Start with new business process - the Advanced Intercompany Sales(5D2)

[SeanFang]

This is blog provides an overview for new standard process - the Advanced Intercompany Sales. The Advanced  Intercompany sales processes allow two affiliated companies and an external customer to participate in a single intercompany process. 

First, let’s assume a business scenario where a multinational apparel group owns company A domestically, which only sells but does not actually produce clothes. The group also owns another company B abroad, which has factories to handle the actual production of clothing. When a customer orders clothing from company A, company A makes an internal purchase to company B, and eventually the clothing is physically shipped to the customer from company B. For this kind of business scenario, we can consider to use the intercompany sales process. And with the arrival of SAP S/4HANA 2022, there comes the advanced intercompany sales process (Scope Item 5D2). Refer to the What's New in SAP S/4HANA 2022 for more info: https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_S4HANA_ON-PREMISE/f5d3e1005efd4e86acf9a65abf428082/ce3d603f0ba6434fb90...

The process for advanced intercompany sales provides functions that allow two affiliated companies to participate in a single intercompany process, such as the following:

• A local sales office sells to a customer. The producing company delivers the goods directly to the customer.
• A local sales organization sells to a customer. A central warehouse delivers the goods.

The following graphic shows a simplified overview of the process for advanced intercompany sales and let's take it over into the above assumed scenario:
A multinational apparel group has a domestic company 1010, which only sells but does not actually produce clothing, which we call the selling company. The group also owns another company abroad 1710, which has a factory 1710 that is responsible for the actual production of clothing, which we call the delivering company.

1. the sales organization belonging to selling company 1010 orders goods by creating a standard sales order from plant 1710, which is indeed belongs to delivering company 1710.
2. to keep the postings synchronized for financial and material ledger purposes, the system creates an intercompany purchase order in the selling company 1010 for the intercompany purchase to the delivering company 1710. This intercompany purchase order then generates an intercompany sales order in the delivering company 1710.
3. the delivering company 1710 is responsible for the physical delivery of the goods to the customer.
4. the delivering company 1710 issues an intercompany customer invoice for the selling company 1010 and the selling company 1010 issues a customer invoice for the external customer.

A standard sales order can initiate the entire process, which is integrated into the value chain monitoring framework. To orchestrate and monitor each process step, this business processes makes use of the Monitor Value Chains app. For more information, see Value Chain Monitoring. For the transfer of control of goods between the affiliated companies and to the customer, the system uses valuated stock in transit. For more information, see Valuated Stock in Transit.

Advanced intercompany sales process vs. classical intercompany sales process

The classical intercompany sales process is simple and there are only few business documents between affiliated companies. But with the increasing needs for business, audits and finance, the classical intercompany sales processes are no longer enough to meet current requirement. The new advanced intercompany sales process brings more intercompany business documents between affiliated companies. The use of the Value Chain Monitoring Framework (VCM) enables most business documents to be generated automatically by the system, effectively reducing the additional efforts on end users while increasing number of business documents.

New documents adding:

Comparing to the classcial intercompany sales processes, the new advanced intercompany sales process adds the following business documents:
For the selling company:

• Intercompany purchase order
• Intercompany supplier invoice
• Stock transfer to valuated stock in transit

For the delivering company:

•  Intercompany sales order
• Stock transfer to valuated stock in transit

A completely new framework and Fiori applications

The Advanced Intercompany Sales process uses the Value Chain Monitoring Framework (VCM) and brings a new Fiori application, Monitor Value Chains - App ID F4854. Refer to the following link for more detailed info about this fiori app:

https://fioriappslibrary.hana.ondemand.com/sap/fix/externalViewer/#/detail/Apps('F4854') 

This fiori app can be used to monitor various types of value chain related processes, including Advanced Intercompany Sales as described in this blog, as well as other processes such as Advanced Intercompany Stock Transfer and so on. The application shows all the process steps and business documents involved in the relevant process. This app also connects with other fiori apps, allowing users to navigate to the corresponding apps to view or change relevant business documents.

Prerequisites for Advanced Intercompany Sales

To set up system for the use of the Advanced Intercompany Sales process either by executing all steps in the configuration guide attached to SAP Note 3233830 or by activating the process with scope item 5D2 in one content-based system. This process is supported by features of the Monitor Value Chains app.

The configuration steps inside SAP Note 3233830 involve multiple configurations for multiple function modules, all of which need to be configured correctly for the process to work properly. To troubleshooting problems caused by configuration errors, SAP note 3390467 provides a report 'VCM_CHECK' to checks relevant configurations within system. Another SAP note 3366067 documents the current restrictions and general Information for Advanced Intercompany Sales.

To monitor the execution of the entire process, the fiori application Monitor Value Chains should be used. End users shoud have the required authorizations to ensure that they can use this fiori application properly. For that, extending custom business roles to include the business catalog ‘SAP_CA_BC_VCM_MONITOR’ or directly using the standard delivered business roles, such as, Shipping Specialist (SAP_BR_SHIPPING_SPECIALIST). For more details, check link: https://fioriappslibrary.hana.ondemand.com/sap/fix/externalViewer/#/detail/Apps('F4854')/S24OP

Usage of the App "Monitor Value Chains"

The Process Flow tab in the app provides complete process step and business document information to help track the flow and the execution status of process steps.

The Message Log in this application can provide detailed errors reported for better troubleshooting. After resolving the error, use the "Reprocess" button to retrigger the execution of business processes again, especially those business document creation steps that need to be performed automatically by the system.

For more detailed information about this new business process, please check Help Portal:

https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_S4HANA_ON-PREMISE/7b24a64d9d0941bda1afa753263d9e39/6c2684455628425fbc5...