On 23 March 2017, the DSAG Working Group on Global Trade Management met in Kassel. On the agenda were new requirements for trading companies and new functions in S/4 HANA for transport management.

At the working meeting, we discussed several ways how commercial companies can map the commissioning and monitoring of transports using GTM - with and without the software tool Transportation Management (TM). Transportation Management (TM) is a software for logistics companies to arrange, commission, monitor and settle transports. It can be used regardless of sector and forms the entire end-to-end process of a logistics company. Trade is always more than the mere exchange of goods for money. The goods usually have to be picked up by the supplier and brought to the customer. For companies that use Global Trade Management, there are several alternatives to implement these processes - especially with respect to S/4 HANA.

TM becomes part of SAP S/4 HANA

Already today the functions of the Transportation Management (LE-TRA), as already present in the ECC EHP8, are available in S/4 HANA. With the S/4 HANA Release 1709, the Transport Management (TM), which has been available as a separate system since 2003, is part of the S/4 and replaces the previous function. The costs for this so-called Basic Shipment are already covered by the SAP license fees. All other functions require an additional license.

Fleet management with TM

TM is particularly interesting for trading companies that manage their own fleet of vehicles. But TM also makes life easier for retailers without a fleet. While the previous solution only allows for scheduling and commissioning with regard to delivery or delivery, TM can also be used at the level of customer orders or orders. Small disadvantage: This function is not included in the Basic Shipment.

GTM can also be used without TM

GTM can also be used without TM. In this case, the documents required for the commissioning of transports are generated from the trading contracts or from their subsequent documents. In the standard version, SAP provides action classes that allow you to create Shipping Instructions as a separate document. Shipping and transport information must then be added as customer fields in the contract or the subsequent documents. This is thanks to the very good extensibility of GTM easily possible.

Posting Collective Invoices

For the settlement of transports, tradiung companies must, above all, have the possibility to post collective invoices. These must be assigned to a transport or a contract. Here TM also provides the necessary functions, but not within the framework of Basic Shipment. Without the use of TM, the expenses settlement of the agency business is used, which in any case is very well connected with GTM since it was conceived and implemented by SAP from the same team. It also offers the possibility to post collective invoices for the same reasons.