MM / P2Padvanced

MM Source Determination Part 5: Resolving Conflicts Between Source Lists, Contracts and Info Records

Key takeaway

Diagnose why the wrong supplier or no supplier is proposed: precedence rules, conflicting fixed sources, quotas overriding source lists, expired agreements, blocked sources, regular supplier flags, plant vs purchasing org mismatches — with a systematic analysis path.

Explanation

📌 KEY POINTS
✅ Precedence explains most surprises: quotas and fixed sources override info records.
✅ Conflicts: several fixed sources, quota vs source list mismatch, expired contract still fixed.
✅ Blocked sources or blocked suppliers remove options silently.
✅ Regular supplier flag on info records chooses among several info records when no other rule applies.
⚠️ Buyers overriding sources manually hides the conflict — fix master data.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▶ WHERE WE ARE
Part 4 covered architecture. Now conflict resolution.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▶ 1. PRECEDENCE CHECK

Is there a quota arrangement? A fixed source? Valid agreements?

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▶ 2. VALIDITY

Source list and agreement validity; target quantity/value exhausted.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▶ 3. BLOCKS

Blocked source list entries, supplier purchasing blocks.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▶ 4. ORGANIZATIONAL FIT

Agreement purchasing org vs plant assignment; reference purchasing org.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▶ 5. ANALYSIS

ME06 source list analysis, MEQ3 quotas, agreement display; simulate on a PR.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
▶ STEP BY STEP

Take a PR with the wrong supplier.
Check quota, source list, agreements, info records in order.
Fix the conflicting record.

✅ CHECKPOINT: you can explain the proposed supplier for any PR.

Code example

ABAP Code

===== STEP 1: analysis path =====MEQ3 quota arrangement → ME03/ME06 source list (fixed/blocked/validity) → ME33K contracts (validity, target) → ME13 info records (regular supplier) ===== STEP 2: common conflicts =====Two fixed sources in overlapping periods | quota points to supplier not in source list | expired contract fixed | supplier blocked ===== STEP 3: fixes =====Single fixed source per period | align quotas with source list | refresh agreements | clean blocked entries

Real project scenario

During a contract renegotiation, a procurement team set the new supplier as fixed source but left the old contract fixed in an overlapping period. Requisitions alternated between suppliers. Adjusting validities to one fixed source per period and a monthly source list analysis ended the confusion.

Common mistakes

Overlapping fixed sources.
Ignoring quotas.
Expired agreements left fixed.
Manual overrides instead of fixes.
Not checking org assignments.

Best practices

Follow precedence in analysis.
Keep one fixed source per period.
Align quotas and lists.
Review agreements before expiry.
Monitor overrides.

Interview angle

Questions: "Why does SAP propose the wrong supplier?", "What is the precedence?", "How do you analyse conflicts?"
Strong answer: precedence, validity, blocks, org fit, analysis tools, fixes at master data.

Practice this lesson

Quick check

1. Requisitions alternate between two suppliers after a contract renegotiation. What is the likely cause?

2. Which tool helps analyze source list entries for a material?

3. A quota arrangement points to a supplier that is blocked in the source list. What happens?

Interview questions

1. A plant using inbound delivery processing for scheduling agreements finds that source determination in the requisition-to-PO conversion keeps ignoring the source list entry marked as fixed, routing instead to a different vendor. How would you investigate this as an architect?

Answer it in your own words first, then compare.

2. A purchase order for a critical material has multiple schedule lines sourced from two vendors via source determination (source list with quotas), and GR-based invoice verification is active. Partial goods receipts arrive from both vendors against overlapping schedule lines, and FI-AP now shows invoices blocked with quantity variances that don't match either vendor's actual delivery. As the architect, how would you diagnose and resolve this?