SAP MM Questionnaire

[moustafahabashi]

When it comes to implementing SAP MM (Material Management), a detailed and well-thought-out questionnaire is essential. Whether you’re embarking on a new SAP implementation or rolling out SAP MM to multiple entities, crafting the right questions can provide deep insights into business needs, highlight potential gaps, and ensure smooth system integration. In this blog, we’ll explore the key components of a comprehensive SAP MM questionnaire and why it’s crucial for successful project execution.

1. Organization
1.1. Purchasing Group	Do purchasing groups represent individual buyers or groups of buyers?
Please provide a list of groups with responsibilities
1.2. Purchasing Organization	Which purchasing departments exist in your enterprise?
If there is more than one department which handles all purchasing, specify which department(s) negotiate pricing terms and conditions with your suppliers.
How do the departments share the task of procuring the goods and services required by the organization?
Which material types/external services do you procure?
Where do you procure materials/services in your enterprise?
Do you negotiate vendor pricing at a corporate or local level?
1.3. Plants and storage locations	Definition of plant types and business rules behind
Provide list of plants
Clarify aspects of Sloc Division (30 Unique and 771 total)
Provide list of storage locations with designation
2. Master Data
1.1. Materials	How many different materials do you procure on a regular basis?
Please provide material master data structure, fields used including classification, custom fields if any
Please describe material master management process
What is the reporting / analytics used for material master data
1.2. Vendors	Please provide vendor master data structure, fields used including classification, custom fields if any
Please describe vendor master management process
Is there any external integration for material/vendor master data (data received or sent to external systems/parties)
What is the reporting / analytics used for vendor master data
1.1. Conditions	Which price components do you use in purchasing documents (e.g. gross price, surcharges, discounts, freight, duty, import)?
Do prices depend on the quantity ordered (e.g. quantity discounts or price scales)? If so, specify price components, quantity, and other factors
Do you manually change the price at header level for the entire purchasing document
Do you allow changes to the gross price that is automatically determined by the System?
Does the vendor's price include value-added tax?
Is it possible to change pricing conditions after a PO has been created?
1.2. Info records	What is the process of maintaining purchasing info records?
Are info records updated automatically with every purchase order?
1.3. Source List	Do you maintain a list of approved vendors? This means that if a material is subject to a source list requirement, it can only be procured from the vendors included on the source list.
Are you using source list for: (1) all materials (2) all materials of a plant (3) certain materials only? Please explain
Are there fixed vendor for some materials?
Is it be possible to for purchase orders to be created automatically in the course of material requirements planning (MRP)?
Should it be possible to for scheduling agreement schedule lines to be created automatically in the course of material requirements planning (MRP)?
1.4. Quota Arrangement	Do you maintain specific vendor quotas (for example 70 % from vendor A, 30% from vendor B) for your materials? If yes, how many quota arrangements are you currently maintaining?
1.5. Release Strategy  with Classification	Are any purchasing documents  subject to approval in SAP? If yes, describe the criteria that are needed to determine the appropriate approval policy for purchase requistions, RFQs, purchase orders, contracts, scheduling agreements.
1.6. Vendor Evaluation	How do you evaluate vendors in your legacy system?
Which criteria do you use to evaluate your vendors?
3. Sourcing and operational procurement (fuels, lubricants related, indirect)
3.1. Purchase Requisition	How are purchase requisitions created in the case of stock material, material for direct consumption, external services?
Do you use a purchase requisition to trigger creation of for a contract or scheduling agreement (Outline Agreement Request)?
Are purchase requisitions generated via material/article requirements planning  manually post-processed?
On the basis of which criteria are purchase requisitions grouped together and assigned to a source of supply?
What support (e.g. price simulation) does the buyer need in order to assign the purchase requisition?
Are purchase requisitions converted into requests for quotations?
Should requisitions be subject to approval by someone (or possibly several people) before the requisition can be processed into an RFQ and/or purchase order?
How is the person responsible for releasing the purchase requisition to be notified?
3.2. Purchasing process	How many different materials do you procure on a regular basis?
How are purchase orders created in your system?
What are the types of purchase orders in use? What is the specific process for each type
Describe how the source of supply is determined for manually created purchase requisitions
Do you create RFQs in the system? How are your RFQs and rejection letters to your vendors to be transmitted?
Do you use contracts / scheduling agreements? What is the rule to create each type of document
Are scheduling agreement delivery schedules/SA releases created in SAP manually, with reference to requisitions and/or automatically?
Which kinds of purchasing document do you send to vendors? I.e. 1) The complete purchasing  document 2) Information re changes 3) Reminders (prior to due date 4) Urging letters/expediters (after due date) 5) Scheduling agreement delivery schedules.
Are purchase documents approved by someone before being issued to vendors? Describe the approval procedure
How is the person responsible for approval notified? - Approver checks regularly, by phone, by e-mail, by workflow, other
How do you transmit purchase orders to your vendors? Please provide examples of printouts, idocs, etc.
Create a list of which SAP messages are sent to which business partners, which IDoc type is used and which EDI standards the messages are to be converted into.
Once you have issued a purchasing document to a vendor, do you track "confirmations" your vendor may return to you regarding the order?
Which type of vendor confirmation do you need and at which time intervals? Which events should trigger a confirmation?
Do you process shipping notifications with the SAP System? How do your vendors transmit shipping notifications? What information does the shipping notification contain?
Do you plan and enter freight costs in the PO? If yes, describe the basis of the costs. Also indicate if any types of costs can be determined automatically  (for example, freight costs per piece, per unit of weight, as a percentage of the value).
What types of indirect (not related to sales and/or production) materials and services do you procure?
