ME21N — Create a purchase order

ME21N is where procurement intent becomes a legal and financial commitment. The purchase order names the supplier, the purchasing organisation buying on behalf of the company, the material or service being bought, the quantity, the price and the delivery date. It is also the document the rest of procure-to-pay is measured against: goods receipt records what actually arrived against these quantities, and invoice verification compares what the supplier billed against these prices. Because of that, data quality entered here determines how much three-way matching work the finance team faces later.

The order is created after a requirement exists and a source has been decided, whether that requirement came from a purchase requisition, from planning, or directly from a buyer. Buyers use it for one-off and negotiated purchases, and consultants use it constantly in testing because almost every procure-to-pay scenario, stock or consumable, domestic or import, service or material, starts with an order created here. Where a requisition and a release strategy exist, the order is converted rather than typed, and understanding which path an organisation uses matters more than the screen itself.

You choose the document type, enter the supplier and the purchasing organisation, purchasing group and company code, then add items with material or short text, quantity, unit, delivery date, plant and net price. Item detail carries the account assignment, delivery schedule, conditions, texts and any confirmation or invoicing control. For a consumable or a service, the account assignment category decides which cost object must be supplied, so a cost centre, order or project is mandatory there while a stock item posts to inventory instead. Check the document overview and any messages before saving, since the save creates the commitment. On S/4HANA the classic transaction remains available alongside Fiori procurement apps that create the same document.