Difference between Sales Order and Service Order

[Former Member]

Hello!

I would like to know what is the difference between a Sales Order and Service Order?

If you make a Sales Order you can do it for a Service as well. I can also create a Sales Order in a CRM system that will be replicated in the R/3. So I'm a little bit confused.

Hope you can help me.

Thanks

Alex

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Alexander,

Sales order or Service order are the terminology we define in our business and configure in our system accordingly to provide specific business for specific order types. Generally we use Sales order to create an order with tangible goods that involves sale of physical goods and Service order is used to sell the intangible goods like services, training etc for our customer. Both order types have different pricing structure and strategy so we end up creating multiple order types. This also helps us in distinguishing our business in quarterly and annual reporting.

But some times we may need to sell tangible and intangible goods to our customer, eg. a system + Installation fee, A spare part + Repair charges etc. so this business process makes us enable to combine sales and service business process in both order types.

So at the end it all depends on what items we are selling in the sales or service order. Mostly in the service order there would be only service related items, but sales order can contains goods as well as service items.

Hope you are clear.

Plz let me know if you still have any questions.

Regards,

Ajai

Don't forget to reward points if helpful.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thanks. That helped a lot. Are there any business processes I can find on the SAP network? Maybe somewhere in the SAP help docu?

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Alexander,

In SAP Help, you can find the most frequently used business process but you can't find all the different possible scenarios.

Some times its possible to get a change to understand some business process through SAP Journals.

Regards,

Ajai.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Ok, my last question:

Are there any big differences in their process sequences (workflows) I need to know?

Alex

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Process Difference

Sales Order:

Sales Order --> Delivery --> Billing

Service Order:

Service Order --> Billing

Regards,

Rajesh Banka

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

@ Rajesh Banka:

I would say the Service Order Process (short form) is like this:

Service Order --> Provide Service --> Billing

Correct?

Alex

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

From CS (Customer Service) Prospect:

Service Notification --> Service Order --> Provide Service --> Billing

From CRM Prospect:

CRM Service Order (Complaint) --> Provide Service --> CRM Billing

Regards,

Rajesh Banka

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thanks for your answers.

Sorry, a new question arised:

When I create a service order in my CRM system I have to add some goods that are needed to provide the service. So, is there any sales order created (maybe automatically, hidden) for these goods? These goods must be delivered like in a normal sales order although I created a service order.

Or are Sales Order and Service Order absolutely independent?

Alex

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Map the Service order in R/3 as Sales Order. For Product to be supplied use Item Category TAN & for service to be provided, use Item Category TAD. TAN is relevant for Delivery & is Delivery related Billing & TAD is not relevant for Delivery & is Order related Billing. The Item Category will split the 2 into 2 different invoices.

Regards,

Rajesh Banka

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

So, as far as I understand Sales order and Service order are absolutely independent? Right?

Alex

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Alexander,

As we discussed you can make your Service order and Sales order independent by configuring the allowed item categories within the order.

If you are going to sell only tangible goods (Shippable items) in the sales order then only TAN or relevant item categories will be allowed. In the same way if you want a service specific order then only TAD item category will be used in the order.

But, coming to your question .

When I create a service order in my CRM system I have to add some goods that are needed to provide the service. So, is there any sales order created (maybe automatically, hidden) for these goods? These goods must be delivered like in a normal sales order although I created a service order.

In the above case there won't be any hidden sales order. If the ordering process involves both goods and services then invoicing would be issue if customer needs single invoice, as the goods are delivery relevant and services are Order relevant billing.

There is a way to fix this.

You need to define in your Business process that the service items which can be provided along with some goods need to be able to create a delivery. For that you should use the item category TAW and configure the item category to be delivery relevant.

Then when you create the delivery both the goods as well as the service items would be created in the delivery, the difference is the goods are pick able but not the service items.

So all the items in the delivery would be invoiced through delivery related billing.

Sorry for the long response.

But I think its worth.

Regards,

Aj.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

OK, that helped. Thank you very much.

[Former Member]

Hello,

In a repair scenario, the sales order (repair order) is created for bringing in the faulty material , do the repair and then send it back to the customer (outbound delivery).

Service order is created to capture the cost of labour, compents used etc.... the billing can be done through DP90 (resource related billing).

Prase

[Former Member]

The Basic difference in Sales Order & Service Order is Sales Order is Delivery related Billing & Service Order is Order related Billing. To illustrate with Example, say for FMCG / Manufactured product, there will be a physical delivery of a product, this is handled through Sales Order, but Consulting is a service & no physical product can be delivered, but it is service which is rendered., this is Service Order.

It is true thar Sales Order is replicated from CRM system to R/3 system. This is done as Delivery is not supported by CRM & can be carried out in R/3 system.

Regards,

Rajesh Banka