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Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker

Advanced Intercompany Sales & Stock Transfer in SAP S/4HANA Cloud

Last updated: 07th December 2022

Today, I would like to introduce you to an amazing solution that you as our customer have desired for a long time, the Advanced Intercompany Processes. If you cannot wait, then check out the magic in this system demo here already.

Table of content (for quick access, just click on one of the business area links):

Overview

Business Reasons for Intercompany Processes
New Best Practice Processes
Process Activation and Restrictions
Outlook

Intercompany Sales

Classic Intercompany Sales – Single Level / Single System
Advanced Intercompany Sales – Single Level / Single System
System Demo – Advanced Intercompany Sales

Intercompany Stock Transfer

Classic Intercompany Stock Transfer – Single Level / Single System
Advanced Intercompany Stock Transfer – Single Level / Single System

Value Chain Monitoring Framework (VCM)

 

 

Overview

 

Business Reasons for Intercompany Processes

A split between the entities handling sales and production is often needed for various reasons. This leads to the need to support Intercompany Sales:

  • Separate risks between domestic and international sales and production
  • Easier local and regional sales
  • Tax advantages
  • Safeguarding of brand

Intercompany supply chains are spread across various localizations and lead to the need of Intercompany Stock Transfer between group legal entities to run company value chains

  • Production plants close to raw materials
  • Leverage local advantages on company group level (labor costs, free trade, and industry zones, …)
  • Tax advantages

Most SAP customer companies with two or more company codes need Intercompany Processes.
Intercompany processes are a must for:

  • All manufacturing industries
  • All companies running on a dedicated internal supply chain

The Advanced Intercompany (ICO) processes

  • Supports first E2E SAP standard processes for ICO
  • Supports process automation
  • Reduces TCO for customers as this standard process relieves them of custom developments, maintenance and upgrades

 

New Best Practice Processes

With the continuous delivery 2202.3 for SAP S/4HANA Cloud we are launching two new scope items for the Advanced Intercompany processes:

 

Process Activation and Restrictions

The Advanced Intercompany Sales process is per default disabled for the standard document types and item categories.

To activate the Advanced Intercompany Sales process, specific configurations must be enabled through an expert configuration request. Some configurations have to be done by the customer.
For further details read the Set-Up Instructions document that you will find in the details section of the scope item Advanced Intercompany Sales (‏5D2‏).

Currently the process can be activated for item categories TAN and CBXN.

The release restrictions for Advanced Intercompany Sales are described in SAP note 3192584.

Also the scope item Advanced Intercompany Stock Transfer (‏5HP‏) provide a Set-Up Instructions document.

 

Outlook

It is planned to deliver the Advanced Intercompany processes also in SAP S/4HANA on premise with upcoming releases. So this blog post is relevant for both deployment types, SAP S/4HANA Cloud, and SAP S/4HANA on premise.

The first launch of the Advanced Intercompany processes covers the scenario for Single Level / Single System that is explained below. In addition, it is planned to extend the Advanced Intercompany processes also to cover the scenario for Multi Level / Single System with one or more additional Intermediate Companies between the Selling Company and the Delivering Company. This is a subject to be changed.

 

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Intercompany Sales

Classic Intercompany Sales – Single Level / Single System

First let us have a look on the classic intercompany sales process. For example, a local sales office sells to a customer and the goods are delivered from a plant, which is assigned to another company code, directly to the customer as shown in the next figure.
Starting point of the process is the purchase order of an US customer (step 1) that triggers the creation of a sales order in the US selling company (step 2). The US selling company triggers directly the outbound delivery in the German delivery company (step 3). The US customer receives the goods directly from the physical warehouse in Germany, but the invoice is issued by the US selling company. During the process no valuated stock is created in the US selling company and business documents like the purchase and sales order between the affiliated companies are missing.

Fig. 1: Classic Intercompany Sales – Single Level / Single System

 

Advanced Intercompany Sales – Single Level / Single System

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.

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.

Fig. 2: Advanced Intercompany Sales – Single Level / Single System

 

What are the key features of the Advanced Intercompany Sales process?

It is a seamless E2E process that is highly automated and embedded into the following areas:

  • Product Compliance
  • Trade Compliance
  • Profitability Reporting across legal entities
  • Support of IFRS 15 compliant revenue recognition and COGS postings
  • Product Costing
  • Group Reporting / Consolidation

Changes in customer-facing sales order are possible and automatically managed by the system.

Valuated Stock in Transit in the Selling Company allows seamless change of control between affiliates and customer.

Purchase Order in the Selling Company enables landed cost in product costing.

E2E value chain and process monitor allows issue detection and posting services.

 

 

System Demo – Advanced Intercompany Sales

My colleague Markus Oertelt has recorded the Advanced Intercompany Sales process for you. Watch the next video! The system demo is structured into the following sections:

Video time / min Topic
00:10 How to create a sales order?
02:09 How to create a sales order with SAP Fiori?
03:43 How to monitor your value chains after the sales order is created?
04:47 How to check automatic creation of intercompany purchase and sales order?
05:56 How to create delivery documents?
07:46 How to check transfer control of goods?
08:16 How to pick the delivery goods?
09:37 How to post goods issue?
10:39 How to create billing document?
12:08 How to monitor your value chains?

 

Video: Advanced Intercompany Sales  (system demo without voice demo)

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Intercompany Stock Transfer

In analogy to the chapter above, let me also briefly compare the process of Classic Intercompany Stock Transfer and Advanced Intercompany Stock Transfer with the help of process flow diagrams:

Classic Intercompany Stock Transfer – Single Level / Single System

Fig. 4: Classic Intercompany Stock Transfer Process – Single Level / Single System

 

Advanced Intercompany Stock Transfer – Single Level / Single System

Fig. 5: Advanced Intercompany Stock Transfer Process – Single Level / Single System

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Value Chain Monitoring Framework (VCM)

The Value Chain Monitoring Framework (VCM) is a generic framework for designing, running and monitoring business processes within SAP S/4HANA that supports pre-configured SAP standard E2E processes. The benefits are:

  • Increased end-to-end process visibility, efficiency, and collaboration
  • Issue detection providing posting services
  • Tightly integrated into relevant business applications

Fig. 6: Value Chain Monitoring Framework

 

The Monitor Value Chains app enables you to track all steps of the Advanced Intercompany Sales, Advanced Intercompany Stock Transfer, and Sell from Stock with Valuated Stock in Transit (VSiT) business processes. This app provides you with a detailed overview of all relevant steps and documents in these processes. In addition, it directly integrates these processes with other business applications. The business benefits are increased transparency, efficiency, and cross-team collaboration.

