SAP and 'plants abroad' - Cross border stock transfers and plants abroad
Cross border stock transfers and plants abroad
With the plants abroad functionality a plant abroad invoice (document type WIA) for cross-Border (intra-company) stock transfer can be created between a foreign plant (e.g. warehouse in France) and a domestic plant (e.g. warehouse in Germany) as such transaction is deemed to be a fictitious intra community transaction from a VAT perspective.
In the below example, an intra-community acquisition of goods via reverse-charge mechanism needs to be reported in the German VAT return and an intra-community dispatch in the French VAT return. These transactions also need to be reported in the Intrastat report.
The SAP impact of activating plants abroad
The "Plants Abroad" functionality is integrated within the Sales and Distribution (SD), Materials Management (MM), and Financial Accounting (FI) modules. By activating this functionality, new fields are added at the transaction level, and these standard database fields for "Plants Abroad" are available in every SAP environment.
Among the enhancements, a new field labeled "Tax Reporting Country" has been introduced in the tax code properties. This field also appears on VAT return reports and the EC Sales List. Additionally, a new currency field has been incorporated to facilitate the conversion of VAT-relevant amounts into the currency of the tax reporting country. The functionality supports new processes for stock transfers, including intra-company replenishments and consignment business, enabling the creation of self-invoices through the “WIA” process.
While "Plants Abroad" serves as a global cross-functional setting in SAP, it can also be implemented selectively for specific company codes. From a VAT perspective, the risk associated with activating the "Plants Abroad" functionality in SAP is minimal.