Serial Numbers in PurchasingUseYou can enter serial numbers for the main items of the following document types:

Purchase order

Purchase requisition

You can also enter serial numbers for the subitems 'free goods' (inclusive and exclusive

bonus quantity).

Within one purchase order or purchase requisition you may want to order several pieces of

an item. By serializing the materials, you can easily differentiate between them, making it

easier to request a specific piece of material.

This function is used principally for stock transport orders, recursive subcontracting orders

and return orders, when serial numbers already exist at the point when the order is created.

PrerequisitesIn Customizing under Materials Management → Purchasing → Serial Numbers → Determine

Serial Number Profiles, assignthe following procedures to the serial number profile. You can

define whether a serial number is mandatory or optional for a purchase order item, or

purchase requisition item. For MM-PUR, you must choose:

For purchase orders, procedure POSL (we recommend you use serial number usage 1

( None) )

For purchase requisitions, procedure PRSL (we recommend you use serial number usage 1

( None) )

These serial usage settings apply to all document types and item categories.

You do not always want to serialize all the document types and item categories. We

therefore recommend that you set 1 ( None ) and only set 2 ( Optional) or 3 ( Obligatory ) for

the few items that you actually want to serialize (see below).

InCustomizingfor Purchasing under Purchase Order or Purchase Requisition → Define

Document Typesyou ‘fine tune’ the purchasing document’s serialization information and the

item category.

Choose the document type and item category and under Maintenance View Serial Numbers

in Purchasing Documents enter the serial number profile information.

In the purchase order, choose two entries; Standard Item and Returns Item for different

behavior or one entryStandard and Returns Item . Purchase requisitions have no return.

Toenableyou to serialize materials, there must be serialized materials available. To serialize

the material, assign a user-specific, or available serial number profile to the material in

the General Plant Data/Storage 2 view of the material master.

Tobeabletosee the Display Serial Number List button in the item overview and Assign Serial

Numbers button in the item detail area, there must be serialized materials available and the

serial number usage for the item category and serial number profile must be set to 2

( Optional) or 3 ( Obligatory ).

Within a specific purchase order or purchase requisition document, the serial numbers need

to be unique in the document in non-statistical undeleted items.

Thenumberof serial numbers available must equal the discrete quantity of the material.

If you want to serialize materials that are to be handled in batches, you must enter the

batch in the purchase order.

If the materials to be serialized are split-valuated, you must enter the valuation type in the

purchase order.

Features

Serial Number Transfer

When you create purchase orders with reference to a purchase requisition, the serial

numbers are transferred automatically from the purchase requisition to the purchase order if

all prerequisites for serialization are fulfilled. When you create a sales order for third-party

processing and assign serial numbers to that order item, the created purchase requisition

will contain these serial numbers. This purchase requisition is created in the background.

Note, that a purchase requisition item is created even when the serial number usage for the

purchase requisition item is set to ‘obligatory’ in Customizing but no serial number

assignment was adopted from the sales order.

Base Units of Measure

When serializing base units of measure (for example, piece), the conversion of order unit of

measure (for example, kg) must result in a whole number at schedule line level for purchase

orders, and at item level for purchase requisitions.

If the base unit of measure was 3 pieces and the order unit was 2kg, each unit would be

0.66, which you cannot serialize.

You order one box containing five computer chips. The ordered quantity is one box, but this

is not the base unit of measure because you want to serialize the chips in the box (which are

the smallest units).

Schedule Lines

You can have more than one serial number per schedule line. If the purchase order has

several schedule lines, the serialized numbers need to be assigned manually to the correct

schedule line or created by the system by choosingCreate Serial Number Automatically in

the Maintain Serial Number popup.

Additional Information

You can serialize materials that are to be handled in batches if you enter the batch in the

purchase order.

You can serialize materials that are split-valuated if you must enter the valuation type in the

purchase order.

ConstraintsIf you are working with configurable materials, note that you cannot change the

configuration of a purchase requisition or purchase order item in the following cases:

The object is already configured.

Serial numbers are assigned to the purchase requisition or purchase order item.

If the original configuration is not linked to this object in the material serial number.