SAP Knowledge Base Article - Public

3535466 - Approval task is not triggered to the Superordinate cost center manager as per the rule

Symptom

You have created a supplier invoice with cost assignment as Individual material (IMAT) , and as per approval step the approver should be based on superordinate cost center.

Approval rule is : Approval by Cost Center Manager based on Superordinate Cost Center.

Environment

SAP Business By Design

Reproducing the Issue

  1. Go to Supplier Invoicing work center
  2. Select view invoice entry
  3. Create a new invoice with cost assignment as IMAT (individual material)
  4. Save
  5. Go to Approvals tab->No approvers found

Cause

As the rule says, Approval by Cost Center Manager based on Superordinate Cost Center:

"The rule sends the approval task to the manager of the superordinate cost center based on the cost center or project task which is assigned to the supplier invoice. Superordinate cost center is one level above in the cost center hierarchy ".

So, the account assignment type should be either cost center or project task.

However, if IMAT is the account assignment type , then the cost center field becomes non-mandatory as IMAT is the required account assignment field now, hence system is not able to identify  the account assignment type here and hence not triggering approval correctly. Cost center field is optional now.

If we create the invoice with same details and set account assignment type as cost center, then the super ordinate cost center manager gets determined correctly but not when IMAT is set as account assignment type.

Resolution

Rule 1: Approval by Cost Assignment
This step does not consider account assignment type & simply checks if any cost center is assigned on item level. If yes, then it's manager will be picked as approver. 

Rule 2: Approval by Cost Center Manager based on Superordinate Cost Center (The manager of the superordinated cost center based on the cost center or project task which is assigned to the supplier invoice has to approve)

This step considers "account assignment type" as it has to pick the superordinate unit based on hierarchy. That is why it only takes account assignment type as "cost Center" or "Project"(not "IMAT").

Please create supplier invoice with cost center as account assignment type and this rule will work as expected.

Keywords

superordinate cost center approver, supplier invoice approval , KBA , AP-SIP-SIV , Supplier Invoice , Problem

Product

SAP Business ByDesign all versions