SAP S/4HANA End-to-End Lab

Both of these mean “someone outside does part of the work.” They are configured differently, they post differently, and picking the wrong one gives you a cost structure you cannot analyse later. The fastest way to keep them straight is not the definition — it is the accounting entry each one produces. What follows are the actual postings from two products made side by side in the same S/4HANA client: kimchi dumplings made by a subcontractor , and shrimp dumplings made in-house with one outsourced operation . Subcontracting: the vendor makes the product We buy the semi-finished product as work . We supply the raw materials, the subcontractor shapes them, and a single goods receipt settles the entire arrangement. That one document fires several OBYC account-determination keys at once: Posting at the subcontract goods receipt Amount OBYC key Dr 5080 raw material consumed — supplied to subcontractor 4,200 GBB · VBO Cr 1050...

Buying 6,700 KRW of pork and wrappers produced four documents, two accounting entries, and zero effect on the profit and loss statement. That surprises people the first time they trace it, and the reason it works that way is the single most useful thing to understand about procurement in SAP. Below is the actual relay, with the real document numbers from a dumpling factory I built from an empty S/4HANA client. Four documents, but only two of them are accounting # Document What it claims Accounting entry 1 Requisition · ME51N EBAN 0199000553 “we want this” — internal only none 2 Purchase order · ME21N EKKO 4500006934 a promise to the vendor none 3 Goods receipt · MIGO 101 MSEG 5000006252 “it physically arrived” Dr 1050 raw material Cr 9010 GR/IR 4 Invoice receipt · MIRO RBKP 5100004739 “the vendor billed us” Dr 9010 GR/IR + input tax Cr 2...

On the day we shipped, the billing document said the margin was 36% . Three weeks later, after the close, the same sale carried a margin of 6% . Nobody made a mistake. No posting was reversed. Every document in between was correct. This is the part of SAP that spreadsheets never prepare you for, so it is worth walking through with real numbers. Everything below comes from a small dumpling factory I built from an empty S/4HANA client and drove through one complete business month. 1. The sale looked great A sales order for 20,000 KRW of dumplings, delivered and billed: Step Transaction Effect Sales order VA01 Revenue 20,000 · standard cost of goods 12,800 → expected margin 7,200 (36%) Goods issue VL01N → PGI Cost of goods sold hits the P&L for the first time — at standard Billing VF01 Revenue 20,000, receivable 22,000 (incl. tax) If you stop reading the system here — and a lot of people do, because t...