SAP PO Confirmation Control Based on WM-Managed Storage Location

Business Requirement

In some SAP procurement scenarios, Purchase Order confirmations are required only when material is received into a Warehouse Management (WM)-managed storage location.

The requirement is:

• WM-managed storage location: Confirmation Control Key should be determined automatically in the Purchase Order.
• IM-managed storage location: Confirmation Control Key should remain blank.
• The Supplier and Purchasing Info Record are maintained at Supplier / Purchasing Organization / Material / Plant level, not at storage-location level.
• Therefore, maintaining the Confirmation Control Key in supplier-related master data does not meet this requirement.

The objective is to determine confirmation processing dynamically based on the PO storage location.

What Is a Confirmation Control Key?

The Confirmation Control Key in a Purchase Order controls which supplier confirmations are expected and their sequence. Depending on the business process, confirmations can include:

• Order acknowledgement
• Shipping notification
• Inbound delivery
• Other predefined confirmation types

For WM-integrated procurement, an Inbound Delivery is particularly useful because warehouse activities can be planned and executed before the physical goods receipt.

Configuration Approach

SAP provides configuration under Logistics Execution → Shipping → Deliveries → Define Order Confirmations for Inbound Deliveries, as highlighted in the IMG screenshot.

This configuration can be used to influence inbound-delivery-relevant confirmation processing based on the receiving warehouse/storage-location setup.

Expected Determination

PO Storage Location	Warehouse Scenario	Confirmation Control
WM-managed	Warehouse processing required	Automatically determined
IM-managed	Inventory Management only	Remain blank

Example

A Purchase Order is created for the same Supplier + Material + Plant combination:

PO Item → Storage Location RM01 → Confirmation Control Key determined → Inbound Delivery process

PO Item → Storage Location RM02 → Confirmation Control Key blank → Standard IM Goods Receipt

This avoids maintaining the Confirmation Control Key at Supplier or Purchasing Info Record level, where the system cannot distinguish between WM and IM storage locations within the same plant.

Why This Configuration Is Useful

The solution keeps master data simple while allowing the Purchase Order process to react according to the actual receiving storage location.

Key benefits:

• Confirmation is triggered only where warehouse processing requires it.
• IM-managed storage locations are not unnecessarily forced through inbound delivery processing.
• No duplicate supplier or Purchasing Info Record maintenance is required.
• One Supplier / Material / Plant combination can support both WM and IM procurement scenarios.
• The PO automatically follows the appropriate logistics process based on the receiving location.

Conclusion

When the same Supplier and Material can deliver to both WM-managed and IM-managed storage locations, maintaining the Confirmation Control Key directly in master data is not flexible enough.

Using storage-location-dependent determination provides a cleaner approach:

WM Storage Location → Confirmation Control Key → Inbound Delivery → Warehouse Processing
IM Storage Location → No Confirmation Control Key → Standard Goods Receipt

This configuration aligns the Purchase Order confirmation process with the actual warehouse requirement while minimizing master-data maintenance.