Freight Settlement

In SAP Transportation Management (SAP TM), you can perform freight settlement with your suppliers or
carriers by creating a freight settlement document and sending it to SAP ERP. SAP ERP uses the settlement
document to create a purchase order and a service entry sheet (SES). The SES is the basis for invoice
verification in SAP ERP.
Prerequisites
 Types of settlement document and number range intervals
In Customizing, you have defined freight settlement document types as well as default types and
number range intervals. For more information, see Customizing for Transportation Management
under Settlement Freight Settlement .
 SAP ERP settings
If you use SAP ERP, you have created a service master record to assign to transportation charge
types. For more information, see SAP Library for SAP ERP on SAP Help Portal at
http://help.sap.com/erp under SAP Central Component. Select an SAP enhancement package for
SAP ERP 6.0. In SAP Library, choose SAP ERP Central Component Logistics Materials
Management (MM) External Services Management (MM-SRV) Master Records from the ESM View
Service Master Record .
In Customizing, you have also made the following settings:
o Defined category and subcategory codes
o Defined and assigned transportation charge types
o Mapped organizational units
For more information, in SAP ERP see Customizing for Integration with Other SAP Components under
Transportation Management Invoice Integration Invoicing .
 Process controller
In Customizing, you have set up the process controller for use with settlement documents. For
example, if you want to use a strategy to create or preprocess settlement documents differently
than the standard way, you can define your own strategy using the process controller and assign it to
a specific service. For more information, see Customizing for Transportation Management under
Settlement Configure Process Controller for Settlement .
 Master data for charge management
You have set up the master data in the Charge Management component. The system automatically
calculates the transportation charges based on this master data. For more information, see Charge
Calculation.
 Business partner determination
You have the option of specifying a business partner determination profile, to enable the system to
automatically assign business partners to a settlement document. For more information, see
Customizing for Transportation Management under Master Data Business Partners Define
Partner Determination Profiles .

Note
The system includes the invoicing party, carrier, and payee in the settlement document by default.
The system does not transfer business partners other than the invoicing party and the payee to SAP
ERP, even if you enable additional parties in SAP ERP.
 Business document
The system contains one or more freight orders, service orders, or freight bookings.
Process
1. You create the freight settlement document.
Note the following system features:
o You can create an individual settlement document for one freight order, service order, or
freight booking, or a collective settlement document for multiple freight orders, service
orders, or freight bookings. You can access the freight orders, service orders, or freight
bookings from your personal worklist, in the relevant document overview, or in the Freight
Settlement Overview. The system automatically creates the settlement document on the
basis of the data in the freight orders, service orders, or freight bookings and calculates the
transportation charges.
 You can create multiple freight settlement documents using the Mass Creation of Freight
Settlement Documents function. To open the function, in SAP NetWeaver Business Client
choose Application Administration Background Reports Create Freight Settlement
Documents . For more information, see Creation and Transfer of Freight Settlement
Documents.
o You can create settlement documents for individual stages in freight orders that contain non-
linear stages. This means you can create a settlement document for each pairing of a source
location and destination location. For more information, see Freight Orders with Non-
Linear Stages.
o You can create separate freight settlement documents for each of the invoicing carriers in a
rail freight order, where you have a different invoicing carrier for each stage in the order.
This feature gives you the flexibility to work with rule 11 business situations in North
America.
In rule 11 situations, the header carrier receives the order from the customer and can
execute one or more of the stages. The header carrier is the carrier you specify in the
General Data Transportation screen area of the freight order. The invoicing carrier is
the carrier who bills the customer for the shipment. This is the carrier you specify at stage
level in the rail freight order.
For more information on rail freight orders, see Rail Transportation.
o You can create a settlement document for each additional agreement party if you have an
existing freight order or freight booking that contains one or more additional agreement
parties. For more information, see Additional Agreement Parties.
o The system uses certain criteria to divide settlements when you choose to create a collective
settlement document. This can result in the system creating more than one settlement. For
more information, see Split Criteria in Settlement Document Creation.
o The system settles a parcel freight order in the same way as it settles a standard freight
order. For more information on parcel freight orders, see Parcel Shipment.
o When you create a freight settlement document, by default the system uses today’s date as
the invoice date. You have the following options to manually override the system default:
 Implement BAdI: Determination of Invoice Date for Freight Settlement Documents.
