QA01 — Create Inspection Lot Manually

QA01 creates an inspection lot for a given material, plant and inspection lot origin. Most inspection lots in a live system are created automatically - goods receipt against a purchase order, an in-process confirmation, a stock transfer posting - each of these triggers a specific origin code (01, 04, 05, 08, 89 and so on) which fires the same lot-creation logic behind the scenes. QA01 is the manual entry point into that identical logic, used for origins that support standalone creation or for ad hoc inspections with no triggering document. The structural fact that explains most confusion: QA01 does not invent inspection logic of its own. If the inspection type is not switched on in the material's QM view for that plant, QA01 fails with the exact same error an automatic trigger would produce, because it is calling the same engine, not a simplified manual variant of it.

Reached for when a lot is needed outside the normal document flow: a periodic audit inspection with no goods movement behind it, a stability or shelf-life sample pulled on a schedule, a sample created to investigate a customer complaint, or replacing a lot that was cancelled in error. It is not the transaction for recording results against a lot that already exists - that is QA11 or the worklist in QA32. It is also not the right tool for lots that should be created automatically; if a goods receipt is not generating a lot, the fix belongs in the inspection setup on the material master, not in habitually creating the lot by hand through QA01 after every receipt.

In SE16 on QALS, filter by MATNR and WERK and HERKUNFT (origin) to confirm whether a lot for this material/plant/origin already exists before a new one is created manually. Check the STAT status entries on the lot (created, released, results recorded) to see where it stopped. Compare ERSTELLDAT and ERNAM against the expected automatic trigger - a real dialog user rather than a batch or workflow user on a lot that should have been system-triggered points to someone using QA01 to paper over a missing automatic trigger.

QA01 is unchanged functionally between ECC and S/4HANA; the underlying inspection lot tables and creation logic were not restructured as part of the S/4 data model simplification. Consultants coming from ECC can use it exactly as before. Fiori apps in the QM area are oriented mainly toward results recording and worklist monitoring rather than replacing manual lot creation, so QA01 remains the practical entry point for this task in most S/4 implementations.

Functional QM territory. Inspection types, origins and control keys are configured by the QM consultant; the material master QM view is maintained by master data or QM. Basis and ABAP are rarely involved unless a custom BAPI-based lot creation program is failing. A good handover states material, plant, origin selected, the exact error or unexpected status, and whether an automatic trigger was expected to create the lot instead.

QA02 is the next stop for releasing or changing a lot just created. QA32 is the worklist view for managing multiple open lots, useful for spotting duplicates before creating another one manually. QA11 and QE51n record results once the lot exists. QP01 is worth reviewing when characteristics are not inheriting correctly, since the inspection plan assigned there drives what QA01 copies into the lot.