ICS · PROJECT PROOF
How does the Branch–Affiliated Supply process become production-ready?
Follow one affiliate-supplied direct-delivery implementation from the first business workshop to stable operations. The project must align customer sales, group procurement, Affiliated Supply fulfilment, internal settlement, external billing, tax, accounting, and integration.
PROJECT PHASE
Discover
Clarify the real business relationship
What the team does
Meet Branch Sales, Customer Service, Purchasing, Finance, Tax, Credit and IT together with Affiliated Supply Sales, Supply Chain, Warehouse, Finance, Tax and integration owners. Observe actual orders, shipments, invoices, journals, spreadsheets, and exceptions.
Intercompany project moment
The phrase “drop ship from HQ” initially hides three different possibilities. The team confirms that Branch is principal seller, Affiliated Supply is the affiliated supplier, and the target uses TAS/PR/PO rather than Plants Abroad or classic intercompany plant fulfilment.
Evidence to leave behind
Approved scope, legal-entity and system map, baseline volumes, sample documents, pain points, stakeholder ownership, tax questions, assumptions, and success measures.
PROJECT PHASE
Fit to standard
Choose the smallest viable document chain
What the team does
Demonstrate standard third-party order processing and compare it with classic and advanced intercompany sales. Challenge manual rekeying, email confirmations, spreadsheet invoice matching, and billing before reliable supply evidence.
Intercompany project moment
The business accepts automatic PR creation and PO-based sourcing to Affiliated Supply. It retains supplier-invoice-based customer billing because it needs the final supplied quantity and cost before invoicing, subject to the approved billing policy.
Evidence to leave behind
Fit/gap register, selected process variant, accepted standard behaviours, justified gaps, release assumptions, owners, acceptance criteria, and decision log.
PROJECT PHASE
Design
Connect commercial, physical, and financial truth
What the team does
Design organisations, partners, materials, source determination, TAS and schedule-line control, procurement, interfaces, confirmations, direct delivery, supplier invoice, customer billing, pricing, tax, accounting, output, authorisation, monitoring, and reversals.
Intercompany project moment
The design states exactly how the customer ship-to address reaches Affiliated Supply, which Affiliated Supply event confirms shipment, how the HQ invoice references the Branch PO, and how MIRO quantity updates billing relevance F on the customer sales item.
Evidence to leave behind
Signed process and solution design, RACI, data dictionary, interface contracts, accounting entries, tax and transfer-pricing approval, control design, role concept, test conditions, and unresolved decisions.
PROJECT PHASE
Configure
Build in dependency order
What the team does
Configure the smallest complete scenario, document each setting and rationale, prepare master data, build mappings and output, transport dependencies together, and prove unit results before expanding variants.
Intercompany project moment
One Branch OR order determines TAS and the procurement schedule line, creates the PR, converts to a PO to Affiliated Supply, transmits the customer destination, receives the HQ invoice, and becomes eligible for order-related billing.
Evidence to leave behind
Configuration workbook, transport log, master-data readiness, interface mappings, unit evidence, forms/output proof, security roles, defects, and technical debt decisions.
PROJECT PHASE
Test
Prove two companies as one customer story
What the team does
Run unit, string, system-integration, regression, authorisation, performance, operational-readiness, and user-acceptance tests. Reconcile documents, quantities, dates, values, tax, currencies, statuses, messages, postings, and reversals.
Intercompany project moment
A complete order runs from Branch SO through PR/PO, Affiliated Supply order and shipment, HQ invoice, Branch MIRO, customer invoice, and payment. Partial supply, price variance, credit block, failed EDI, duplicate message, invoice block, cancellation, and return paths are also proven.
Evidence to leave behind
Passed end-to-end evidence, cross-company reconciliation, defect decisions, retest results, business acceptance, interface recovery proof, control sign-off, and known residual risk.
PROJECT PHASE
Cut over
Synchronise two companies and their integrations
What the team does
Sequence transports, workflows, roles, Business Partners, materials, sources, prices, tax data, mappings, output, interfaces, monitoring, open transactions, jobs, forms, and reconciliation checkpoints. Rehearse timing, fallback, and ownership.
Intercompany project moment
Branch and Affiliated Supply load reciprocal partner data and aligned materials, activate PO and invoice messages in a controlled window, validate the first master-data set, then run one smoke order without manually repairing the cross-company reference.
Evidence to leave behind
Approved cutover plan, timed rehearsal, owners by company, validation totals, interface enablement checklist, open-order treatment, contingency triggers, communications, and go/no-go decision.
PROJECT PHASE
Go live & stabilise
Operate the hand-offs, not just each system
What the team does
Monitor sales items without PRs, unconverted PRs, unreleased or unsent POs, missing acknowledgements, late deliveries, failed messages, blocked supplier invoices, billing-due exceptions, accounting failures, value differences, and ageing open items.
Intercompany project moment
Several Branch orders are not billing due although Affiliated Supply shipped. The team traces the common point to a missing invoice reference in one interface message, corrects the mapping, safely reprocesses affected items, and reconciles the financial result.
Evidence to leave behind
Daily cross-company controls, resolved root causes, reconciled backlog, support runbooks, monitoring thresholds, accepted improvements, ownership transfer, and stabilisation exit criteria.
THE CONNECTING THREAD
One customer order must remain traceable across both companies
A workshop decision is not complete until the same intent appears in configuration, messages, operational documents, accounting evidence, cutover checks, and support monitoring.
- 01Customer needDemand
- 02Fit decisionScope
- 03TAS/PR/PO designProcurement
- 04Affiliated Supply fulfilmentDelivery
- 05Two invoice chainsSettlement
- 06Production controlOperate
PROJECT CONTROL BOARD
The exceptions that deserve named owners
Successful projects design these queues before go-live rather than discovering them during the first failed order.
Demand creation
Sales orders without TAS, schedule line, PR, source, or approved credit status.
Procurement release
PRs not converted, POs blocked, output not sent, or supplier acknowledgement missing.
Supply execution
Late confirmation, partial delivery, failed PGI, wrong ship-to, or shipment evidence missing.
Internal settlement
Supplier invoice missing, duplicated, blocked, mismatched, or posted to the wrong account.
Customer billing
Invoice-received quantity not updating billing due, value or tax differences, or accounting posting blocked.
Cross-company reconciliation
Affiliated Supply receivable versus Branch payable, transfer-price difference, currency variance, and intercompany ageing.
Use the overview for shared language, mechanics for the document chain, execution for swimlanes, and design proof for controls.