Dear TM Fraternity, 

In a typical transportation scenario, quite often, there is more than one vendor that provides logistical services for a shipment. For example, a main line-haul Carrier and an Additional Agreement Party that provides loading/unloading service (for example) for the same shipment. 

In SAP TM, the Freight document can have a Carrier and Additional Agreement Parties as Business Partners that are applicable for charge calculation. 

Charges in the Freight document can be calculated by default at the Header, Item, or Stage level. This setting can be found in the Calculation Profile as shown below.

Problem Statement – 

Using an Additional Agreement Party erases charges calculated for the Carrier in the Freight document when Charge Calculation is done at either Stage or Item level.

In other words, the problem is seen when the calculation profile is set to either Stage or Item level for Charge Calculation. 

In the scenario below on S4 version 2020, the calculation profile is set to stage level according to business requirements. 

• Freight document with a main Carrier and charges calculated at Stage level. This is a typical Rail Freight document with a Rule 11 scenario with 2 charge calculations and invoicing parties.

Before adding an Additional Agreement Party

Stage-level charges for main Carriers

• An Additional Agreement Party was added to capture handling and loading fees for the same shipment. The existing charges were either erased or recalculated.

An Additional Agreement Party was added

Charge for main Carriers erased due to calculation at Header level for the entire Freight document

Reason – 

As highlighted below, until S4 version 2022, if an Additional Agreement Party is included in the Freight document, the system calculates charges for all parties, including the main carrier at the Header level. Hence, any existing charges calculated within the Freight document are either erased or recalculated at a Header level. It would be obvious that any manually entered charges will also disappear.

Behavior explained in SAP help

Conclusion – 

Due to the above problem in charge calculation with limitations in standard functionality when an Additional Agreement Party is used, I have proposed an alternative of using the Service Order document on S4 version 2022 or below to capture miscellaneous charges to be paid to parties other than the main carrier. 

Future – 

SAP has released a new feature in the S4 version 2023 that allows you to control charge calculation level in SPRO config (Basic Functions -> Define General Settings for TM -> select the checkbox Header Level Charge Calc. in Freight document with Add. Agreement Party) when an additional agreement party is used in a Freight document. 

I have not tried the new functionality yet to confirm if it can ease the pain of calculating charges with multiple parties in one Freight document.