Lesson 5 of 5
Testing shipping
10 min
Shipping is where order to cash meets inventory and finance. A shipping defect can stop trucks, misstate stock or post cost of goods sold to the wrong place. The good news is that every step leaves a document and a status you can check, so shipping tests can produce very strong evidence.
Scenarios that matter
| Scenario | What it proves | Contoso example |
|---|---|---|
| Full delivery, single order | The basic chain: delivery, picking, goods issue, statuses, journal entry | 50 CMC-ALT-100 to Great Lakes Fleet Services from 1710 |
| Partial delivery | Remaining quantity stays open and is delivered later; statuses show partial | 30 shipped Monday, 20 shipped Friday |
| Collective delivery | The due list combines eligible orders and logs the ones it skips | Three orders for the same ship-to and date in one delivery; one blocked order in the log |
| Shipping point and plant | Determination gives the right shipping point and valuation | Same product from 1720 Chicago → shipping point 1720, cost $156 |
| Goods issue reversal | Stock, accounting and statuses return to the prior state | Reverse 601 with 602 before billing |
| Reversal after billing | The system blocks reversal until billing is cancelled | Attempt VL09 on a billed delivery |
| Blocked order | Delivery cannot be created for a delivery- or credit-blocked order | Order with delivery block set |
A compact shipping test set.
Partial deliveries
Partial deliveries are where shipping tests most often stop too early. Whether a partial delivery is allowed depends on the customer's agreement: the complete delivery indicator on the business partner and the item-level partial delivery setting, which can be overridden by a customer-material info record. A good test checks both the allowed case and the not-allowed case.
- MonOrder 100045750 pieces confirmed; delivery status not delivered
- MonDelivery 130 picked and goods-issued; order status partially delivered; 20 still open
- FriDelivery 220 picked and goods-issued; order status fully delivered
- FriBillingBoth deliveries billed (one or two invoices, depending on billing date and split rules)
Evidence for each scenario
Stock before and after is the piece most packs leave out. It is cheap to capture and it proves the physical effect: 1,000 pieces before, 950 after goods issue, 1,000 again after reversal. If other tests run in the same plant at the same time, use a dedicated test product or note all movements in between.
Regression after go-live
Shipping changes often: new shipping points, new plants, new warehouse layouts, quarterly updates to determination rules. For each change, rerun the scenarios that touch the changed area, plus the full-delivery happy path. Keep the expected journal entries in the test case so a finance difference is spotted at once, not at month-end close.
Test data deserves its own check before each cycle. Shipping tests need stock in the right plant and storage location, open periods, orders with confirmed quantities and customers with the right partial delivery settings. A tester who finds "no stock" at 9 a.m. has lost the morning. Ask whoever prepares data for client 100 to post enough stock of CMC-ALT-100 to 171A and 172A, and list the orders and customers each scenario will use.
What would you do?
Priya's team reports "Shipping: 12 of 12 passed." Each test shows a delivery number and a screenshot of the "goods issue posted" message. Luis wants to use this as a cutover readiness criterion. What do you advise?
- Test full, partial and collective deliveries, determination, blocked orders and reversals.
- Follow partial deliveries until the order is fully delivered.
- Evidence: document flow with statuses, material documents, journal entries vs expected, stock before and after.
- With EWM, include EWM documents in the evidence.
Check your understanding · not graded
Lesson check
1. Which piece of shipping evidence proves the physical stock effect?
2. What decides whether a partial delivery is allowed for a customer?
3. Why test a goods issue reversal on a billed delivery?
4. When a partial delivery test ships 30 of 50, when is it complete?