| General purchase data |  |
| Before you can carry out the various processes that are related to the purchase functionality, you must define general purchase master data. The general purchase data includes the following: Set up the approver list that is used in the purchase requisition procedure. Define data to track order changes and to determine the reason for the changes. Define criteria and criteria sets for requests for quotations. Define additional cost sets. To set up the approver list Before a purchase requisition can be converted to a purchase order or a request-for-quotation (RFQ), it must be approved by an approver that appears on the approver list. For more information on setting up the approver list, refer to Approval process. To define data to track order changes and to determine the reason for the changes Purchase orders can be dynamic documents, as a company’s requirements can change during the life of the order process. You can define information that enables you to track these changes and the reasons why these changes occurred. Change codes and acknowledgement codes are used in ERP LN to track the various changes to an order. Although this functionality is designed to work specifically with EDI, a company without EDI functionality can also use these codes to record changes. You can use change codes to maintain information regarding order changes that are tracked for historical purposes. You can use acknowledgement codes to manually record information concerning changes that are communicated by the purchase business partner. A purchase order acknowledgment is a message that the purchase business partner sends to the purchaser to confirm the receipt of the purchase order, which usually implies the acceptance of the order by the purchase business partner. To be able to maintain and track changes, take the following steps: Use the Change Reasons (tdpur0197m000) session to maintain codes that represent the change reasons, which can be assigned to a changed order or an order acknowledgement to clarify why a change is made. This information can be tracked for historical reporting. Use the Change Types (tdpur0198m000) session to define change types that indicate the kind of change of a changed purchase order or order acknowledgement. Possible types of change are, for instance, change order line, add order line, or change header data. The change types are assigned to the purchase order after the change is made on the order. Use the Purchase Order Parameters (tdpur0100m400) session to define various default change codes and change types, which are defaulted to the purchase order line in case of changes. Use the Purchase Acknowledgments (tdpur0154m000) session to define purchase order acknowledgements and the destionation of the codes, which can be Header, Line, or Any. The acknowledgement code contains a group of information, which appears on the purchase acknowledgment document. This code can represent the reasons for a change of a purchase order. To define criteria and criteria sets for requests for quotations If you want to compare quotations from different purchase business partners, you can set up criteria for RFQs. RFQ-criteria enable you to make a better deliberation in selecting a quotation. You can compare the quotations based on objective criteria and subjective criteria. When evaluating returned RFQs, you can use objective criteria and subjective criteria. Objective criteria are criteria tracked by ERP LN, while subjective criteria are user-defined criteria. When RFQs are evaluated, ERP LN considers all objective and subjective criteria that are assigned to the RFQ. Based on user weightings, ERP LN places the RFQs in order of favorability (rank). If you want to use criteria to evaluate quotations, you must define the criteria and their ratings as follows: Define citeria sets in the RFQ Criteria Sets (tdpur1190m000) session. A criteria set is a list of request for quotation (RFQ) criterions that can be linked to an RFQ header. The RFQs are evaluated following these criteria. Define RFQ subjective criteria in the RFQ Subjective Criteria (tdpur1191m000) session. You must only define the subjective RFQ criteria, because the objective criteria are already predefined in ERP LN. Put together a criteria set by linking criteria to a set in the Criteria Set - Criteria (tdpur1192m000) session. In this session, you must also indicate the importance of the several criteria by assigning weights to them. In the Criteria Set - Scoring Schemes (tdpur1193m000) session, you must assign objective values and subjective values to the criteria of the following types: Quantity Delivery Time Subjective After the objective values and subjective values are assigned, you must assign scoring values to them in the Criteria Set - Scoring Schemes (tdpur1193m000) session. If you do not specify a scoring scheme for objective criteria, ERP LN uses predefined system values. Notes ERP LN always takes into account prices when comparing quotations. When the concerned business partner is selected for vendor rating, ERP LN also takes into account vendor rating when comparing quotations. To define additional cost sets Additional costs can be placed on an order as extra cost (items) after the last item recorded. Several additional cost items can be assigned to an order by bringing them together in a cost set. ERP LN can automatically apply these cost sets to purchase orders. For more information on defining additional cost sets, refer to Additional costs on purchase orders. Related topics Approval process Additional costs on purchase orders To set up vendor ratings Purchase item data Purchase organizational data |