Do you order stock material directly for a cost center or another consumption category?
Specify the consumption categories for which you procure external services and material directly: Asset, cost center, production order, project, sales order, other (please specify).
Can the materials you purchase be subject to different tax types? (For example, based upon the material purchased, based upon the plant for which the material is purchased, etc)?
Is it to be possible for purchase orders to be generated automatically following a goods receipt? Specify the criteria for this
What are the types of reports being used and analytics done on purchasing data?
Are there any integrations with external systems / external parties of purchasing data and documents?
How do the procurement flows differ between raw materials (base oil, additives) and finished lubricants?
Are there any long-term agreements or framework contracts in place for base oil or additives procurement?
How are pricing conditions managed for these categories, especially considering fluctuations in base oil prices?
How do you handle supplier lead times and procurement planning for critical inputs like base oil and additives?
Are there any pain points in the current release or approval process that slow down procurement?
3.3 Goods Receipt Processing	Describe the process for receiving goods with reference to a purchase order
Name the storage locations types (incl. stock types Unrestricted-Blocked- Quality) to which vendors deliver the goods.
How do you inform the Purchasing Department that goods have been received?
Do you receive quantities less than the ordered quantity? If yes, is the purchase order considered complete then or do you receive the missing quantities later?
Do you physically store the goods you have received into "stock in quality inspection" at a different location than those posted to normal stock?
Do the materials you receive have to be stored for a certain time before they can be used or do they have an expiration date that you want to keep in the system?
Do you refuse to accept deliveries if the vendor has not complied with the shipping instructions?
Which documents are generated with the goods receipt?
If you are using batch management, how is the batch number determined at the time of goods receipt?
Do you classify the batches at the time of goods receipt? Please specify the criteria
Do you wish to print out the material document as evidence of a goods movement? Which information should be included in the printout?
3.4. Service Entry Sheet	How are services performed by the service provider processed in the system?
3.5. Return Delivery	Do you create action plans/tasks for the Returns?
Which documentation should accompany the goods that are returned to the vendor
3.6. Invoice Verification	How are invoices created in the system (manual, automatic processing)
According to which rules do you effect automatic settlement with regard to goods receipts?
Does a goods receipt with reference to a PO automatically generate an invoice for the delivery?
Create a list of which SAP messages are sent to which business partners, which IDoc type is used and which EDI standards the messages are to be converted into.
Are down payments also  cleared?
Which other messages do you want to send to your vendors or to people within your organization with respect to the invoice receipt?
Is a goods receipt always necessary for invoice verification purposes? If so, do you allow reversal of the goods issue after the invoice has been posted? has been entered
Which invoice blocking reasons are used?
4. Stock transfers
4.1. Stock Transport Order (STO)	What is the purpose of using STO in your organization?(e.g., inter-company transfers, plant-to-plant transfers, cross-company code stock movements)
What types of materials/products are typically transferred using STO?
Which locations or plants are involved in stock transfers?
What are the expected lead times for stock transfers?
How is transportation handled for stock movements? (e.g., own fleet, third-party logistics)
Is there a requirement for purchase orders (PO) during STO transactions?
What is the process for issuing goods for stock transfer? (e.g., automatic goods issue based on delivery note, manual goods issue)
Is there a requirement for quality checks or inspections at the receiving plant?
How is stock valued in your organization during transfers?
Are there any specific workflow approvals needed for STO creation or processing?
5. Inventory Management
5.1 Reservation Processing	Do you maintain specific material reservations (for sales, for production, other issues) for your stock materials?
How far in advance are materials to be allowed to be reserved
How long after the reservation date are open reservations canceled?
5.2. Inventory Valuation and Tracking	What method of inventory valuation do you use? (e.g., standard price, moving average price)
Do you use split valuation? For what purpose
How do you currently track inventory in real time?
Is there a requirement to differentiate between unrestricted stock and blocked stock?
How do you manage different units of measure?
What reporting you use for inventory tracking / analytics
5.3. Stock Availability and Planning	How do you manage stock availability across multiple locations?
Do you need alerts or notifications for stock shortages?
What are the key metrics you track in inventory management? (e.g., safety stock, reorder points)
5.4. Goods Movements and Transfers	What types of movements are used? Any special procedures for GRs, GIs, transfers; custom movement types?
How are order confirmations from suppliers managed?
How do you handle partial deliveries and over-deliveries?
What processes are involved in goods receipts and goods issues for STOs?
Are there any quality checks or sampling procedures before goods receipts are finalized for lubricants, base oil, or additives?
Are there specific movement types required for stock transfers? (e.g., 301 for plant-to-plant transfer, 641 for stock transport order with delivery)
5.5. Batch and Serial Number Management	Do you require batch management or serialization for inventory items?
How do you assign and manage batch numbers incl. for stock transfers?
Do batches expire, and how is shelf life managed?
5.6. Physical Inventory	How often do you perform physical inventory checks?
Which inventory items or locations are prioritized for physical stocktaking
How do you handle discrepancies found during physical inventory? (e.g., automatic adjustment, investigation process)
What approval workflows are required for adjusting inventory balances?
Do you use automatic postings for inventory adjustments?
Which method do you use for physical inventory? (e.g., continuous inventory, periodic inventory)
Do you have a specific process for high-value items or critical stock?
WRICEF	In the context of the carve-out, Identify WRICEF elements (Workflows, Reports, Interfaces, Conversions, Enhancements, and Forms) and their Counts.

[Vijayendra]

Request you to post this as blog currently is posted as a Question and Answer (Q&A).

[Daphne_Mengwein]

Hi @moustafahabashi , thanks for your post. Please consider posting it as a "blog post" next time. Thanks!