Very basics of SAP External Service

ManagementThese notes are based on SAP ERP Central Component (ECC) 5.0 

Firstly -- SAP External Service Management (ESM) must not be confused with SAP

Service Management (SM). ESM is the procurement of services. SM is to provide

services to a client. 

With External Services, you have a PO for services with Goods Receipt taking place. The

Goods Receipt is called Service Entries. In contrast with goods (stock or non stock)

where receiving is typically done by the inventory management group, the Service

Entries are done by business themselves. The logic is that the business generated the

request for the service, that is where it was done, it will be best if they do confirmation

that service took place. 

Lets look at the traditional SAP purchasing cycle vs SAP purchasing cycle for External

Services. 

The big difference is that the item category is D (services) is used. For the item, detail

Service to be performed can be specified. The receiving is a 2 step process. Create and

then Accept Service Entry Sheet 

Lets step through the process and look at the documents. The steps are 

Step 1 - Create Purchase Requisition 

Step 2 - Convert to Purchase Order 

Step 3a - Service Entry Sheet 

Step 3b - Acceptance of Service Entry Sheet 

Step 4 - Invoice and payment (not shown here) 

----------------- DETAIL ------------------- 

Step 1 - Create Purchase Requisition 

What makes the PR a ESM PR is the Item category. For goods it is blank. For ESM it is

D (Service). if the item category D is selected, it is mandatory to provide the account

assignment. 

Step 2 - Convert to Purchase Order 

The PR is converted to a PO. If me59 (automatic creation of PO) is used, the Material

Group must also be entered in the selection criteria, otherwise it doesn't work. 

Step 3a - Service Entry Sheet 

 

When creating a SES, the planned services can be copied from the original Purchase

Order. 

 

Where: 

- P Plan - Items copied from Purchase Order 

- C Unplanned from Contract - Items copied from Contract (was not in PO) 

- U Unplanned - Items was not in PO 

Step 3b - Acceptance of Service Entry Sheet 

This is the equivalent of a Goods Receipt. The result of accepting a SES will be a

material document with movement type 101 (GR against PO). Depending of process the

SES can be created and Accepted by different people. Typically the acceptance is done

by a more senior person. 

A traffic light indicate the status of the SES 

- Red = Not yet accepted -- only SES 

- Yellow = Accepted but still to be saved 

- Green = accepted and saved 

Additional notes on External Service Management 

Release procedure and SES 

Release procedures can be build in PR, PO and Service Entry Sheets. (Also possible on

Outline Agreements and RFQ's) 

Service Outlines 

The services in the PR / PO can be specified in a hierarchy. See this post [sap123.com]

for more information on this. 

Outline Agreement (Contracts) 

Services specified in PR / PO as well as Unplanned Services entered in SES can be

pulled from a contract (Outline Agreement). 

Service masters & Service Conditions 

The services can either be free text or Services Masters (similar to material masters for

goods). The prices for these services are stored in Service Conditions. Lots of SAP

customers start using ESM without Service Masters. And even if Service Masters are

used, one do not need to use Service Conditions. 

Lets look at a simple Service Master 

Account Assignment U 

Under special cases (if allowed), an account assignment U (Unknown) can be selected

when creating the PR / PO. In this case the correct account assignment category must

be provided when the service entry sheet is created. 

Configuration 

The focus on this post is to introduce the concept, so no configuration options are

discussed. See below for config options related to this functionality. Config Menu: IMG >

Materials Management > External Services Management 

 

Transactions 

The following transactions were used for above screens: 

ME51N - Create PR 

ME21N - Display PO 

ML81N - Create Service Entry Sheet 

ML82N - Change Service Entry Sheet (Acceptance) 

AC03 - Maintain Service Master