Fig. 7: Monitor Value Chains app

 

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Thanks for reading this blog. Stay tuned!

[Update 20221207]: Also check out the recording of the SAP Community call with my colleague Bernd Strecker (SAP Product Manager for Advanced Intercompany Sales). First, Bernd explains Advanced Intercompany Sales in SAP S/4HANA via his slide deck that is available here. I would especially like to draw your attention to the topic “Planned Features” at 28:46 min with an interesting outlook. The “Q&A” that answers a lot of interesting questions starts at 30:30 min. At 40:57 min Bernd shows a live system demo and finally at 49:13 min he answers some more questions.

For more information on Advanced Intercompany Sales, check out the detailed description here.

For more information on SAP S/4HANA, check out the following links:

  • SAP S/4HANA release info: sap.com/s4hana
  • SAP S/4HANA Community here
  • SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Manufacturing & Supply Chain – The Link Collection here
  • Help Portal Product Page here
  • What’s New here
  • Best practices for SAP S/4HANA here

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      87 Comments
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      Author's profile photo Franck Zerman
      Franck Zerman

      Hello,

      Thanks for bringing this new concept.

      Great to see this Monitoring of Value Chains oppurtunity along with the business process.

      Is there any planning about a scneraio in which multi systems involved for an intercompany case by chance?

      e.g Distributor - Plant - Selling Entity - After Sales Service  ... spread over different landscapes

      Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker
      Gerhard Welker
      Blog Post Author

      Hello Franck,

      Yes, as mentioned in the blog it is planned to extend the Advanced Intercompany processes also to cover the scenario for Multi Level / Single System with one or more additional Intermediate Companies between the Selling Company and the Delivering Company. This is a subject to be changed.

      Best regards,
      Gerhard

      Author's profile photo Vinaysagar Udagi
      Vinaysagar Udagi

      Thank you Gehard for sharing this new functionality.

      Could you please share the process details of the Multi Level / Single System scenario

      Regards,
      Vinaysagar

      Author's profile photo Armin Buzimkic
      Armin Buzimkic

      Hi there,

      is there any update in terms of the Multi-Level / Multi-System approach?

       

      Author's profile photo Nadesh Kumar
      Nadesh Kumar

      Hi Gerhard ,

       

      Really a Nice Concept and thanks for Sharing.

      Is this also integrated with GTS Module as we have faced many issues during Import / Export

      GTS Checks .

       

      Thanks and Regards

      K.Nadesh Kumar

      Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker
      Gerhard Welker
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Nadesh,

      1. Trade Compliance is fully integrated with Advanced Intercompany Sales & Stock Transfer from an e2e process view.
      2. Technically, the documents handled by Advanced Intercompany Sales & Stock Transfer are integrated in SAP Global Trade Services (GTS).
      3. GTS is responsible to consider these documents so that the process view is consistent.

      Best regards,
      Gerhard

      Author's profile photo Tom Käser
      Tom Käser

      Hi Gerhard,

      thank you very much for the overview!

      Do I understand it correctly that the outbound delivery in the supplying plant is created with reference to the IC STO and on top referenced in the document flow of the IC SD Order in the supplying plant (dotted line)?

      Because this would be a difference to the on premise IC STO process with a IC sales order created via IDoc where the outbound delivery is created based on the sales order instead of the purchase order,

      Keep up the good work!

      Tom

      Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker
      Gerhard Welker
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Tom,

      Yes, the outbound delivery is created with reference to the IC Purchase Order (we’re using purchase orders and not stock transfer orders).
      In the document flow we show the reference to the IC Purchase Order, only. We have drawn a dotted line from the sales order to the outbound delivery as the FI data being used in the outbound delivery is copied from the sales order.
      The E2E document flow is shown nicely in the Value Chain Monitor app.

      The approach of Advanced ICo Sales differs significantly from the approach where the delivery is created with reference to the sales order. In Advanced ICO Sales the IC purchase order is deeply integrated into logistics, (e.g. MRP, ATP, Transportation Mgt, Product Compliance, Trade Compliance) and on the other hand the Sales Order is used for commercial, tax and FI integration reasons mainly.

      Best regards,
      Gerhard

      Author's profile photo Tom Käser
      Tom Käser

      Hi Gerhard,

      thank you very much for the clarification!

      Are you planning 'transfer' this functionality to on-premise with one of the next releases? Would love to get my hands on this process.

      Best regards

      Tom

      Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker
      Gerhard Welker
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Tom,

      Yes, we plan to make this solution also available with SAP S/4HANA 2022 OP (on-premise) and 2022 PCE (private cloud edition) release.

      Best regards,
      Gerhard

      Author's profile photo J. van den Wittenboer
      J. van den Wittenboer

      Hello Gerhard,

       

      Thanks for the clear explanation and demo.

      As stated "Currently the process can be activated for item categories TAN and CBXN.", any ideas if this will be extended in the future for other itemcategories ?

      Thanks and Regards,

      Joos

      Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker
      Gerhard Welker
      Blog Post Author

      Hello Joos,

      In future releases we plan to support more scenarios like order related customer invoicing, sales bill-of-materials, WBS elements, make-to-order, configurable materials etc.

      Best regards,
      Gerhard

      Author's profile photo Olaf Hassel
      Olaf Hassel

      Hello Gerhard,

      great solution. Waiting for multi level processes, to be able to design direct delivery processes with more than 2 company codes.

