Third-Party Sales
SD / O2Cintermediate

SD Third-Party Sales Part 3: MM Integration, Invoice Verification and Billing

Key takeaway

Close the third-party loop: PO with account assignment to the sales order, optional statistical goods receipt, vendor invoice verification (MIRO) updating the invoice receipt quantity, customer billing based on that quantity via copy control, cost and margin postings, and handling partial shipments and price differences.

Explanation

📌 KEY POINTS
✅ The PO is account-assigned to the sales order item; vendor invoice cost posts to COGS (sales order account assignment).

✅ With billing relevance F, the customer can be billed only for the quantity invoiced by the vendor (invoice receipt quantity).

✅ Optional statistical goods receipt records vendor shipment confirmation without stock.

✅ Copy control VTFA controls billing quantity for third-party items.

⚠️ Billing on order quantity instead of invoice receipt quantity bills goods the vendor never shipped.

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▶ WHERE WE ARE

Parts 1–2 covered process and configuration. Now integration and billing.

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▶ 1. PURCHASE ORDER

  • Account assignment 1 (third-party) to sales order item.
  • Delivery address customer ship-to.

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▶ 2. GOODS RECEIPT (OPTIONAL)

  • Statistical GR confirms vendor shipment (no stock).
  • Can be used as billing trigger per design.

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▶ 3. INVOICE VERIFICATION

  • MIRO posts vendor invoice: Dr COGS (account-assigned), Cr vendor.
  • Updates invoice receipt quantity on the order item.

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▶ 4. CUSTOMER BILLING

  • TAS billing relevance F → billing quantity = invoiced quantity.
  • VTFA order → invoice with requirement and billing quantity settings.

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▶ 5. MARGIN AND DIFFERENCES

  • Margin = revenue − vendor cost on sales order.
  • Price differences posted per account assignment; partial shipments billed partially.

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▶ STEP BY STEP

  1. Create order and PO.
  2. Post partial vendor invoice.
  3. Bill customer; check billed quantity equals invoiced quantity.

✅ CHECKPOINT: customer invoice quantity follows vendor invoice quantity, and margin is visible per order.

Code example

ABAP Code
===== STEP 1: postings =====MIRO vendor invoice: Dr COGS (account assignment: sales order item) | Cr vendorVF01 customer invoice: Dr customer | Cr revenue ===== STEP 2: billing control =====TAS billing relevance F (invoice receipt quantity) | VTFA OR → F2 item TAS: billing quantity per invoice receipt ===== STEP 3: optional statistical GR =====MIGO GR for third-party PO (statistical, no stock) → shipment confirmation / billing trigger (per design)

Real project scenario

A specialty equipment distributor billed third-party items on order quantity. When vendors shipped partially, customers were billed for undelivered items and disputes followed. Using billing relevance F with VTFA billing based on invoice receipt quantity, plus statistical GR for shipment confirmation, aligned invoices with shipments.

Common mistakes

  • Billing on order quantity.
  • POs without account assignment.
  • Ignoring partial vendor invoices.
  • No margin monitoring.
  • Missing ship-to on PO.

Best practices

  • Bill on invoice receipt (or confirmed GR) quantity.
  • Account-assign POs to sales orders.
  • Monitor margins per order.
  • Handle partial shipments explicitly.
  • Reconcile vendor and customer invoices.

Interview angle

Questions: "How is a third-party customer invoice triggered?", "What does MIRO update?", "What is a statistical goods receipt?"
Strong answer: PO account-assigned to sales order; MIRO posts cost and updates invoice receipt quantity; billing relevance F bills that quantity via VTFA; optional statistical GR; margin and partial shipments.

Practice this lesson

Quick check

1. What is a statistical goods receipt in third-party sales used for?

2. With billing relevance F on TAS, what limits the quantity billed to the customer?

3. Where is the cost of a third-party item posted when the vendor invoice is entered?

Interview questions

1. In a third-party sales scenario, purchase requisitions are generated correctly from item category TAS orders, but the vendor invoice cannot be settled and billing is blocked. How would you diagnose and resolve this?

Answer it in your own words first, then compare.

2. Customers are billed for third-party items the vendor has not yet shipped. How do you align billing with actual shipments?

Answer it in your own words first, then compare.

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Reference-verified: the steps are checked against official SAP documentation and tutorials, and object and field names in the sample code are checked for consistency. The code has not been compiled or run on an SAP system by ERPClimb. Syntax marked release-dependent varies by SAP release, so check it in your own system.

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