The system uses the settings you specify in this BAdI to determine the invoice
creation date. For more information, see Customizing for Transportation
Management under Business Add-Ins (BAdIs) for Transportation Management
Settlement Freight Settlement .
 Enter an invoice date in the Mass Creation of Freight Settlement Documents
background processing function. The system uses the date you specify in this
background function as the invoice creation date if you have not specified a rule in
the BAdI.
2. You review the settlement document details for consistency.
You can review the settlement document details to check they are accurate, and you can update
some of the data as needed. After you save any changes you make, you can check the consistency of
the settlement document. If the automatic consistency check is successful, the system changes the
consistency status of the settlement document to Consistent and the life cycle status of the
settlement document to Ready for Accruals.
3. You transfer the settlement document to SAP ERP to post accruals.
Note the following system features:
o SAP TM sends the settlement document to SAP ERP when you choose Save and Transfer. SAP
TM transfers the settlement information, including the source location and destination
location information for each stage in the settlement, to SAP ERP. The location information
enables SAP ERP to determine different tax rates for different locations or countries. For
more information, see Request Transportation Order Invoicing Preparation.
o SAP ERP creates a purchase order and an SES and releases the SES to book accruals to
accounting. The SES serves as the basis for invoice verification in SAP ERP.
o When you transfer a settlement document to SAP ERP, you cannot change the settlement
document until you have received a confirmation from SAP ERP.
o In SAP TM, you can have multiple charge types in a charge item. As standard, SAP ERP
creates a billing item for a charge item, and applies tax to the billing item. If you need the
 flexibility to apply tax to individual charge types in a charge item, you must specify the
settings in the following Customizing activities in Customizing for Transportation
Management under Settlement Tax :
 Define Tax for Countries
You can define the countries in which you apply tax.
 Define Tax for Charges
You can define tax settings for the charge categories, charge subcategories, and
charge types that you use in a country. You can use charge categories and charge
subcategories to specify tax settings for a group of charge types in one step. This
avoids the need to specify tax settings for a large number of individual charge
types.
4. SAP ERP confirms the accrual creation.
Note the following conditions in the system:
o If SAP ERP creates the accruals, SAP TM receives a confirmation message from SAP ERP, and
SAP TM updates the settlement document status to Accruals Posted.
o If SAP ERP does not create the accruals and communicates errors back to SAP TM, the life
cycle status of the settlement document changes back to In Process and the confirmation
status changes to Accruals Failed.
5. SAP ERP verifies the expected invoice against the actual invoice.
Note the following system features:
o SAP ERP bases the expected invoice on the SES. If SAP ERP successfully verifies the actual
invoice against the expected invoice, SAP ERP notifies SAP TM by updating the settlement
document with the invoice ID and actual amounts. SAP TM updates the life cycle status of
the settlement document to Invoice verified in SAP ERP.
o SAP ERP bases the automatically generated invoice on the data from the settlement
document, if you perform evaluated receipt settlement.

Note
You cannot cancel the settlement document when the invoice is posted against the settlement
document in SAP ERP and the settlement document has a life cycle status of Invoice verified in ERP.
You can cancel the settlement document at any other time in the process. If you do this, SAP ERP
automatically cancels the accruals. When the accruals are canceled, the settlement document has
the status Canceled. If SAP ERP cannot cancel the accruals, you cannot cancel the settlement
document.