      Keep Going,

      Olaf

      Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker
      Gerhard Welker
      Blog Post Author

      Hello Olaf,
      Thank you very much for your nice feedback. Yes, we keep going and working on the multi level processes.
      Best regards,
      Gerhard

      Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker
      Gerhard Welker
      Blog Post Author

      Blog updated:

      Today I have added the following sentence at the end of the blog post:

      For more information on Advanced Intercompany Sales, check out the detailed description here.

      The given link guides you to the Stay Current Material about Advanced Intercompany Sales that provides a detailed process flow in its appendix.

      Author's profile photo Timo Robens
      Timo Robens

      Hallo Gerhard,

      thanks a lot for adding the detailed description of the Advanced Intercompany Sales process. I just have a short question refer to slide 55 where it is said that the invoice to the external customer is now independent from the intercompany invoice. Therefore now it will be possible to create external customer invoice independently from the intercompany invoice? So no need anymore to wait for the creation of the intercompany invoice before customer invoice?

      For your help thanks a lot.

      Best regards

      Timo

       

      Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker
      Gerhard Welker
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Timo,

      Regarding your question 'So no need anymore to wait for the creation of the intercompany invoice before customer invoice?'

      -> Yes, that’s correct. Intercompany invoice can be created before the customer invoice has been created.

      Best regards,
      Gerhard

      Author's profile photo Timo Robens
      Timo Robens

      Hi Gerhard,

      thanks a lot for your great support and the really good answer. This is indeed a great Innovation for one of our customers working intensively with intercompany sales processes.

      So then we can also be rid of the MM-SD connection via ALE in one ERP approach😉

      Great Solution!

      Author's profile photo Ivan Ramirez
      Ivan Ramirez

      Hi Gerhard,

       

      Very nice blog! thanks for sharing!! do you know if this best practice will be released as well on-premise?

       

      Best regards,

       

      Ivan

      Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker
      Gerhard Welker
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Ivan,

      1. Advanced ICo Sales
        The Scope Item 5D2 will be shipped to S/4HANA on premise, too. Additionally, we will provide a set-up guide for 000 customizing based systems.
      2.  Advanced ICo Stock Transfer
        The Scope Item 5HP won’t be shipped to S/4HANA on premise. But we will provide a set-up guide for 000 customizing based systems.

      Best regards,
      Gerhard

      Author's profile photo Ivan Ramirez
      Ivan Ramirez

      Fantastic! thanks for sharing the scope Items. I will be waiting for the set-up guide once available 🙂

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Gerhard,

      thank you very much for this interesting post.

      Is there any quidance how this process will look like with integration to other ECC systems? Example: selling company in S/4 HANA and delivering company in ECC, selling company in ECC and delivering company in S/4 HANA?

      Is the activation of advanced Intercompany enabling usage of only this process for IC?

      Best regards,

      Aga

      Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker
      Gerhard Welker
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Aga,

      Advanced ICo Sales is a one system scenario only. Both companies need to run in the same client.

      SAP is working on 2-tier scenarios (SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Hybrid Deployment), too. More information on 2-tier scenarios can be found via this link.

      Best regards,
      Gerhard

      Author's profile photo Lingling Qian
      Lingling Qian

      Hello Gerhard,

       

      In  Display Item Details. Choose Shipping tab,  the field Transit Plant is not found. Is there a problem with our scope item activation or configuration?  Scop item 5D2 is activated in our system.Please give me some advice.

       

      Thanks,

      Lingling

      Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker
      Gerhard Welker
      Blog Post Author

      Hello Lingling,

      Unfortunately a remote diagnosis based on your description is not possible.

      Yes, something in your configuration or activation is missing. Please follow all steps being listed in the set-up instruction that the scope item provides:

      https://rapid.sap.com/bp/#/browse/scopeitems/5D2

      Best regards,
      Gerhard

      Author's profile photo Lingling Qian
      Lingling Qian

      Hello  Gerhard,

      Thanks for your reply,  We will check the settings and submit the ticket if it still fails.

      Best regards,

      Lingling

      Author's profile photo Marcela Giovanetti
      Marcela Giovanetti

      Great Blog!

      Thanks for sharing.

      Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker
      Gerhard Welker
      Blog Post Author

      Thank you very much for your nice feedback.

      Author's profile photo Adam Piotrowski
      Adam Piotrowski

      Hello Gerhard,

      how does the sales order confirmation take place in the sales plant 1710 in the advanced intercompany sales scenario?

      Is it just based on the purchase requistion / purchase order scheduling like for sales orders with direct purchase requisitions / purchase orders in plant 1710?

      Or somehow based on the confirmation of the second sales order so even maybe based on an ATP check carried out in the production / issuing plant 1010?

      And did I understand it well from the comments?

      The scenario is not applicable at all at the moment for MTO and neither for configurable materials (even if the two sales order item categories would be adjusted in customizing for the handling of a MTO scenario or a KMAT scenario)?

      Best regards

      Adam

      Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker
      Gerhard Welker
      Blog Post Author

      Hello Adam,

      ATP check is executed in the Sales Order in the Selling Company (1710) only. This sales order has 1010 as the “normal” plant on item level. Additionally, it stores the transit plant (1710) in a new field on sales order item level.
      Confirmed quantities and confirmed dates are transferred to the purchase order in the selling company and to the sales order in the delivering company (1010).
      As a result, the sales order in the delivering company will always reflect what has been confirmed in the sales order in the selling company.

      The current version of Advanced ICo Sales is enabled for a limited number of scenarios, in particular sell-from-stock, serial numbers, batches including batch splits and free-of-charge items with invoice relevance.
      Of course, we plan to support more scenarios in future, including make-to-order with or without variant configuration. Make-to-order with variant configuration is not scheduled yet and therefore not available on SAP’s roadmap.
      Trying to use Advanced ICo Sales for variant configurable materials would not run consistently end-to-end. Significant enhancements are necessary to support it.

