Stock types supported in SAP S/4HANA

 

                       Stock type is the term used in SAP to designate the disposition or usability of the stock for materials planning and execution purposes.

 

There are 4 main stock types supported in SAP S/4HANA:

 

1.    Unrestricted use stock

2.    Quality inspection stock

3.    Blocked stock

4.    Customer returns stock

 

Unrestricted Use Stock:

                 The unrestricted use stock type is used to designate inventory quantities that are free to be considered for materials planning or execution purposes, such as deliveries to customers or consumption for production. Unrestricted use stocks can be freely transferred between plants and storage locations.

 

Quality Inspection Stock:

                The quality inspection (QI) stock type is used for identifying quantities of goods that are undergoing processing by the quality department at the current time. QI stocks are considered available from a materials planning point of view. However, these stocks can't be shipped to a customer or consumed internally until a decision has been made about their usability.

 

Ø  The QI stock can be transferred between storage locations in a plant but can't be transferred between plants.

 

Ø  QI stocks may be under the control of the Quality Management (QM) module.

Ø  If QM is active for that material in that plant, then Quality Management processes control the postings of material into and out of the QI stock type.

 

Ø  If QM isn't active for that material in that plant, then transfer postings are used to post stocks out of QI stock into unrestricted use stock.

 

Blocked Stock:

                   The blocked stock type is used when a material becomes unusable for planning and execution purposes. Blocked stocks generally aren't considered during materials planning.

 

Ø  Blocked stocks can't be used for fulfilling customer or production demands.

Ø  Blocked stocks can be transferred between storage locations within a plant.

 

Ø  Note that unrestricted use, quality inspection, and blocked stocks are considered valuated stocks if the stock type assigned to the material is valuated in the valuation area assigned to the plant.

 

Customer Returns Stock:

                           The customer returns stock type is a less commonly used stock type. It can be used to manage goods that have been delivered back into a storage location from a customer when a decision hasn't been made as to whether the goods will be accepted back into stock.

 

Ø  Customer returns stock is always non valuated stock.

Ø  Once a decision is made to accept the goods, a transfer posting from customer returns to either unrestricted use, quality inspection, or blocked stock is made. This transfer posting posts the quantities into valuated stock and creates an accounting document.

Special Stocks & Ownership:

 In SAP S/4HANA system are owned by the enterprise and are reflected in the appropriate stock accounts in Financial Accounting.

However, it's possible to represent stocks that are owned by an external party in the system.

Special stock indicators are used to represent these ownership scenarios in Inventory Management.

 

Each special stock has a unique one-letter identifier in the database.

 

The following are examples of special stocks that are owned by the enterprise and

physically stored at an external location:

 Ø  Component stocks provided to supplier for subcontracting (special stock 0)

 Ø  Finished goods consigned to a customer (special stock W)

  Ø  Returnable transport packaging at customer (special stock V)

Note that these special stocks can be in either unrestricted use or quality inspection stock types.

 The following are examples of special stocks owned by an external party and physically stored in a plant and storage location:

 Ø  Supplier consignment stock (special stock K)

Ø    Supplier-owned returnable transport packaging (special stock M)