Another possible approach is to trigger a workflow in one of the available user exits for credit management (as far as I know, there is no standard workflow that you can use for the purpose, so you need to discuss the implementation details with your workflow consultant).
For example you can determine the responsible agents by assigning T024B organizational object type to the respective positions or organizational units in PP01 with values for credit control area and credit representative group.
In this way you will not need to worry about people changing responsibilities.
You can also request the workflow to be triggered only for activated combination of credit control area and credit representative group in a separate Z-table (assuming that you might have at least 3 credit representative groups in a credit control area, but do not want to use workflow for all of them despite the fact that the customers share the same risk category).
In addition you will need to restrict the usage of VKM* transactions per credit representative group and activity - V_KNKK_FRE seems a good option.
Pros: good flexibility (as many approval levels as you wish to have in the future, the responsible persons will be determined automatically from the organizational structure), possible to monitor processing deadlines, possible to monitor and reprocess workflow items with error status.
Cons: you need an ABAP-er for the user exit and a workflow expert (which means higher cost), somebody from the support team should be responsible for resolving potential problems with the workflow in a productive environment.
I have no idea what can be the performance impact - this is something that you can estimate better than me.
Regarding adding levels of credit approval from business perspective:
Usually credit limit granting is based on several factors - to note just a few:
- how much a customer purchases from the company - for example key accounts like big chains buy in bulk due to higher demand in their shops. Depending on the business they can be the source of a major part of the company revenue. You really do not wish to upset your VIP clients with delays in order processing.
- what is the risk of not getting paid on time or not getting paid at all - normally you would not agree to deliver a full truck of products to a new client before ensuring that he is trustworthy or without asking payment in advance/bank guarantee/payment on delivery.
The credit clerk is expected to perform most of his daily tasks without further supervision (he has adequate knowledge about his customers). He would need a second opinion or approval from his supervisor only in really specific cases, which are not based only on the customer credit limit, but the reason why the order is blocked.
Example - a medium risk customer with credit limit 200 000, who is supposed to pay 1 week after the delivery places an order for 400 000 with payment due on the day after delivery. This may be somethig that the credit supervisor should decide whether it is acceptable to release the order.
My point is: you grant a higher credit limit to customers that you trust that will pay, which is the opposite of what your client requests.
Unless he actually needs a check not against the credit limit, but on combination of credit limit used % and (credit exposure-credit limit) value, which would make more sense.
Message was edited by: Veselina Peykova