      Best regards,
      Gerhard

      Author's profile photo Adam Piotrowski
      Adam Piotrowski

      Hello Gerhard,

      thank you very much for your detailed answer.

      As I know my SAP customers they would like to combine your advanced Intercompany sales scenario in future with also a more sophisticated availability check in the deilvering company / issuing plant 1010, so with advanced ATP means like supply-based confirmation (SBC) for example.

      Is there anything planned already to combine such ATP methods in aATP with advanced intercompany sales?

      Thank you very much in advance.

      Best regards

      Adam

       

      Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker
      Gerhard Welker
      Blog Post Author

      Hello Adam,

      The sales order in the selling company is using aATP to determine the delivering plant. The sales order item will take over this plant. Afterwards the sales order processing checks if this plant belongs to a different company code (compared to the company code of the sales organization). If it’s an intercompany plant and if advanced intercompany sales is active the sales order will trigger automatically the execution of advanced intercompany sales by calling the value chain monitoring framework.

      If aATP will execute supply-based confirmation (SBC) is independent if the used plant is an intracompany or an intercompany plant.

      In some scenarios aATP will create subitems in the sales order (delivery is split between 2 or more plants). Advanced intercompany sales is not enabled for subitems in the moment. Therefore, subitems being created by aATP won’t trigger advanced intercompany sales and will run as classic intercompany sales.

      Best regards,
      Gerhard

      Author's profile photo Julija Skapova
      Julija Skapova

      I wanted to ask, how does SAP handle the changes in the documents? If we change anything in the selling Sales Org, does it immediatelly reflect in the sales order in the supplying plant? Is there any syncrhonisation of data in the other direction - if supplying plant changes the confirmed quantity for example?

      Can the process be used with configurable materials?

       

      KR,

      Julija

      Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker
      Gerhard Welker
      Blog Post Author

      Hello Julija,

      Here are the answers:

      1. Question: I wanted to ask, how does SAP handle the changes in the documents? If we change anything in the selling Sales Org, does it immediately reflect in the sales order in the supplying plant? Is there any synchronization of data in the other direction - if supplying plant changes the confirmed quantity for example?

        --> Answer:  Relevant changes in SO2 are automatically transferred to PO3 and SO4. The other direction is not supported (and from SAP’s view not necessary).
        Only SO2 is integrated into the delivering plant, this includes requested and confirmed quantities.
        PO3 and SO4 are used for commercial reason or FI reason, logistically they are not relevant (with the exception that PO3 executes the import compliance check).
        SO2 will executes the ATP check directly in the delivering plant. Therefore it makes no sense to execute a second ATP check in SO4.
        Backorder processing in the delivering plant will directly change the confirmed quantities of SO2. This change will be copied automatically into PO3 and SO4.

      2. Question: Can the process be used with configurable materials?

        --> Answer: Adv ICo Sales for variant configurable materials is not supported yet. But we plan to support more scenarios in future, including make-to-order with or without variant configuration. Make-to-order with variant configuration is not scheduled yet and therefore not available on SAP’s roadmap.

      Best regards,
      Gerhard

      Author's profile photo Ankit Vohra
      Ankit Vohra

      Hey there,

      is my understanding correct that the "Advanced Intercompany Sales" Process is primarily used for stock-related scenarios.

      How about Services?

      Example Business Use Case:

      Company A has different legal entities which are structured in separate company codes. There are cross-company code transactions between those legal entities.

      • Company Code AB00 needs consulting services (either for internal purposes or for an external customer) from CC AB01 and sends a PO to AB01
      • Company Code AB01 creates a Sales Order based on the PO
      • AB01 sends the employee to AB00 and delivers the expected service
      • AB01 sends an internal invoice to AB00
      • AB00 creates a supplier IC invoice
      • ...

      Can we use "Advanced Intercompany Sales"?

      Thanks in advance for clarification!

      Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker
      Gerhard Welker
      Blog Post Author

      Hello Ankit,

      Advanced Intercompany Sales supports logistical materials, only.

      Services are not part of the supported scope.

      The release restrictions for Advanced Intercompany Sales are described in SAP note 3192584.

      Best regards,
      Gerhard

      Author's profile photo Ankit Vohra
      Ankit Vohra

      Hello Gerhard,

      many thanks for the quick and clear clarification.

      By chance, do you have any experience or advise for another solution (on-premise) for service materials?

       

      Best regards,

      Ankit

      Author's profile photo Rauno Müller
      Rauno Müller

      Hi Ankit

      https://rapid.sap.com/bp/scopeitems/4AN is delared as Cloud item, but the functionality and Programms and customizing to be used is also available onPrem and in private cloud. You have to do you own customizing to enable this process.

      You can find additional information here: https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_S4HANA_ON-PREMISE/7b24a64d9d0941bda1afa753263d9e39/148db6535fe6b74ce10000000a174cb4.html?locale=en-US

      Regards

      Rauno

      PS: our company is specialized on these type of processes. Please contact me, if you need further advice

      Author's profile photo Ankit Vohra
      Ankit Vohra

      Hi Rauno, thank you very much. Let me check this website. I appreciate your help!

      Author's profile photo Robert Qiu
      Robert Qiu

      Hi Ankit,

      You may check the scope item 4AN or 53Y. Hope either scope item fits with your sample.

      https://rapid.sap.com/bp/scopeitems/4AN

      https://rapid.sap.com/bp/scopeitems/53Y

      Best,

      Robert

      Author's profile photo Ankit Vohra
      Ankit Vohra

      Thank you, Robert!

      contentwise both of them look interesting but I understand they are not available on premise, right?

      The customer needs an on-premise solution.

      Author's profile photo Robert Qiu
      Robert Qiu

      Hi Ankit,

      Yes, unfortunately those two scope items are not available for on premise solution.

      Best,

      Robert

      Author's profile photo Ashish Arora
      Ashish Arora

      Hi Gerhard,

      Thanks for this blog.

      I am doing the set up in S4 2021 on-premise version, but i am not able to add value chain config to allow order type to process advance intercompany billing.

      Is it solution available only for S4 2022?

