04.01.2021

Stock overview in document evaluations (dead-stock, slow moving items, inventory turnover, …)

by Dominik Tylczyński

Since long time SAP ERP ECC features a set of very useful inventory management reports, called “Document Evaluations”. They are all located in the SAP menu path: Information Systems -> Logistics -> Inventory management -> Material -> Document Evaluations

 

 

Inventory Management document evaluations reports

 

Out-of-the-box SAP provides tools to measure vital inventory KPIs like stock levels, dead stock, inventory turns, coverages etc.

 

What is neat about the reports is that they are based directly on material documents, without any intermediate statistical data. That makes them resistant to reckless configuration changes. You just can’t break them. You can only choke them with excessive data volumes if archiving is neglected.

 

All of them are nicely harmonized:

 

  • feature consistent selection screens,
  • present data in matching lists,
  • provide similar interactive functions.

 

The interactive functions are super cool. The reports present inventory graphs of stock levels, cumulative receipt/issues or stock movements and levels in tabular form. All you need to do is to select a material number and choose “Detailed Display”:

 

 

Detailed information of document evaluations reports

 

All was good till SAP phased out MMBE_OLD transaction or RMMBEST report – see note 2210569 – Obsolete Material inventory management transactions

 

Now when you try to branch to stock overview, you get an ugly error message

 

By the way notice that the transaction code is wrong here and misleading. It should be MMBE_OLD, not MC44. Document evaluations are not obsolete, MMBE_OLD is!

 

The problem is easy to fix. All it takes is to replace RMMMBEST with RMMMBESTN in FCODE_0200 form routine in the include LMCGRI0, i.e. replace the code

 

      IF RMCGR-MCALT = 'X'.
        SUBMIT RMMMBEST WITH MS_WERKS IN WERKSTAB
                        WITH MS_MATNR EQ RMCGR-MATNR
        AND RETURN.
      ENDIF.

 

with:

      IF RMCGR-MCALT = 'X'.
        SUBMIT RMMMBESTN WITH MS_WERKS IN WERKSTAB
                         WITH MS_MATNR EQ RMCGR-MATNR
        AND RETURN.
      ENDIF.

 

That minor change makes document evaluations fully functional again.

 

That should’ve been fixed in standard when MMBE_OLD (report RMMMBEST) was made obsolete. It’s definitely not a best software development practice, not to update all the references to functions being phased out.