Changes After You Post Accruals
You can include certain changes in your freight costs after you post accruals in SAP ERP. You can use the
following steps to make your changes:
 Add or change charge amounts directly in the existing freight order
o If the new or changed amount results in the invoicing status of the freight order changing to
Partially Invoiced, you can create a new freight settlement document to send the changed
amounts to SAP ERP.
o If the new or changed amount results in the invoicing status of the freight order changing to
Over Invoiced, you can create a credit memo in SAP TM to send the changed amounts to
SAP ERP.
o If you do not want to create a new settlement document or credit memo, you can cancel the
existing settlement document provided the life cycle status of the settlement document is
not Invoice Verified in SAP ERP. You can then create a new settlement document that
contains the complete amount including the changes.
When you transfer the credit memo or the new settlement document to SAP ERP, SAP ERP creates a
new purchase order and SES.
 Change charge amounts directly in the freight settlement document, provided the life cycle status of
the settlement document is not Invoice Verified in SAP ERP. When you transfer the settlement
document to SAP ERP, SAP ERP cancels the existing purchase order and SES and creates a new
purchase order and SES.
Reversing a Freight Settlement Document
In your business you are a requester of transportation services, such as a shipper, and you have a close
working relationship with a provider of transportation services, such as a carrier. You have enabled a self-
billing (evaluated receipts settlement) process with a particular service provider. You automatically pay the
service provider according to the charge details in your freight order.
Occasionally you can have the following business scenario:
1. Your carrier started to execute your transportation request.
2. You accrued the freight cost in SAP ERP.
3. You created a self-billing invoice to update the open item in your accounts payable.
Then your carrier encounters some unplanned issues. For example, the carrier does not deliver a particular
transportation service due to some exceptions, or there is an incorrect pricing date in SAP TM.
You need to reverse the freight settlement document in SAP TM, and when you transfer the reversal to SAP
ERP, you need to reverse the associated purchase order, service entry sheet (SES), and accruals posting in SAP
ERP. You need SAP ERP to then create the self-billing invoice. This posts a credit memo that reverses the self-
billing invoice that SAP ERP created earlier.
You can only reverse the freight settlement document when it is in the status Invoice Verified in SAP ERP. If the
freight settlement document is not in this status, you can cancel the freight settlement document.
The following table describes the steps you must take to reverse the freight settlement document:
System Action Result Life Cycle Status in SAP
TM
SAP TM You choose Reverse SAP TM sends a reversal Reversal Requested in
Document in the freight message to SAP ERP. SAP ERP
settlement document.
SAP ERP System creates an SES in The freight settlement Reversed in SAP ERP
which it automatically document is reversed in
enables the returns SAP ERP.
indicator.
SAP ERP You run transaction SAP ERP creates a credit Credit Memo Created in
MRRL (Evaluated Receipt memo to reverse the SAP ERP
Settlement (ERS) with accruals posting for the
Logistics Invoice freight settlement
Verification). document.
Under the Transportation
Management screen
area, you enter the
relevant SAP TM freight
order number.
SAP TM updates the invoicing status of the relevant freight order to Not Invoiced, and you can create a new
freight settlement document for the freight order.

More Information
Subject
Enable the system to determine the business partners
that you use in different business document types
Consolidate goods from different suppliers for one
consignee before the main carriage, and load the
goods into one container.
Invoice integration with SAP ERP
Invoice verification in SAP ERP
More Information
Business Partner Determination
Buyer's Consolidation
SAP Help Portal at http://help.sap.com/erp under
SAP Central Component. Select an SAP enhancement
package for SAP ERP 6.0. In SAP Library, choose SAP
ERP Central Component Logistics Logistics —
General (LO) Integration of SAP ERP with SAP
Transportation Management .
SAP Help Portal at http://help.sap.com/erp under
SAP Central Component. Select an SAP enhancement
package for SAP ERP 6.0. In SAP Library, choose SAP
ERP Central Component Logistics Materials
Management (MM) Logistics Invoice Verification
(MM-IV) .
Self-billing in SAP ERP SAP Help Portal at http://help.sap.com/erp. In SAP
Library, choose SAP ERP Central Component ->
Logistics -> Materials Management (MM) -> Logistics
Invoice Verification (MM-IV) -> Logistics Invoice
Verification (MM-IV-LIV) -> Automatic Settlements ->
Evaluated Receipt Settlement (ERS).