      Could you please provide the insight?

      Regards

      Ashish Arora

      Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker
      Gerhard Welker
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Ashish,

      Advanced Intercompany Sales & Stock Transfer was delivered first in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition with the 2202.3 release in May 2022.

      Since October 2022 the solution is also available with SAP S/4HANA 2022 OP (on-premise) release, but it is not available in prior releases.

      Best regards,
      Gerhard

      Author's profile photo Joshy Anand
      Joshy Anand

      Great blog. Q&A is equally helpful as well 🙂

      Author's profile photo Thomas Schulze
      Thomas Schulze

      Very interesting capability in S4H. Today we use the typical ECC 2-document-flow for replenishment from central to local DC across different company codes and supply chain planning and operative replenishment execution is done using APO-SNP (heuristics, deployment, TLB for IC POs) with a little enhancement for LocationAliasing. Question I have is if / how SAP supports this CrossCompany document & demand / supply flow in there SCM planning systems. 

      SAP SCM/APO - I'm not aware of supporting such scenario in ERP CIF integration, SNP planning (FCST consumption, demand recognition, deployment, TLB for creation etc.)

      SAP IBP for Response&Supply - is or are there plans to support this end2end (fcst consumption, deployment, TLB , RTI / CPI-DS integration etc.)

      Regards

      Thomas

      Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker
      Gerhard Welker
      Blog Post Author

      Hello Thomas,

      • Integration to SAP SCM/APO
        We have not changed or enhanced the integration to APO specific to the advanced intercompany sales process.
        Therefore, the sales order in the selling company as part of the advanced intercompany sales process is integrated into SAP SCM/APO in the same manner as the sales order in the classic intercompany sales process.
      • Integration with IBP
        Currently, Advanced Intercompany Sales is not integrated with IBP.
        Adv ICO Sales integration is also not on the short/mid-term roadmap for IBP Response&Supply.

      Best regards,
      Gerhard

      Author's profile photo Rohit Zalani
      Rohit Zalani

      Hi All

      Do we have plans to also have this allowed for consignment processing ? We have an active scenario in a client where the goods are to be delivered to a Customer in Germany from the US, but is to be shown as consignment in the German plant. The advanced intercompany seems to perfectly fit in the scenario except for the fact that when a Goods receipt is done in the selling company code against the PO, we do not have way to show that as a consignment stock placed at the customer.

      Would appreciate inputs from esteemed forum members.

      Regards

      Rohit Zalani

      Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker
      Gerhard Welker
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Rohit,

      Currently there is no concrete date when we start to work on an advanced version of customer consignment. As we need to prioritize several open topics in our portfolio, we have decided that we start to work on Multilevel Intercompany Sales before working on the advanced version of customer consignment.
      We are clear that the business scenarios where the customer consignment stock is being owned by the selling company is broadly used and relevant for a lot of customers.

      Best regards,
      Gerhard

      Author's profile photo Rohit Zalani
      Rohit Zalani

      Hi Gerhard

      Thanks a lot for sharing your update. As it stands, the current version of Advanced Intercompany is quite comprehensive in the end to end process with associated reports for the document flow.

      Since the current capabilities are not planned for expansion in the consignment scenario in the near future, it would be some custom enhancement(s) so that we can mimick the advance intercompany process flow, but make it applicable for consignment.

      Is there any guidance / Knowledge document that you can help with your guidance that we could use to do an interim solution before SAP picks up this as a development in the future release so that we can adopt the same when this is available ?

      Appreciate your valuable inputs.

      Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker
      Gerhard Welker
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Rohit,

      We didn’t test or validate the usage of advanced intercompany sales process for customer consignment fill-ups.

      We have even not done any concrete investigation; therefore, we don’t have any solid knowledge or experience.

      Accordingly, we don’t offer any documentation or guidance.

      Without any detailed analysis I already can see issues with using advanced intercompany sales for consignment fill-ups:

      • There is no movement type available for the stock transfer from valuated stock in transit to customer consignment stock in the transit plant
      • The intercompany invoice relevance of the delivery item is based on the customer invoice relevance of the item

      Generally, issues that occur due to the usage of advanced intercompany sales process for the customer consignment fill-up aren’t covered by SAP support.

      Best regards,
      Gerhard

      Author's profile photo Pavan Misra
      Pavan Misra

      Hi Gerhard - Great content!!!!!

      There's a link mentioned above - SAP is working on 2-tier scenarios (SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Hybrid Deployment), too. More information on 2-tier scenarios can be found via this link.

      This link is not working anymore.

      I am looking for the Adv ICo capabilities around an interim deployment, where the customer legacy is still in ECC and we have a progressive S/4 plant cluster deployment & there are Inter Co scenarios between the 2 systems.

      Regards,

      Pavan

      Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker
      Gerhard Welker
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Pavan,

      Sorry, that the BPX link that you mentioned is outdated because it was from the 2208 release. Here is the current BPX link valid for 2302 release SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Hybrid Deployment (2-Tier ERP)

      Best regards,
      Gerhard

      Author's profile photo Neeraj Saxena
      Neeraj Saxena

      Hi Gerhard

       

      I have enabled scope 5HP in public cloud and have configured the system as per the guidelines but PO creation is not triggering the creation of sales order and also the monitor value chains app is missing.

      How i can resolve this issue ?

      Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker
      Gerhard Welker
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Neeraj,

      Please check in detail that you have performed all steps being described in the set-up instruction of 5HP.
      The set-up instruction is available in the best practices explorer 5HP - Advanced Intercompany Stock Transfer - https://rapid.sap.com/bp/scopeitems/5HP.

      I’m not aware of any issue triggering the process if the configuration guide has been executed correctly.
      If the process is still not started after a solid validation you should create a customer ticket.

      Best regards,
      Gerhard

      Author's profile photo Liudmila Turkina
      Liudmila Turkina

      Hi Gerhard,

      thanks for the great content. Could you recommend, describe an E2E process for a Subcontracting operation model. A principal company transits raw materials to an affiliated subcontractor (a toll manufacturer). We use SAP Subcontracting order. Now, we can't get Multi Level valuation of Goods and WIP before the processing will have been finished.

      Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker
      Gerhard Welker
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Liudmila,

      Advanced Intercompany Sales (including Multilevel) and Subcontracting are different processes. Therefore, in SAP standard Advanced Intercompany Sales process is not the basis for subcontracting.

      Defining new subcontracting processes would be a huge program with high effort and complexity. Recommending a new E2E process for subcontracting is not possible.

      Best regards,
      Gerhard

      Author's profile photo Xavier Skoczek
      Xavier Skoczek

      Hello Liudmila Turkina, Hello Gerhard Welker,

      What is the standard SAP process for managing a subcontracting flow between two affiliated companies (intercompany) ?

      Should we use :

      • a STO and then the PP module ?
      • a Subcontracting STO ? But how we manage the production in the second company ?

      Thank you very much.

      Xavier

      Author's profile photo Xavier Skoczek
      Xavier Skoczek

      Hello Liudmila Turkina, Hello Gerhard Welker,

       

      What is the standard SAP process for managing a subcontracting flow between two affiliated companies (intercompany) ?

      Should we use :

      • a STO and then the PP module ?
      • a Subcontracting STO ? But how we manage the production in the second company ?

       

      Thank you very much.

       

      Xavier

      Author's profile photo Parveen Kumar
      Parveen Kumar

      Hello Gerhard,

       

      From the TM planning and cost allocation (at selling or delivering plant) perspective, I understood that there will be 1 FU across various business documents. Could you please help me to understand, against which document (whether it is std. order, Intercompany PO, or intercompany SO), the FU will be created in the TM system and what will be INCOTERMs (1 & 2) in that order 

      I am finding it difficult to understand how TM planning and cost allocation to selling and delivering company code will be done.

      Regards.

       

       

       

      Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker
      Gerhard Welker
      Blog Post Author

      Hello Parveen,

      The freight unit is created the by the sales order in the selling company. TM uses this freight unit to manage the transport from the delivering plant to the ship-to-party.

      TM knows both Incoterms, the external Incoterms between the selling company and the external customer (SO in the selling company) and the internal Incoterms between the selling company and delivering company (ICo PO and ICo SO). TM selects the internal Incoterms from the ICo purchase order.

      Depending on the internal and external Incoterms, the system assigns the transportation stages to the delivering company, selling company or customer.

      Best regards,
      Gerhard

      Author's profile photo Parveen Kumar
      Parveen Kumar

      Hello Gerhard,

      Does that mean the freight units are created only against customer sales orders?

      I was going through the documentation over SAP help and noticed that a freight unit along with 2 stages will be created against intercompany SO. Could you please put some more insight into this, is it so that the freight unit will be created against customer order and ICO SO?

      Regards

       

       

       

      Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker
      Gerhard Welker
      Blog Post Author

      Hello Parveen,

      There are 2 different aspects:

      1.) Which document creates the freight unit?

      The sales order in the selling company creates freight units.

      The intercompany sales order and the intercompany purchase order don’t create freight units.

       

      2.) Which organization is assigned to a transportation stage?

      That the sales order in the selling company creates the freight unit has no impact to which organization a transportation stage is assigned to. For example, if both the internal Incoterms and external Incoterms are DAP, the delivering company is accountable for the transport from the delivering plant to the ship-to-party. Therefore, all transportation stages that have been created are assigned to the delivering company. In this case the sales order in the delivering company is the reference for all freight costs postings into financial accounting (in the delivering company).

      Best regards,
      Gerhard

      Author's profile photo Abhishek Suman
      Abhishek Suman

      Hello Gerald,

      Thanks a lot for such an informative and detailed structured blogs.

      Just wanted to check by when we can get hands on Multi-Level Advance Inter-Company Scenarios.

       

      There are few queries could you please explain on that :-

      1. Why system doesn't allow to manually add or change the Payment term & Incoterm in the CBIC Sales document, that field is always grayed out , if it is not properly determined from the Master Data.
      2. Why we need to have Payment term field determination at header and item level both separately in the CBIC Sales document.
      3. If other document have any issue that can be resolved and we have option to reprocess it so that document can be corrected and follow on document can be generated or processed easily, but unfortunately, we don't have that option in CBIC Sales documents.
      4. Status in the VCM its shows completed even though there are issue with document such as incomplete document either because of pricing issue or some other data issue which couldn't be able to determine properly and once document shows completed, we don't have options to reprocess the document post fixing the errors or incompletion.

      Could you please help us above query.

      Thank,

      Abhishek Suman

      Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker
      Gerhard Welker
      Blog Post Author

      Hello Abhishek,

      ad 1.) Why system doesn't allow to manually add or change the Payment term & Incoterm in the CBIC Sales document, that field is always grayed out , if it is not properly determined from the Master Data.

      • When we have started with the implementation of the replication logic, we had to make a decision:
        • Do we open all fields in the sales order in the delivering company for a manual change creating the risk that a manual change can or will be overwritten by the automatic replication. As we found no easy solution to mitigate that risk, we have decided to open only fields where the replication is not overwriting manual changes and where we had customer feedback that to be open for a change is a must.
        • If you check our note 3226683 on Advanced ICO Sales you will find already one exception:
          • Manual changes of the tax destination can be overwritten by the automated replication of data triggered by changes in standard sales order.
      • A manual workaround to cancel the existing intercompany sales order and to trigger a new one is to change the delivering plant and to save the standard sales order. In a second step you change the delivering plant back to the original plant and save the standard sales order again.

       

      ad 2.) Why we need to have Payment term field determination at header and item level both separately in the CBIC Sales document.

      • Advanced ICo Sales has not implemented any specific function regarding payment term determination. It’s executed as in a standard sales order.

       

      ad 3.)  If other document have any issue that can be resolved and we have option to reprocess it so that document can be corrected and follow on document can be generated or processed easily, but unfortunately, we don't have that option in CBIC Sales documents.

