Here is a fact about Movement Types, not a single stock movement can happen in SAP without it. In SAP, any stock movement represents a three-digit movement type code. Movement types are critical in any SAP transaction involving stock movement, like MIGO. 

Movement types play a vital role in the following areas: 

• First, SAP Screen control, meaning the 3-digit code, determines which fields you see on your screen.
• Quantity field update
• Account determination
• FI integration, where the generation of movement type triggers a FI document entry.

What happens when you enter a movement in SAP? 

Once you enter a movement in let’s say MIGO and save, a chain of events occurs in the system, including:

1. Generation of a material document 
2. A financial accounting document is generated if the movement is accounting relevant. 
3. The stock numbers/quantities are updated in the system.
4. The value of the stock is updated and its corresponding consumption accounts.

SAP Movement types examples:

Below are some examples of movement types in SAP

• A goods receipt against a purchase order or production order
• A goods issue to production
• A goods issue to cost center
• A return to vendor
• A sale to a customer
• A scrap posting
• A storage location-to-storage location transfer
• A plant-to-plant transfer
• A transfer from quality inspection stock into unrestricted stock
• A transfer from consignment stock into own stock

As you can see from the above, choosing a movement type should be considered as a vital decision upon saving the movement in the system, and you need to remember the following very important another message: 

Let’s run a small scenario to have this idea stick: You received your laptops from your supplier, and you warehouse people are happy, they received a total of 100 laptops, and boom the warehouse clerk went to MIGO, did a MIGO reception against the PO, put a Q of 100, and flagged the infamous Item Ok indicator, and saved. A couple of hours later, your warehouse manager calls you and says: sorry but we made a huge mistake, we should not have received these materials, as they belong to a different PO. What do you do in this case? 

In this example, you added the stock with movement type 101, the most used Movement Type for a goods receipt against a purchase order.

You have two options here; you can either:

Reverse the document that you created by mistake. To do this, go to:
MIGO – Material Document – Cancel – Insert the number you made by mistake, Press Enter, select the items you want to cancel, Post the document.

Or

Use the reversal movement type. Again, let’s go back to our example above. You received 100 laptops from your supplier, but instead of using the default movement, 101, you will need to take the reversal movement type, which is, in this case, 102. 

Fact: Any movement type has a reversal of +1; the 101 (goods receipt) example has the 102 (101+1) reversal associated with it. 

You can read more about movement type 101 in my dedicate post here:

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Movement types in Warehouse Management (WM)

The use case of reversal movements is too many to specify in this article, but you can use this functionality to reverse partial quantities, which can be helpful. The difference between the two options that I just provided you is that by the Cancel option, you can only switch the total amount while you can cancel certain items by using the reversal movement.

In addition, movement types are not only used in materials management (MM), but movement types are also widely used in Warehouse Management (WM) module. Movement types in WM specify references postings with the following information:

Stock category for the quants created by the movement
Indicator controlling the creation of transfer requirements and posting a change notice.
Movement types in WM essentially control what goes out or in the warehouse and provide the following helpful info:

1. Interim storage area
2. Type of interim storage bin
3. Control indicators for processing, confirming, and printing transfer orders 
4. Indicator for finding the storage type in the warehouse. 

How to create a new SAP movement type

You can create or re-configure the movement types in the system however you please. However, if you have a specific case where you need to create a new procedure that does not exist in SAP, the key to take here is to copy an existing movement type instead of creating one from scratch. SAP recommends that you copy the movement type you’d like to use and use the first letter Z. You can easily mess up the settings or miss a control indicator if you create one by scratch, so please use that route instead.

However, I’d suggest that you look first at the hundreds of already pre-configured movement types in the system for all kinds, such as stock transfer, transfer posting, withdrawal, or reversal. 
My recommendation, in this case, is to just configure an already set up movement for your own needs and take it as a last resort to set up your own. 

Transaction Code: OMJJ or via IMG (SPRO) through the following:
Materials Management – Inventory Management and Physical Inventory – Movement Types – Copy – Change Movement Types 

Another critical fact to know here is that, upon any goods movement (receipt, issue, or transfer) post in the system, two documents will be automatically be produced, and they are the following: 

• Material document: Think about this one as proof that the movement has taken place and serves as a reference for downstream (three-way match) payment.

• Accounting document: A parallel document is created here with the idea that if the movement triggers a financial implication on the company, a G/L account entry is enabled. The general rule here is that there is 1:1 relationship between material and accounting document, but if the movement triggers multiple plants for example, multiple accounting documents will be created. To view these documents, use the Tcode: FB03.

Note: there are certain cases where accounting documents are not generated, for example, storage location to storage location stock transfers or intercompany stock transfers where no accounting movement has occurred to trigger a change in the material’s valuation.

Now that you have a general idea of what is movement type in SAP, let us detail some known movement types in the system:

SAP Movement Types

Conclusion

Always remember that any of these movements above are reversed by adding +1

I hope this brief introduction of movement types in SAP gave you a better idea of its usecase, and as always, if you have any comments or requests, please do not hesitate to drop them down below! One more note, if you like our articles, why don’t you join our mailing list? We take a very serious approach with our quality content, and our goal is to inform interested readers like you on all things related to SAP and spend management.

Make sure to check our companion MM link regarding SAP MM Tables!

References

Movement types, https://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/ERPLO/Movement+types

Inventory Management and Optimization in SAP ERP, Elke Roettig 

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Omar Olwan

By day: SAP MM and Ariba consultant with 10 years of experience in implementing rolling out spend management software in more than 13 countries across 3 continents. By night: night owl publishing articles in the spend management and procurement space.

Summary: A geek by day and night.

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