(This blog is an addition to my blog from October 2011 which was related to ByDesign FP3.0)
SAP Business ByDesign offers since FP3.5 a functionality for process automations if you have projects on which employees from different companies are working. Pre-Requirement is that all those companies are implemented in the same SAP Business ByDesign System.
In this blog I will describe how you can configure this functionality and how the processes works in a project.
Example process description
- We (Almika GmbH) sell a project to our customer Berliner Elektrobetriebe.
- Because we have not enough free resources, we have to involve employees from our other company (Innovat GmbH).
- We will purchase those employees for our project and they will track time and expenses.
Pre-requirements
The pre-requirement for ByDesign intercompany processes is certainly the existence of at least two companies in organizational management (two different org units with flag “Company”).
In our scenario Almika GmbH is the purchasing company so in fact it`s the customer of Innovat GmbH and Innovat is the supplier of Almika GmbH.
That`s the reason why you have to check Innovat supplier master data and Almika account master data.
You have to ensure that Sales Order Confirmations and Customer Invoices will be sent via Internal EDX (XML communication) to Almika GmbH.
You have to ensure that purchasing orders will be sent via Internal EDX (XML communication) to Innovat GmbH.
All services we want to use in this scenario have to be active for purchasing and pre-configured list price/selling price is needed for those.
Purchasing option in service master data.
List price of supplier Innovat GmbH for our service.
Selling Price for customer Almika GmbH for our service (50 EUR).
Also very important is that you check that the right Sales Organization and valuation in service master data is set. This is a critically point because if you have the wrong settings here the whole process will end in an inconsistent sales orders. In my example Sales Organization "BR Berlin" of Innovat GmbH is responsible for Almika GmbH so we have to ensure that this Organization is set in my service.
Example process test, let`s go…
First we create a Sales Order for our customer “Berliner Elektrobetriebe”.
We add two different items.
Consulting is of type “Service - time and material (project)”
Travel Expenses is of type “Expense - time and material (project)”
After this we let ByDesign automatically create our project.
Now we can start to plan our project and create a purchase request to get employees from our other company (Innovat GmbH) working on it. In the following screenshots you can see that if you select this Supplier, the “Intecomapny relevant” checkbox will be automatically checked.
Adding an employee from our other company Innovat GmbH to project plan. (This will also register this employee as service agent for purchasing.)
Creating a purchase request for Oliver Müller from Innovat GmbH.
After releasing our project, SAP ByDesign will automatically create the purchasing request and if configured right, it will also directly create the purchase order itself. But in our case we want to enable the employees of Innovat GmbH also to track their expanses and so we have to add a second item besides the service on purchase order.
Automatically created Purchase Order.
Add a second item (expense service) of item type limit to purchase order and send update. Only with this item Oliver Müller can track expenses to the project.
SAP Business ByDesign creates a Sales Order for Purchase Order 331 with customer Almika GmbH. Now you can easy create an intercompany project from this Sales Order for Innovat GmbH.
From this point you can start tracking times and expenses from both companies to your origin project (for customer “Berliner Elektrobetrieb”). The intercompany project is automatically released in background but should only be used for controlling from Innovat GmbH perspective.
Time sheet for Oliver Müller (Innovat GmbH), you can see the origin project for customer Berliner Elektrobetriebe and purchase number 331.
Expense report for Oliver Müller (Innovat GmbH), you can see the origin project for customer Berliner Elektrobetriebe and purchase number 331.
From financial perspective all those expenses of Oliver Müller will be automatically booked as internal costs for Innovat GmbH and at the same time as external costs (not yet invoiced) for Almika GmbH. It means in fact that you can control your project expenses in real time.