      • Reprocess is only possible if a process step has failed. It’s not possible to reprocess a process step execution that was successfully done before.
      • Reprocess of the IC Sales Order process step is possible if the process step execution has failed before
      • It would be great to have a VCM function to cancel a process step and to reprocess it again. This function is not available due to prioritization and capacity constraints.

       

      ad 4.) Status in the VCM its shows completed even though there are issue with document such as incomplete document either because of pricing issue or some other data issue which couldn't be able to determine properly and once document shows completed, we don't have options to reprocess the document post fixing the errors or incompletion.

      • VCM is taking care for process execution. Therefore, the status in VCM is about process step executions and doesn’t cover the status of the respective business application document.
      • It would be great to have the status of all business application document available (separately) in the Monitor Value Chain app. This function is not available due to prioritization and capacity constraints.
      • The integration of the status of the supplier invoice is available
      • The monitor value chain app provides an overview on the end-to-end process execution. The monitor is not meant to be a replacement of business application monitors or transactions. These monitors can be very specific to the respective business application process and business application documents, providing application specific functions.
        • Issues in the business application are to be managed with transactions and reports of the business application
      • It would be great to integrate (in a generic manner) more functions and information of business applications into the Monitor Value Chain app. This function is only partially available due to prioritization and capacity constraints.

      Best regards,
      Gerhard

      Author's profile photo Ma bo
      Ma bo

      Hello Gerald,

      Thanks a lot for such an wonderful blogs!

      Just wanted to check by when we can get hands on Multi-Level Advance Inter-Company Scenarios.

      Now I have such a customer with On-Premise S4 SAP 2022 that needs to use such a feature, Advanced Intercompany Sales is a three-party transaction, the customer, the selling company and the delivering company.

      If there are two selling companies, one delivering company and the customer.One of the selling company as a middleman to earn part of the profit, forming such a four-way transaction. May I ask whether such a business scenario can be realized Advanced Intercompany Sales by using SPRO in the On-Premise SAP system without any development?

      Looking forward to your reply very much!

      Thank you!

      Best,

      Frank

      Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker
      Gerhard Welker
      Blog Post Author

      Hello Frank,

      Multilevel ICo Sales is not being supported with S/4HANA 2022 or S/4HANA 2023.

      I’m not a consultant but I think it will be difficult that a customer can enhance Adv ICo Sales to cover Multilevel ICo Sales even with customer development.

      Best regards,
      Gerhard

       

      Author's profile photo Rauno Müller
      Rauno Müller

      Hello Gerhard

      as Q3 of 2023 is aproaching very soon, can you sneekpeak to us, which new functionality will be covered in the next release?

      Is there already a roadmap for the next releases after 2023? As i understand from SAP, there will be no Release 2024. So how will be new features of the process be delivered? Will it be part of the FPS?

       

      Kind regards

      Rauno

      Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker
      Gerhard Welker
      Blog Post Author

      Hello Rauno,

      These are the planned enhancements and are therefore not a commitment:

      - In 2308 you can assign a WBS element to the sales order item in the selling company. For S/4HANA OP 2023 final validation / tests are open.

      - In OP 2023 you can configure the reason for rejection that is used to reject a sales order item in the delivering company in special business scenarios.

      - In OP 2023 you can use a BADI to define if an ICo sales item is executed as classic ICo sales or as advanced ICo sales.

      - In 2308 and OP 2023 you can configure that the current day is used as posting date of the ICo supplier invoice.

      - In 2308 and OP 2023 you can see the ICo sales order in the document flow of the IC Customer Invoice

      Best regards,
      Gerhard

      Author's profile photo WU CUYUE
      WU CUYUE

      Hello Gerhard,

      We need to manually add or change  the purchase condition price on PO3,  can we do it?

      Best Regards,

      Wolf

      Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker
      Gerhard Welker
      Blog Post Author

      Hello Wolf,

      Currently it’s not possible to change the intercompany purchase order, this includes the price information. We are hesitant to open the purchase order for manual changes as there is the risk that manual changes are overwritten by the automatic replication.

      In S/4HANA OP you can use the transaction “MEI1 – Changes to Purchasing Documents Due to Changes in Conditions” to trigger repricing of purchase order items.

      In S/4HANA Cloud there is currently no possibility to trigger repricing of purchase order items.

      Best regards,
      Gerhard

      Author's profile photo Lakshmi Barat
      Lakshmi Barat

      Hi Gerhard

       

      Thank you for the detailed blog. We have activated the scope items in our client system 2308 version and it works well. Do we also have an integration scenario planned for this?

       

      Regards

      Lakshmi

      Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker
      Gerhard Welker
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Lakshmi,

      Advanced ICo Sales is a one system scenario only. Both companies need to run in the same client.

      SAP is working on 2-tier scenarios (Two-Tier ERP), too. More information on 2-tier scenarios can be found via this link. Here you will find the scope items:
      for Sales: Integration of Sales with External Buyers (2EL)
      and for Procurement: Integration of Procurement with External Suppliers (2EJ)

      Best regards,
      Gerhard

      Author's profile photo Anders Holst Pedersen
      Anders Holst Pedersen

      Hi Gerhard

      Thanks a lot for a very well-prepared and informative blog.

      I’m in a project where we are setting up Advanced IC Sales at S/4HANA 2022 OP. The delivering company is located in DK and the selling company/customer in DE. One requirement is that the internal trade between the two companies is settled according to the cost+ model – meaning a fixed percentage surcharge is added to the delivering company's cost price, which then becomes the internal sales price to the selling company as well as the cost price in the selling company.

      Are you aware of any standard way to add that surcharge automatically? I’m asking because we want to avoid maintaining internal sales prices as PPR0 condition records.

       

      Thanks and best regards

      Anders

      Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker
      Gerhard Welker
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Anders,

      When we talk about intercompany, we need to distinguish between two conditions:

      • In the legal view, the prices between the companies are always transfer prices that must satisfy many general conditions. Usually the transfer prices are calculated outside of S/4 and loaded into S/4 as conditions.
      • In the group view, the prices are calculated using the cost structure and an overhead rate, and the overhead is later eliminated. The cost split is then passed on between the companies.

