to the delivery of the CO stage were considered in the charge distribution. This way, we avoid all the developments normally done in projects in Brazil where we need to follow the planning in a linear manner.

For automatic CO creation, we need to configure a consignment building profile and associate it with the Freight Order configuration. It is even possible to add more split criteria if it is necessary to create more than one CT-e per stage, for example. It is also possible to determine other moments for automatic CO generation, such as using a specific event such as check-in or departure.

SAP S/4HANA Logistics for Brazil #CT-e SAP Transportation Management Localization