2 - PO process for intracompany drop ship to 3PL.

Question

Our company has a business process where a purchase order is released to a vendor for a long lead time item.  The vendor is to deliver the product to a 3PL that is set up as a plant in our system.  There are several requirements having heavy influence on this business process:
u2022     We need to take ownership of the product while it is in transit to the 3PL.
u2022     We need to pay the vendor prior to the product arriving at the 3PL.
u2022     We need to be able to show the inventory as being in-transit to the 3PL. 
We currently meet these requirements in the following way:
u2022     A PO (#1) is created from a u201Cvirtualu201D plant to the vendor.
u2022     Another Stock Transfer Order (#2) is created from the virtual plant to the 3PL that is to receive the product. 
u2022     When the vendor notifies the virtual plant the product has shipped to the 3PL, a virtual goods receipt is done in the virtual plant against PO #1.   This allows an invoice to be entered and the vendor paid. 
u2022     A virtual delivery is created against the STO #2 and post goods issued, putting it in transit to the 3PL.  An EDI signal is sent to the 3PL as a shipment advice that the product is coming in.
u2022     When the 3PL receives the product from the vendor they post a goods receipt with reference to the STO #2, closing the loop. 
This process is less than optimal because:
u2022     Two PO documents must be maintained and kept in sync during the process.
u2022     Products are long lead time, meaning this process of keeping 2 POu2019s in sync must be done for a long time. 
u2022     Significant time is spent creating virtual transactions.
Does anyone know of a way that we can more efficiently meet the requirements outlined above WITHOUT having a 2-PO process and virtual transactions?  We would love to hear your ideas or recommendations.

Answer 1

Hi Daniel,
   Your scenario is covered under  SAP Best Practices V4G: Third-Party Drop Shipment with Vendor Invoices and Returns.
In third-party order processing, your company does not deliver the items requested by a customer. Instead, you pass the order along to a third-party vendor who then ships the goods directly to the customer and bills you. The standard sales order automatically creates a purchase requisition for the materials to be delivered by the third-party vendor.
In this scenario, the vendor sends a shipping notification. The incoming invoice from the vendor updates the billing quantity, so that the customer-billing document is only possible after entering the invoice from the vendor.
If the customer does not accept the delivered goods from the third party vendor, the customer disposes of the goods. A credit memo is issued to the customer reversing the revenue and cost of goods sold. Then a MM credit memo is created for the third party vendor. A statistical goods receipt reversal is performed for the goods in order to close out the original purchase order. The vendor credit memo may initially be blocked for payment, if previous agreement for this with vendor exists.
For Further details please refer to the below link
http://help.sap.com/bp_mediav1600/Media_US/HTML/contentlibrary.htm
With Regards
Srinivas