3613956 - Behavior of Reason for Rejection in Third-Party/Externally Procured Sales Order Items (SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition)

When working with externally procured (third-party) sales order items, users observe the following:

1. Warning messages appear when attempting to change the rejection reason, e.g.:

   • “Subsequent documents already exist for item &” (Message V1 036)

2. The user can change the rejection reason (e.g., from one value to another), even when a Purchase Order, Goods Receipt, and Supplier Invoice already exist.

3. When attempting to remove the rejection reason (set the field to blank), the system issues the hard error:

   • “Delete purchase order &1 and item &2 first.” (Message V1 597)
     And the system blocks saving.

4. The behavior seems inconsistent with documentation that says the rejection reason “cannot be changed once the item is fulfilled.”

SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition

1. Create a sales order item with item category CBAB (externally procured).

2. Save the order → system creates a Purchase Requisition.

3. Convert the PR to a Purchase Order.

4. Post Goods Receipt and Supplier Invoice for the PO.

5. Return to Change Sales Documents → open the item.

6. Change the Reason for Rejection to a different rejection code.

7. Save the sales order.

   • System issues warnings (V1 036), but allows saving.

8. Now attempt to remove the rejection reason (set to blank).

   • System raises error V1 597 and blocks saving.

This behavior is intentional and standard in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition.

Once a sales order item has follow-on procurement documents such as a Purchase Order, Goods Receipt, or Supplier Invoice SAP protects the procurement chain to ensure data and process consistency.

Because of this:

• The system still allows the rejection reason to be changed from one value to another, as this does not affect the validity or sequence of procurement documents.

• However, the system does not allow the rejection reason to be removed entirely once procurement has progressed. Removing it would imply the item is no longer rejected and could resume fulfillment, which is not possible when PO/GR/IR already exist.

The hard-stop message “Delete purchase order &1 and item &2 first” is therefore triggered only when the user attempts to clear the rejection reason, not when updating it to another value.

No correction is required, the system is functioning as designed.

Users may update the rejection reason to another valid code, even after procurement is completed.
This is allowed because it does not re-open the item for fulfillment.

However, users cannot remove the rejection reason once follow-on procurement documents exist. This restriction prevents inconsistencies between the sales order and the procurement lifecycle.

If the business requires the ability to completely remove or reset the rejection reason despite existing PO/GR/IR, this represents a new functional requirement. Such a change would need to be submitted through the SAP Customer Influence Portal as described in SAP Note 2963059.

Help Portal: Manage Sales Orders - Version 2 > Rejection of all Items

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