It is possible to maintain the exchange rates, in SAP, by either of these two methods. What determines the use of a particular type of quotation is the business transaction or the market standard (of that country).
SAP adopts two prefixes to differentiate direct and indirect quotes during entering/displaying a transaction:
- ‘’—Blank, no prefix. Used in Direct Quotation
- ‘/’—Used in Indirect Quotation
When there is no prefix entered, (blank), the quotation is construed as the ‘direct quote’ by the system. Possible scenarios include:
- The company in question is mainly using the ‘Indirect Quotation.’
- Use ‘’ (blank) as the prefix for default notation for indirect quotation. Use ‘’ as the prefix for the rarely used direct quotation. If someone tries entering a transaction using direct quotation, but without the ‘’ in the exchange rate input field, the system will issue a warning.
- The company in question is mainly using the ‘Direct Quotation.’
- You do not need any specific settings as the default is the ‘’ (blank) prefix for the direct quotation, and ‘/’ for the indirect quotation. So, unless you make a transaction entry with ‘/’ prefix, the system takes all the entries as that of direct quotation.
- There could be instances where you are required to configure in such a way that a prefix is mandatory irrespective of the type of quotation. In this case, define the direct quotation prefix as ‘’, and the indirect one as the system default ‘/’ prefix. This necessitates a prefix each of the entries either by ‘’ or ‘/.’ Otherwise, the user will get a warning to correct the entry.