Pricing Simulation in SAP ERP – In Mind Cloud

This is a pricing scenario where the In Mind Cloud Digital Sales Platform (DSP) is used for quotation and configuration but for pricing, ERP is used directly. It is also known as external pricing, external because the pricing happens outside of DSP, in the ERP system. DSP users can do price simulation in ERP to get the individual price of sales items and the quotation price together with pricing conditions. All the pricing conditions, pricing procedures, and the determination of pricing procedures are maintained in the SAP ERP system. This BAPI based pricing simulation makes uses of different BAPI’s depending on the implementation. The result of pricing simulation is the sales item price, quotation price, pricing condition, and scheduled delivery items.

There are three main use cases:

The first one is when a customer wants to use non-configurable products in a quotation, is using SAP Cloud for Customer (CFC), has an SAP CFC add-on installed on their ERP. In this case, DSP uses BAPI COD_SALESORDER_SIMULATE. This BAPI supports features such as credit limit check and delivery information. However, it does not support the passing of configuration data to ERP.

The second use case is when a customer uses ERP product models in DSP, the products/items in quotes are a combination of configurable and non-configurable products. Configuration Engine in use is SSC (to render product models coming from ERP). In this case, DSP uses BAPI_SALESORDER_SIMULATE to do price simulation. This BAPI accepts the configuration of the configurable products and pricing conditions. However, it does not support the customer credit limit check.

The third use case is like the second one with only one major difference. In this case, DSP uses its on-product models for configurable products. Classified product and pricing conditions from ERP can still be used.

Price Simulation with The Usage of Cloud for Customer Add-on BAPI

Price Simulation with the usage of Cloud for Customer Add-on BAPI (COD_SALESORDER_SIMULATE – BAPI 1). Note that this BAPI cannot be used with Variant Configuration.

Price Simulation with The Usage of Standard BAPI

Price Simulation with the usage of standard BAPI (BAPI_SALESORDER_SIMULATE – BAPI 2). It is especially useful with the use of SSC (Solution Sales Configuration). It is helpful in case the customer has written custom code in pricing logic on the ERP side. Calling pricing simulation gets the pricing logic in ERP executed. This BAPI can be used together with Variant Configuration (LO_VC) or with DSP configuration logic.

BAPI Overview

These two BAPIs work for pricing simulation and most of the input and output parameters are the same. However, the following data points/features are not supported in BAPI_SALESORDER_SIMULATE.

CREDIT_LIMIT (Credit limit of an account)
CREDIT_EXPOSURE_AMOUNT (Exposure amount of an account)
CREDIT_EXCEEDED_AMOUNT (Exceeded amount of an account)
NET_PRICE (Unit Price of Sales Item)
NET_VAL_HD (Total Price of Quote)

Import Parameters

Summary of Import Parameters (Parameter to be passed to external pricing):

Parameter	Mandatory/ Optional	Description	BAPI Applied
Account	Mandatory	ERP ID of account must be maintained in DSP. This account ERP ID is also used as partner BUYER_PARTY and SHIP_TO_PATY.	1,2
Sales Document Type	Mandatory	ERP ID of sales document type must be maintained in DSP.	1,2
Sales Organization	Mandatory	ERP ID of sales organization must be maintained in DSP.	1,2
Distribution Channel	Mandatory	ERP ID of the distribution channel must be maintained in DSP.	1,2
Shipping Condition	Optional	ERP ID of shipping condition must be maintained in DSP
Division	Optional	ERP ID of division must be maintained in DSP.	1,2
Request Delivery Date	Optional	Quote requested date.	1,2
Pricing Date	Optional	Quote pricing date.	1,2
Valid from Date	Optional	Either quote effective date or quote creation date.	1,2
Valid to Date	Optional	Sales document expiry date.	1,2
Currency	Optional	Even though the currency is optional in BAPI call, if we do not pass currency, default currency defined in ERP is used which can lead to wrong pricing values.	1,2
Products	Optional	External pricing will skip on the product that does not have an ERP ID. External pricing will skip on the product that is marked as not to export to ERP. External pricing will skip on the product if the product is marked as optional (i.e., “salesItemOptional” is true).	1,2
Price Items	Optional	Price Items can be of two different types, header price Items and item Price Items. DSP allows manually created price items to export to an external system and let them involve in pricing. The ERP IDs of these manually created price items must be maintained in DSP system.	1,2
Price Group	Optional	ERP ID of price group must be maintained in the DSP system.	1,2
Price List	Optional	ERP ID of price list must be maintained in the DSP system.	1,2
Variant Configuration	Optional	Applicable only to BAPI_SALESORDER_SIMULATE.	2

Export Parameters

Summary of Export Parameters (Return Value from external pricing)

Parameter	Description	BAPI Applied
Price Item	Price Item belongs to both the Header level and Item level. These price Items with correct ERP ID needs to be maintained in DSP beforehand.	1,2
Document Header Net Value	The total value of quote price returned from the external system.	1
Item Header Unit Price	The unit price for each of the sales items from the external system.	1
Item Header Net Value	Total price for each of the sales items from the external system. The value is already multiplied with the quantity.	1,2
Schedule Line Item	Each of the schedule line items contains delivery date, delivery time together with the required quantity, and confirm quantity.	1,2
Messages	DSP show all the messages (success, error, and warning) as a notification from the ERP system without filtering.	1,2

Note: Price simulation with variant configuration only returns item header net value. It does not return the item header net price and document header net value. However, DSP is adding up all the item header net values to yield document header net value which is quotation price.

Ref: 1 refers to COD_SALESORDER_SIMULATE. 2 refers to BAPI_SALESORDER_SIMULATE.

Result of Pricing Simulation

The figure below shows the pricing information of a sales item after executing ERP pricing simulation successfully.

The Quantity, Net Price, Net Value and Total Price are displayed on top of the price item table where:

Quantity: The amount or number of sales items.
Net Price*: The value for one quantity or unit price of the sales item in the order line item.
Net Value*: The value for all the quantities of the sales item in the order line item.
Total Price*: The net price x quantity

* The value could bind from SPARQL or IMCScript with custom logic applied to it. For example, when some manual prices (called shipping fee or service fee) are added to the sales item, but they are not defined in ERP, thus ERP does not contain the manual price. The total price SPARQL or IMCScript can apply those manual price items fee to the sales item.

The Price Item table displays the detail of the price item/pricing condition (return from SSC) as below:

No	Column	Description
1.	ID	The sequence ID of the pricing condition. The ID starts from 0 if the price item is returned from ERP whereas it is 6 digits if it is returned from SSC. The price item/pricing condition’s status (active/inactive) is shown in front of the ID.
2.	ERP ID	The ERP ID of the price item type.
3.	Price Item Type	A price item type/condition type is a representation in the system of some aspect of the daily pricing activities. For example, discount or surcharge that occurs in the business transactions. The type of price item (Percent or Value) is shown at the end of it.
4.	Pricing Date	The date of the price item valid.
5.	Amount	The base amount of the price item which comprises base amount value and base currency.
6.	Per	The base unit and unit of measurement of the price item. This is only applicable for SSC and ERP Pricing.
7.	Target Amount	The target amount of the price item which comprises target amount value and target currency.
8.	Source	The indicator showing the price item comes from ERP or CPQ (CPQ and SSC)
9.	Description	The label of the price item type.