Source List in SAP MM - Part 1

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Hello!

In today's blog we are going to see what is Source List in SAP MM and why do we need to use it and what are the different field used in creating a source list.

What is a Source List?

It is used when to classify what all are the different possible vendors for a particular material. Based on certain relationship one can decide which vendors need to be considered for procuring that material through flags defined while creating source list.

Why we use it ?

It is one of the methods to determine sources (vendors) in source determination process and these are maintained at Plant levels (like plant specific).

Pre-Requisites to create a Source List:

• Source List Indicator must be set for a particular material. This can be done in Purchasing View of material with respect to Plant.

OR

• Source List Indicator must be set for a particular plant in customization. To do you need to navigate to

Path:	SPRO – Material Management - Purchasing – Source List – Define Source List Requirement at Plant Level
Tcode:	OME5

After configuring either of the pre-requisite then a source list can be created using different ways:

• Manual (Tcode: ME01)


• Automatic (Tcode: ME05)


• While creating PIR/Contracts/Scheduling Agreement.

Manual (Will cover only the majorly used ones)

Using the Tcode ME01. After giving the material and plant on the first screen, the below screen will pop-up.

Let's understand one-by-one all the fields!

Valid From – It indicates a starting date from which a particular vendor is eligible for procuring the material.

Valid To - It indicates an ending date till when a particular vendor is eligible for procuring the material.

Vendor – Here a 10-digit vendor number is entered.

P-Org – Enter the purchase org (which is linked to this plant)

PPI (Procurement Plant) – When a material is to be procured from a plat and not from a vendor. So, in this case it needs to be used

Agreement & Item – This can either of a Contract or a Schedule Agreement

Central Contract & Item – This represents a central contract (it is created only at POrg level)

Fix (Indicator) - This is used for vendors through which the required material needs to be procured in the defined validity dates. If there are ‘n’ numbers of vendors listed for a particular material, then only for one vendor this indicator can be checked.

Blk (Block Indicator) - Contrary to above indicator, this indicator states that for a particular validity dates the vendors are blocked and no goods can be procured. This indicator can be checked for multiple vendors.

MRP – This field is used for planning run and it is used as a source determination process during the planning process.

Let’s consider a scenario:

We have a material ‘1000’ which can be procured from different vendors say ‘000000A001’, ‘000000B001’, ‘000000C001’. If we need to create a source list and need to procure material from these vendors in different duration, this is how the source list will look like.

For the period between 2022.06.14 – 2022.08.14 fix indicator will be marked for vendor 000000A001. In the next period the fix indicator will be checked for vendor 000000B001 and so on…

Automatic

Here instead of creating manually one can define the material number and plants system will fetch all the vendor based on the info record/outline agreements.

Generate:

• All Records for Material/Plant – It will fetch all the records which has distinct vendors for the material and plant combination. It can be either used in info record or outline agreements or previously created source list.


• Excl Outline Agreements - The vendors used in the outline agreements will be ignored apart from this all the other vendors will be fetched.


• Outline Agreements Only - The vendors used in the outline agreements will only be fetched.

Control:

• Valid From/Valid To/MRP - Specify the validity period that will be used in the source list.

Note:  Once you specify a validity period it cannot be changed

• Add Planned Delivery Time – Let’s understand with a simple example.

Consider in the above scenario you have mentioned for material ‘0001’ and plant ‘1000’

Validity Start – 2022.07.15

Validity End – 2022.09.15

If the system finds an outline agreement for the material and plant combination and if the planned delivery time indicator is checked then for this particular record the validity dates will be as follows:

So, this indicator majorly works for outline agreements.

Existing Records:

• Do Not Change – If any existing source list record exist for a vendor/material/plant so it will not be changed


• Delete/Become Invalid - If any existing source list record exist for a vendor/material/plant so it will be deleted and it will be replaced with a new record.

After giving all the desired values and once the result are generated (with or without Test Run) the only option you can get is to assign a fix or a block indicator to a particular line item.

So, this completes about the Manual and Automatic way to create a Source list. The next that is creation through an outline agreement will take up in Part - 2!

I hope from this article you have got the knowledge of what is source list in material master record and how to configure/create it.

Please do provide your valuable feedback on this post in comments section, this will help me in improving my content and share more knowledge with this community, also you can follow me for more content related to SAP!

And if you haven’t checked my previous blog on “Material Type Configuration in SAP S/4 System” you can check by hitting here!

Till then Happy learning!