Preface – This post is part of the SAP MM series.

Introduction

Procurement starts with requirement gathering and ends with procuring goods/services from vendors. This involves an internal document that contains a list of requirements, be it goods or services, which need to be procured from the vendors, known as Purchase requisition. It is a request made to the purchasing department to procure a certain list of materials. It contains information about the materials such as the date of delivery, and quantity.

A purchase requisition is defined for the following procurement types:

• Standard: Requisition created for getting finished material from the vendor.
• Subcontracting: Requisition created for providing raw material to the vendor and getting finished material.
• Consignment: Requisition created for procuring material that is kept in the company’s premises and paying to the vendor for that.
• Stock transfer: Requisition created for transferring stocks from one plant to another.
• External service: Requisition created for procuring services like maintenance from third-party vendor.

Creation of Purchase requisition

A purchase requisition can be created manually (with or without master data) or automatically. Let’s explore them one by one.

Manual creation of Purchase requisition

A purchase requisition can be created manually means when the purchasing document is created by the requesting department manually.

A purchase requisition can be created manually in multiple ways:

Purchase requisition with master data:

Step 1: Enter T-code ME51N in common field. A “Create purchase Requisition” screen will appear.

Step 2: It will ask to enter the following information:

• The material number of item or service (e.g. B-R123)
• Quantity to be procured (e.g. 20)
• Delivery date of the material (e.g. today’s date + 3)
• Plant location (e.g. 1203)

Step 3: On hitting enter, the data of the material is fetched from the material master data and the requisition process will fill up the default information in some of the blank fields.

After clicking on “Save”, a new purchase requisition will be created.

Purchase requisition without master data:

Step 1: In order to do that, enter T-code ME51N in common field. A “Create purchase Requisition” screen will appear.

Step 2: As there is no material master record for the material the following information will have to be entered:

• Account assignment category (e.g. U)
• Short text for description (e.g. Laptop Dell with an i5 processor)
• Quantity to be Supplied (e.g., 4)
• Unit of measure (e.g. PC)
• Delivery date of the material (e.g. today’s date + 4)
• Material group (e.g. Testing)
• Plant location (e.g. SAP SE)
• Purchasing group (e.g. 011)

In this scenario, the account assignment category is required to direct the cost to a specific account. Use ‘U’ to direct the purchase requisition to an unknown account. Other options available are:

• A for Asset and sub number
• F for production order number
• K for cost center and general ledger account number
• C for sales order and general ledger account number
• P for project number and general ledger account number

Step 3: Press Enter, an error message will appear in the form of a red mark on the item line (in the column Status). Provide Valuation Price and hit enter again. The error message will disappear now.

After clicking on “Save”, a new purchase requisition will be created.

Automatic creation of Purchase requisition:

A purchase requisition can be created automatically means when the purchasing document is created by other SAP processes that include:

• Production Order: A production order defines what materials need to be produced, the quantity of goods to be required, where it needs to be produced and at what time.

On creation of Purchase order in PP, BoM (Bill of Materials) is determined and a purchase requisition is created for materials required through MM.

• Plan Maintenance Order: A maintenance order consists of a list of operations that specifies what needs to be done and the material needed for each step. There may be a need for non-stock material. So, a purchase requisition is created automatically.
• Project System: In the Project system of Sap, a network is an object that creates a purchase requisition for non-stock materials.
• Material Planning: The consumption-based planning module can create a purchase requisition for materials based on calculation.