Process of SAP SRM7 is fully stabilized and process oriented.
Major steps of this process are as displayed in the image:
- Create Shopping Cart
- Approval(Dept/Unit/College)
- Purchase Order sent to Supplier(Purchasing)
- Goods Confirmation
- Invoice Posting / Check Payments
What is a Shopping Cart ?
Using the shopping cart, company employees can procure the goods and services that they need for their work area. This takes the pressure off the purchasing department, who in turn can concentrate on strategic tasks, such as contractual negotiation.
Once the SC is created in SRM it triggers the approval Workflow which determines Technical, Purchasing, Financial approvers of that Shopping Cart.
Workflow
A workflow starts once the shopping cart is ordered. This workflow checks whether approval is required. If an approval is required, a work item is sent to the universal worklist (UWL) of the relevant approver. If no approval is required, the system creates the necessary follow-on documents, such as purchase requisitions, purchase orders, or reservations, for the shopping cart. The shopping cart information and the Customizing settings in your SRM system determine what types of documents are created and what system they are created in.
Determination of Technical Approver
A technical approval position is determined by product category (= material group) and location (= plant). A technical approver is linked to an approval position. If two approvers are attached to same Approval Position both of them will receive mail notification and 1st taken decision will be applicable to other approvers. If no user is attached to the position then that step can be bypassed.
If we didn’t find any approver with the combination of Material Group and Plant maintained in SC, then there will be no Technical Approver for this SC.
Determination of Purchasing Approver
In the Purchasing approval process 3 types of Purchasers are there:
- Local
- Panel
- CAPEX
Purchasing approver is linked to an approval position. Purchasing position is linked to one or more material group & plant. An approver is determined by product category (= material group) and location (= plant). In the Org Structure under Extended Attributes, Mat Group and Location should be assigned to that approver. From the Zone, the Domain or segment and the amount from the shopping cart, the workflow engine will determine which kind of buyer to involve. Each kind of buyer can be an Approver (A) or Reviewer (R).
If no approver is set up, no purchasing approval will be required and the workflow goes directly to the next approval step. In special case, if SC is created with Zero value the Local Buyer will enter the price in SC. This process is named as Purchasing Sourcing.
Determination of Financial Approver:
Financial Approver is determined based on Account Assignment category. User who is responsible for the cost element maintained in SC will be the approver. Cost elements exist only in ERP but these cost elements are linked to Approval Position in Backend. The value maintained against Person Responsible tab belongs to Approval Position in SRM. Approval Limit is maintained for the Approval Position. If there is a multi cost assignment on the shopping cart item, only the main one is considered. If there is no approval position linked to the cost object, Requester’s manager is determined instead of a responsible person of the cost object
If the 1st financial approver doesn’t have enough approval limit, the workflow engine delegates the SC to another approver who has enough approval limit in following the hierarchical links. By default, the delegation is activated on all financial approval positions.
Offline Approval
Using this functionality approvers can process their work items without logging into SRM system. The system can send work items by e-mail so that users can process them in their e-mail client (Set the attribute FORWARD_WI for the requester at PPOMA_BBP transaction). For each required approval, an email is sent to the Approvers Mail client. Approver will receive a mail with options to accept and reject. Once approver has taken any decision, an e-mail notification will go to requester.
Team Shopping Cart
Within Team Purchasing the team members can take over shopping carts of others and process them. Now with the Team purchasing the users can define substitutes themselves, who are able to take over their SCs. When creating a shopping cart, you can mark the shopping cart as a team shopping cart. You can display information about who has taken over and processed a team shopping cart in the General Data area of the shopping cart under Document Changes: Display. Team Cart button will come only for Team SC with status 'Saved'. Users who are assigned as substitutes can do Confirmation of the team cart.
Reciprocity is mandatory: you define your substitutes and they have to select you as their substitute (2 steps process). Approvers do not have team shopping carts.