Entering the Invoice (MIRO)

When you receive an invoice for goods or services that relates to a PO, you
can enter it using Transaction MIRO (or Logistics Materials
Management Logistics Invoice Verification MIROEnter Invoice). This
transaction allows you to pull in data from the POfor example, vendor,
quantity, description, and account assignments, as well as information about
the receipt of any goods or services.
Scanning software can read these details automatically, getting better over
time as it learns where it can find the required details for each vendor, such
as PO number, invoice number, date, tax, and so on. You will need to enter
the fields that cannot be copied from the PO manually.
People using Transaction MIRO for the first time sometimes worry that they
are changing the actual PO and thereby allowing an unauthorized purchase to
occur, but this is not the case. Transaction MIRO copies information to the
invoice screen to save retyping, but the posted invoice must match the invoice
received, not the PO. If the invoice is incorrect, a credit note will resolve any
errors. The PO itself remains unchanged even if you change a quantity or
price in the invoice, although the PO history updates after saving the invoice.
When an invoice is posted, the system produces both a material document
and a financial document. The material document shows the detail of the
invoice based on the information in the PO, whereas the financial
posting shows the credit to the vendor account and the debits to the relevant
costs, inventory, fixed assets, and tax accounts.
Tip
If you only see the MM document number when saving a MIRO invoice, you
can amend your user settings in Transaction SU13 by adding in the
parameters as per Figure 19, so that the finance document number appears
as well.

Figure 19Transaction SU13:User Parameters

This section discusses the different document types and transactions that can
be used for entering an invoice, the various types of invoice verification, and
the effects of tolerance limits on payment blocks.

5.1Types of Invoice Verification

When entering an invoice, depending on the settings in the PO, you can either
link the invoice to a specific delivery (e.g., a GR or service) or post against the
PO line item. The setting is initially set in the vendor master data in the
purchasing screen and is transferred to the Invoice tab in the item detail of
the PO, but you can change this setting when creating the PO.
Tip
Setting the Final invoice indicator in the PO line item detail will reset the PO
commitments, but does not prevent further invoices being posted.
You can choose different types of invoice verification. In the following
subsections, we will look at each type in detail.
Purchase Order-Based Invoice Verification
When you enter the PO number in the invoice transaction, the system
proposes the outstanding quantity per PO line, regardless of the number of
GRs. Because of this, the invoice can be posted even if no GR or service
entry sheet has been posted. This is called PO-based invoice verification.
On the one hand, it may be convenient to allow the invoice to be posted when
received, without having to wait for a GRparticularly if the invoices are being

received electronicallyand it avoids the extra work involved in matching

accurately. On the other hand, if you have a lot of GRs against one line item, it
may be harder to reconcile discrepancies with the vendor if they are not linked
to the same delivery as the vendor intended. Figure 20 illustrates how SAP
groups the documents in the PO structure, which can be seen on the left-hand
side of the Transaction MIRO entry screen.

Figure 20PO Structures for Different Invoice Verification Scenarios in

Transaction MIRO
Goods Receipt-Based Invoice Verification
For GR-based invoice verification, matching is based on delivery rather than
PO item. Three-way matching will always be performed whether the indicator
for GR-based invoice verification is on or not, but it may help to know which
delivery an invoice refers to in disputes with vendors.
This invoice verification type may be preferable when the PO line item is for a
large quantity of items delivered in installments and the vendor sends one
invoice referring to specific GRs. Often, companies choose to use this
indicator for all vendors to prevent users posting invoices for which there is no
GR (especially if they do not want the interface to fail). However, it may be
more efficient to set the indicator on a vendor-by-vendor basis, depending on
how each vendor raises invoices and how they relate to deliveries. If one
vendor summarizes all deliveries on an invoice and another does not, why not
use the most efficient setting and have the data presented to match the
vendors methods when the invoice is entered?

In general, the reversal of a GR can only take place if there is no invoice, but
there is a setting in the configuration that allows you to perform the reversal
regardless while still keeping the ability to match the invoice to the GR.
Service-Based Invoice Verification
In order to create a service entry sheet, you must select the Goods
Receipt indicator. You can then choose how you want to post the invoice
against the service or service entry sheet line items, by selecting the GRbased invoice verification and/or the Service-based invoice
verification checkbox. You can also choose to set it for some lines in a PO
and not others. You will find the Service-based invoice verification indicator
in the same areas as the GR-based invoice verification indicator, in both the
master records and transactions.
Posting an invoice for services is fairly similar to posting an invoice for goods,
and you can also post credit memos and subsequent debits and credits
against a service in the same way.
Tip
When entering the MIRO invoice, change the invoice layout so that the
service-relevant fields are visible on the left instead of the normal fields; you
will see a layout box on the right-hand side of the initial screen line item
details. Figure 21 shows the layout button.
Blanket Purchase Orders
Blanket POs can be used for items for which it is not practical to raise an
individual PO and GR for each item, such as flowers, stationery, nuts and
bolts, certain services, utility bills, franking machine transactions, and so on.
The PO needs to be created as a framework order document type, with item
category B. In the line item area of Transaction MIRO, the line item may
appear to be grayed out, but if you scroll to the right and click on
the Edit button, a popup screen will appear in which you can enter the details,
listing as many items, cost centers, and so on as required (see Figure 21).

Figure 21Amending Line Items of Blanket PO in Transaction MIRO

Invoices without Reference to a Purchase Order
Sometimes, you may decide not to raise a PO for a particular type of invoice
for example, a freight invoice referring to multiple POs. If you do not know
the exact amount in advance and freight is configured to post to a separate
freight account rather than individual stock items, then it will be timeconsuming and will add little value to assign freight to individual PO items.
When an invoice does not have a PO, companies tend to enter it manually in
the Finance module using Transaction FB60, which also allows fast entry and
the use of templates.
It is also possible to enter an invoice without a PO using Transaction MIRO.
Perhaps you know a that PO is coming, and in the meantime you want to park
the invoice on the vendor account; or perhaps you just want users to only
have one process or one transaction for everything. (For more information on
invoice parking, see Invoice Parking (MIR7).)
To post the invoice to the vendor account without pulling the vendor in from
the PO, select the Details tab in the header part of the entry screen and enter
the vendor number in theInvoicing Party field. Figure 22 shows a sample
invoice in Transaction MIRO without a PO.
Because there is no PO to pull in the account assignments, you will need to
enter these manually. To post against the G/L account and cost objects (such
as cost center, internal order, etc.), select the G/L Account tab in the item part
of the entry screen, and then enter the amount and account assignments as
required.

Figure 22G/L Account Information in Transaction MIRO for an Invoice without

a PO

Matching
When entering a MIRO invoice and matching the line items in the invoice with
the items in SAP, the most common method is to pull the information in by PO
number. However, there are other options (see the dropdown lists
in Figure 23).
If you have a large number of items in the PO and the invoices match each
delivery, then you may prefer to enter the delivery number instead of the PO.
You can also select by vendor if you do not know the PO number, but only if
you can then reliably identify the correct PO. Otherwise, if there is a query and
you have posted the invoice against the incorrect PO, you may struggle to
resolve the query.

Figure 23Transaction MIRO: Options for Matching and Layout