      I'm not sure which view (legal view or group view) you meant in your comment. By pointing to the internal sales price, it could be the legal view and then my first remarks regarding legal view are relevant.

      Best regards,
      Gerhard

      Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker
      Gerhard Welker
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Anders,

      Let me add the following information:

      In classic IC Sales, there are two condition types:

      • PI01       Inter-company Price
      • PI02       Inter-company %

      With PI02, the "sales price minus" is calculated automatically and represents the sales price in the internal business (Delivering Company) and the costs in the external (selling company).

      In Adv. IC, we do not offer this in the standard system.

      Maybe your question goes in that direction.

      Best regards,
      Gerhard

      Author's profile photo Anders Holst Pedersen
      Anders Holst Pedersen

      Hi Gerhard

      Thanks for a swift reply. So if I understand you correctly - we have no other options than to calculate the transfer price (delivering company's cost price + X %) outside the system and then maintain PPR0 conditions records to be determined at the IC Sales order?

      Thanks and best regards

      Anders

      Author's profile photo Bernd Strecker
      Bernd Strecker

      Hi Anders,

      your requrirement should be covered by normal pricing functionality that is available in sales orders in S/4HANA OP.

      The information below should help that you are able to get an Intecompany Sales Price calculated by the system automatically.

      • A condition type (for example “PCIP” or “VPRS”) that is customized with the condition category “G – Internal Price” determines the internal price of a material in the relevant plant.
        • In the sales order in the delivering company the delivering plant is used to determine this internal price.
      • Using this “special” condition type you can determine the costs in the delivering company and use it as the starting point (Price - condition class “B – Prices”) for price calculation.
      • By defining a second condition type with condition class “A – Discount or Surcharge” you can define your margin as a surcharge.
      • Both condition types can be determined automatically.
      • The sum of both condition types is the ICo Sales Price (being called by you internal sales price)

      Notes:

      • Internal Price and Intercompany (Sales) Price are 2 different prices. The internal price is the value of a material in financial accounting, ICo (Sales) Price is the price that is billed between 2 affiliates.
        • SAP doesn't use the term "Internal Sales Price".
        • Intercompany Sales Price represents the Transfer Price.
      • In the sales order in the selling company the transit plant (belongs to the selling company) is used to determine the internal price.
      • Condition types that are customized as “Intercompany” are not used in Advanced ICo Sales.

      Best regads,
      Bernd

      Author's profile photo Anders Holst Pedersen
      Anders Holst Pedersen

      Thank you so much Bernd. That info is exactly what I asked for.

      BR Anders

      Author's profile photo Shaik Abdulali
      Shaik Abdulali

      Hi MR.Welker,

      I'm getting issue in Purchase order (Shipping tab is not coming in purchase order) in public cloud

      I'm Activated  5HP Scope item and worked on set -up instructions but im not getting shipping tab.

      Anybody can give some guidance to resolve that  issue  .

      Kindy check that attached file .

      Thank you

      Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker
      Gerhard Welker
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Mr. Abdulali,

      Please check in detail that you have performed all steps being described in the set-up instruction of 5HP.
      The set-up instruction of 5HP - Advanced Intercompany Stock Transfer is available here https://support.sap.com/content/dam/SAAP/Sol_Pack/S4C/Library/Setup/5HP_Set-Up_EN_XX.pdf

      I’m not aware of any issue triggering the process if the configuration guide has been executed correctly.
      If the issue persists after a solid validation you should create a customer ticket.

      Best regards,
      Gerhard Welker

      Author's profile photo Shaik Abdulali
      Shaik Abdulali

      Hi MR.Welker ,

      Actually issue was resolved.

      Thank you for supporting.

      Thank &Regards,

      Shaik Abdulali.

       

      Author's profile photo Gerhard Welker
      Gerhard Welker
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Mr. Abdulali,

      Thank you very much for your feedback. I'm glad to hear that the issue was resolved. Good luck!

      Best regards,
      Gerhard Welker

       

      Author's profile photo Sai Prasad
      Sai Prasad

      Very informative Blog.

      You have mentioned that the Advanced Intercompany Sales is compliant with IFRS 15. Is there any SAP note or knowledge base article which describes the integration of Advanced Intercompany Sales and SAP Revenue Accounting and Reporting( SAP RAR) in terms of how the Revenue contracts look like in this scenario.

      Author's profile photo Bernd Strecker
      Bernd Strecker

      See reply below.

      Author's profile photo Sai Prasad
      Sai Prasad

      Amazing Blog.

      You have mentioned that Advanced Intercompany Sales is compliant with IFRS 15. Is there any SAP note or knowledge base article which describes how the Advanced intercompany scnerio works with SAP Revenue Accounting and Reporting(RAR).

      Author's profile photo Bernd Strecker
      Bernd Strecker

      In S/4HANA Public Cloud edition EBRR (Event-Based Revenue Recognition) is assigned as revenue recognition solution to the Advanced Intercompany Sales process.
      The support of the IFRS15 functionality in S/4HANA Public Cloud is described in note:
      2524569 - SAP S/4HANA Cloud: Information of IFRS15/ASC 606 Revenue Recognition Functionality

      In S/4HANA OP or S/4HANA Private Cloud edition the EBRR is assigned to the Advanced Intercompany Sales process, too.
      The IFRS15 bundling functionality from EBRR is not supported. On the roadmap, a linkage of EBRR and RAR (Revenue Accounting and Reporting) of the solution is foreseen (URR - Universal Revenue Recognition). By linking you get the advantages of both solutions. Further information is available in:
      3110074 - Best Practice Document for the Use of Event-Based Revenue Recognition for Sell from Stock in SAP S/4HANA 2021 and Later Releases
      3067643 - Activation of Event-Based Revenue Recognition integration with Sell from Stock in SAP S/4HANA 2021 and later

      Best regards,
      Bernd