ME58 — ME58 Ordering of Assigned Purchase Requisitions
ME58 converts purchase requisitions that already carry an assigned source of supply into purchase orders, contracts, or scheduling agreement releases, in an interactive session where the buyer reviews and confirms each conversion before saving. It only lists requisitions with a source already assigned; requisitions without a fixed vendor or info record never appear, regardless of other selection criteria.
This page covers ME58, the interactive transaction for turning sourced purchase requisitions into purchase orders. It focuses on why requisitions go missing from the selection list, how duplicate or split POs happen, and how ME58 differs from ME57 and ME59N in the P2P chain.
Reviewed by an ERPClimb SAP consultant on 15 Sept 2026· 1,056 words
What it does
ME58 is the 'ordering' step that follows source assignment. It reads open purchase requisition items that already have a source of supply attached (fixed vendor, contract, scheduling agreement, or info record) and lets the buyer group them by vendor and create purchase orders, or add them as releases against existing contracts and scheduling agreements. The structural fact that drives most confusion is that ME58 is purely a converter for already-sourced lines. It does not assign sources itself; that happens upstream in ME56 or ME57. If a requisition line has no source of supply, ME58 will not display it no matter how the selection screen is set, which makes the transaction look broken when the real gap is upstream.
When it is used
ME58 sits between source determination and the purchase order. A buyer runs ME57 or relies on a maintained source list to attach a fixed vendor to open requisitions, then runs ME58 to batch those lines into POs, contract releases, or scheduling agreement releases, reviewing each proposed document before it is saved. It is chosen over ME59N when the process needs a human check before the order is created, for example negotiated pricing, split quantities across vendors, or manual override of proposed grouping. ME59N is used instead when the same conversion should run unattended in the background for high volume, low risk items. ME21N is used when a single ad hoc PO is being created without going through the requisition worklist at all.
How to use it
- Enter selection criteria on the initial screen: plant, purchasing group, material group, or vendor, to narrow the worklist of sourced requisitions
- Execute and review the list of requisition items shown with their proposed source of supply
- Select the lines to process, either individually or by using the group-by-vendor function to combine multiple lines into one document
- Trigger the assignment, which proposes a purchase order, contract release, or scheduling agreement release per vendor group
- Review the proposed document header and item data, adjust delivery dates or quantities if needed
- Save the generated purchasing document and confirm the requisition status has moved from open to ordered
Key fields
- EBAN - the purchase requisition item; the ordered-quantity and closed-indicator fields update once ME58 creates a follow-on document
- EKKO - the purchase order or contract release header created by the conversion, carrying vendor, purchasing organization and document type
- EKPO - the purchase order or contract item, linked back to the source requisition number and item so the requisition is not offered again
- EKET - the schedule line record written when the target document is a scheduling agreement release rather than a standard PO
How to prove it in the data
In SE16 on EKPO, filter on the requisition number and requisition item fields not blank for the purchasing document type and date range in question; this shows every PO item ME58 generated from a requisition rather than manual entry. Cross-check the same requisition number against EBAN to confirm the ordered quantity now equals the requisition quantity and the closed indicator is set. If a requisition is missing from ME58's worklist, check EBAN directly for the source-of-supply fields being blank or the release indicator not fully set before assuming the transaction is malfunctioning.
ECC vs S/4HANA
The underlying logic and the transaction itself are effectively unchanged on S/4HANA; requisitions still need an assigned source before ME58 will offer them. Fiori apps built around processing purchase requisitions provide a similar review-and-convert workflow with a more modern list interface, but ME58 remains available and is still commonly used by purchasing teams who prefer the classic worklist for batch ordering.
Common pitfalls
- Nothing appears in the worklist: the most common cause is a requisition with no fixed source of supply and no matching info record or source list entry, so ME58 correctly excludes it; check the source assignment on the requisition before checking anything in ME58 itself. Second most common cause is an incomplete release strategy, the requisition is technically open but not fully approved, so it is not yet eligible for ordering.
- Unexpected splitting or grouping: requisition lines with different fixed vendors, different purchasing organizations, or different document currencies will never merge into one PO even if the buyer selects them together; ME58 groups strictly by vendor and organizational data, not by buyer intent.
- Duplicate purchase orders: rerunning ME58 against the same requisition after a prior run failed partway through (for example a save error) can leave the requisition in an ambiguous state; check the requisition's ordered quantity and closed indicator before reprocessing rather than assuming it is still fully open.
- Authorization and selection scope mismatches: a buyer restricted to certain purchasing groups or plants sees an empty or partial list that looks like a data problem but is actually an authorization filter; compare the selection screen values against the user's purchasing group authorization before escalating.
- Confusion with ME59N: batch jobs scheduled to run ME59N in the background can silently consume the same requisitions a buyer expects to process manually in ME58, leaving the ME58 worklist unexpectedly empty; check for a scheduled automatic ordering job before assuming a data issue.
Whose problem this is
This is a functional MM purchasing problem, owned by the buyer or purchasing team lead. A good handover states the requisition number, plant, and purchasing group involved, whether a source of supply is maintained on the requisition, and whether a scheduled ME59N job runs against the same selection criteria, before involving ABAP or Basis at all.
Related SAP objects
Reviewed pages this object connects to in the ERPClimb knowledge graph.
Source: ERPClimb — https://erpclimb.com/sap-tcodes/me58ERPClimb is an independent platform and is not affiliated with SAP SE. Reference pages are written and reviewed by SAP consultants for learning and troubleshooting.