The inbound flow: from purchase order to warehouse request

Inbound processing starts long before a truck reaches the door. Purchasing creates a purchase order, the supplier confirms it, and somewhere an inbound delivery is created that tells the warehouse what is coming. In embedded EWM, that inbound delivery becomes the warehouse request on which every later step is built: unloading, goods receipt, putaway and the evidence a tester collects. This lesson traces the documents and the points where the logistics side of SAP S/4HANA hands over to EWM.

Our running example: Contoso Motor Co. orders 1,200 voltage regulator kits (CMC-RGL-050) from Lakeside Components for plant 1710 Detroit. The kit is a trade good that Contoso resells to aftermarket customers; its standard price is $18.00 and Lakeside's PO price is $19.00. Storage location 171R (received on dock) is on the purchase order item, because plant 1710's inbound stock is managed by EWM warehouse number 1710. Lakeside sends an advance shipping notification, and the system creates inbound delivery 180000412. After putaway, the kits sit on the bulk floor in 171A, available for sale. Rotors are different: they never enter EWM, because MIGO posts them (movement type 101) straight into storage location 171S, which is managed in inventory management only.

Three ways to create the inbound delivery

SAP describes three common routes. The inbound delivery can be created automatically when the supplier's shipping notification arrives, manually with reference to the purchase order, or directly in EWM at the time of physical receipt, which creates the logistics inbound delivery as well. Which route applies is controlled partly by the confirmation control key on the purchase order item: it defines which confirmations the supplier is expected to send and whether an inbound delivery is required before goods receipt.

What is different in embedded EWM

In decentralized EWM, the delivery is first replicated as an inbound delivery notification and then activated into an EWM inbound delivery. In embedded EWM there is no notification step: the EWM inbound delivery is created directly, and the number can be the same as the logistics delivery. Embedded EWM also supports synchronous goods receipt without any inbound delivery: since SAP S/4HANA 2020 FPS01, a goods receipt for a purchase order posted in inventory management (for example with the Post Goods Movement app) can create the putaway warehouse task in EWM automatically. That route has limits, for example around returns with handling units and packing serialized products, so check the current documentation before relying on it.

What EWM determines when the delivery is created

When the EWM inbound delivery is created, EWM maps the logistics data and adds its own: the warehouse process type for each item (which controls how tasks are created and confirmed), a door and staging area if determination is configured, handling units from the ASN or packaging specification, and batches for batch-managed products. The warehouse process type is found from the document type, item type, delivery priority and the product's process type determination indicator. Changes made in EWM, such as a corrected quantity, flow back to the logistics inbound delivery. When execution is completed, that status can serve as the basis for proof of delivery.

In SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, inbound processing in embedded warehouse management follows the same document flow; users work in the Fiori warehouse and delivery apps and on the mobile RF framework rather than in /SCWM transactions in SAP GUI.