Material Determination based on Availability

Question

Hi SD gurus,
I have a client requirement as below:
We create order via BAPI. Data comes from ext call center system.
Whenever Matnr A is entered in Sales order & it is not available then Matnr B should come.
1: I know that we can handle this in Material Determination. I did req. config in IMG
2: I have created VB11 stating that MATNR A should be substituted by Matnr B. I have ticked the MRP ind in VB11 as well.
Now the question is:
When I enter MATNR A in sales order, & assuming its not available then, MATNR B will come in Sales order.
In my case it is happening. But whenever this happens what should be the item category of the MATNR A & MATNR B?
Please let me understand how will standard SAP behave.
I thought the item A should appear as Text item & probably item B should become relevant for delivery & pricing.
But currently I am getting item category TAX for item A & TAPS for item B in sand box. Is that correct?
What should be the standard item categories in this case?
regards

Answer 1

Hi,
The system runs several checks on on each possible substitute, for example to determine if the customer would accept the product based on the product attributes and current stock availability.The system checks substitute materials until the order quantity is satisfied, or until there are no more possible substitutes.
When a valid alternative is found, the system creates a sub-item for it, using the item category that you have defined for the main material in Customizing.
If there is not enough inventory for the alternatives to cover a required quantity, the system confirms only the available amount and ignores the rest. The main item contains information on the confirmed quantity of the sub-item, but is not relevant for planning. For this reason, the material shortage is not passed on to planning.
If you set the material requirements planning indicator for one of the alternatives, however, the system creates an additional sub-item for this material, assigning it a confirmed quantity equal to zero, and a required quantity equal to the open quantity. Since this material is placed as the final alternative in the substitution, it captures any remaining quantities. The system takes this item into account and passes the material shortage on to planning.
Based on your settings Customizing, the system performs pricing at the main or sub-item level.
There are two separate item categories in sales documents for product selection. The item category TAX contains specifications for the main item (original product). The other, TAPS, contains specifications for the sub-items (substitute product).
Review the item category configurations in the standard system. If these do not meet your requirements, perform the activities in the following topics to modify the item category configuration, or create your own categories. Note that if your product selection procedure requires that pricing be done at the main item instead of the sub-item, you will have to create new item categories.
The following examples detail how pricing is carried out at the main item level and sub-item level for product selection.
Pricing at the Main Item
the price for the order is determined based on the price condition records for the main item only. You have deactivated pricing for the sub-item category, so the system does not determine a price for it. Since both the main item and the sub-item categories are relevant for billing, the prices (even if there is no price) are copied to the invoice and billed accordingly.
Pricing at the Sub-item
the price for the order is determined based on the price condition records for the sub-items. You have deactivated pricing for the main item category, so the system does not determine a price for it. Since both the main item and the sub-item categories are relevant for billing, the prices (even if there is no price) are copied to the invoice and billed accordingly.