SAP Rounding Profiles in SD

While researching solutions for a client, I learned quite a bit about SAP’s rounding capabilities.  In my experience, I haven’t encountered a situation where this EXACT functionality would be necessary, but I’m sure it will come in handy for a few of you folks out there.  Let’s find out a bit more about SAP Rounding Profiles.

WHAT ARE SAP ROUNDING PROFILES?

If you’ve found this post, you probably already know a bit about them, but here’s a run-down.  In an order entry context, rounding profiles allow you to set up rules capable of automatically adjusting Sales Order quantities at time of order entry.  Why would you want to do this?  Here’s an example:

You have a product in inventory with a base unit of Case (CS).  For most customers, you do not wish to have any limitations for how they order — one case, two cases, whatever.  But let’s say you have certain customers who order a lot of product and due to logistics requirements you wish for them to order this item in pallet quantities (PAL).  You can assign a rule to that customer/material combination which will automatically adjust the Sales Order quantities to match what’s in a pallet.

Another example would be if you wish to round order quantities up or down to more closely align with your desired units of measure.  Let’s say a pallet of a particular item consists of 100 cases.  A customer submits an order for 90 cases.  Instead of building 90% of a pallet, you wish to just round the customer’s order up to 100 cases and ship a full pallet.  The same can be done if the order is for 105 cases; you can round down in this case.

SAP Rounding Profiles: Getting Technical

There are three types of Rounding Profiles available to you:

A Static rounding profile is the most simple and straightforward.  You establish one or more sets of Threshold Values and Rounding Values.  Once your order meets the Threshold Value, SAP will automatically round up to the Rounding Value.  You can maintain as many rows as you want in each rounding profile to meet your needs.  Let’s say that you want the customer to be able to purchase in increments of 1.  However, after they reach 5 units, you want them to purchase in increments of 10.  Lastly, after reaching 40 units, you want the customer to order in increments of 25 units.  Check out the above screenshot to see the sets or rules to accomplish this.  Clicking on the Simulation button will allow you to test the effects of your rules for a range of quantities.

A Dynamic profile offers a significantly different set of features.  However, before discussing the profile, it is important to understand the use of Rounding Rules… [content missing] …down automatically.  For example, you can specify a rule which automatically rounds up when a customer orders 90+ percent of a pallet.  Let’s use an example:

A material has a base unit of Eaches, but is also sold in Cases (24 EA), Layers (10 CAS), and Pallets (20 LAY).  To keep it simple, let’s assume that you want to establish 90% thresholds for all Units of Measure.  When a customer orders in quantities equaling or exceeding 90% of a Case (21.6 Eaches), then SAP will automatically round up to a case.  When a customer orders in quantities equaling or exceeding 90% of a Layer (9 Cases), then SAP will automatically round up to a Layer.  Finally, when a customer orders in quantities equaling or exceeding 90% of a Pallet (17 LAY), SAP will automatically round up to a Pallet.    The Rounding Profile has a similar function to round down.  So, if a customer orders in quantities less than 10% OVER a Case (26.4 Eaches), then SAP will round down to 1 Case.  …and so on.

Once created, these rounding rules can be assigned to the Dynamic Rounding Profiles.  The Dynamic Profiles can be assigned in a couple of different ways — directly on the material master or through a Customer Material Info Record.

Paired with a Rounding Rule, the Dynamic Profile also contains a mandatory Rounding Method.  The Rounding method contains several options for handling line item rounding.  It’s important to note that three custom Methods are available for customization — see Note 303613 for details.

Like the Static profile, the Dynamic profile also includes a Simulation function to test the setup prior to implementation, which is nice.

There is a third rounding profile option called Qty t/b added/subtracted.  Curiously, this option is not fully explained in the IMG configuration documentation.  I’m not going to speculate what this profile is capable of; if you’re reading this and you *DO* know, please let us know in the comments.

WRAP-UP

These rounding capabilities are incredibly powerful and — especially thanks to customer-specific options — incredibly flexible.  I could see these being heavily used for warehouse transactions as well as sales transactions where special rounding agreements exist with customers.  The handy simulation feature makes it easy to play around with without being fully committed to creating profiles.  Check it out and let me know what you think.