Accounts Payable (A/P)

Accounts payable manages your vendors, their deliveries, the invoices, the payables and the payments. SAP supports all standard payment methods (checks, bank transfers, etc) in printed and electronic form, which you can make fully automatic via the payment program. The FI G/L is always updated with the postings made in FI A/P, there are many reports that give details on due date forecasts, balance confirmations and account statements. In this section we will be covering the following Vendor master data Business transactions Outgoing payments Reporting

Vendor Master Data

Vendor master data contains data about the vendor such as name, address, language, contact details, bank details, account control, etc. This information can also be used in Materials Management (MM), if possible try to maintain each vendor centrally, what I mean is that try to have one and only one account (sometimes its not possible) for the vendor. Vendors master data is grouped into three sections
Purchasing Organization data name, address, language, telephone number, etc control (tax type, trading partner, industry, etc) payment transactions (bank key, bank a/c, alternate payee, etc) contact person accounting information (recon a/c, W/Tax code, interest indicator, etc) payment transactions (payment terms, payment methods, tolerance groups, etc) correspondence (dunning procedure, dunning level, dunning block, accounting clerk)

General data

Company Code data

Purchasing data (conditions (order currency, incoterms, etc), sales data, control data (automatic pu order, GR-based invoice verification, ABC indicator, etc)) Partner functions

A account group determines the characteristics of the master record as the type of number assignment, whether the account is for one-time vendors what fields are to be displayed, etc. Each master records has a unique record number determined by number intervals or an external numbering system. You can restrict access to master records using authorizations. We have already discussed number ranges in our document section, for vendor number ranges we will use transaction code XKN1, you can see the number ranges I have already created blow,

We have already discussed account groups in the G/L accounting section, you can use transaction code OBD3, as you can see I have already create a number of account groups, to get more detailed information just double-click on the account group. You must have at least one account group defined, then you must create at least as many accounts groups as there are number ranges. You can only delete an existing account group if no master record is referencing that account.

You can use transaction code OBAS to assign the number ranges to the account groups, again I have already assigned the accounts groups to the number ranges.

Dual control allows you to control sensitive fields preventing any unauthorized changes to the field such as payment terms, alternate payee or payment methods. You can define what fields are sensitive, the system will block these fields unless another authorized person confirms the changes individually (transactions code FK08) or for a number of fields in a list (transaction code FK09). To setup the sensitive fields we will use transaction code S_ALR_87003179, you can see in the screenshot below that I have made the alternate payee field a sensitive field.

Now we can look at defining the accounting clerks who will give the authorization, we will use transaction code OB05, I have create myself an clerk ID for company code DD11

Vendor Master Data Creation

You can create the master data in three ways Create the master data in both accounting and purchasing in one step Create the master data in only the company code for accounting purposes only You can create the master data by using a reference to an already existing master data record

Lets have a look at creating the master data record in one step in both accounting and purchasing, for this we will use transaction code XK01, from this transaction we can create both master data in accounting and purchasing or create a master data by using the reference section (simply select an existing master record), leave the account when copy from an existing and the system will automatically make sure that the vendor is in the same account group.

If you want to create the vendor for accounting purposes only then use transaction code FK01, as you can see the only difference with above is the purchasing organization option is missing

One final point to make is that if you want copy vendor master records from one company code to another then use transactions FK15 (send) and FK16 (receive), the below screenshot is the part of the FK15 transaction code

You can also create one-time vendor accounts, which when you create the master data no specific data is held, but when you post the system will automatically take you to a master data screen to enter the specific vendor information, this information will be stored separately in the document. If you want to delete master vendor data you can using transaction code OBR2, you can run a test before you actually delete anything. The master records must not be production active, also if the master record is referenced to another master record you should start the program SAPF047 to generate link information of such referenced records before carrying out any deletion, be very care when deleting master records.

Business Transactions
Business transactions need to be setup to make the processing transaction easy and fast, first we will look at the terms of payment (or payment terms), such as number of days by which a payment is to be made or if you will give any discount for early payment. The payment terms are defined by a fourcharacter key once define you can assign them in the vendor or customer master records. SAP comes with several payment terms already configured but you can define your own by using transaction code OBB8,

Lets create a new payment term for Datadisk Mobility, by selecting the new entries button and fill in the details, once you have saved if you look at the bottom of the screen yo can see that payment term in plain old English. payt terms - a four character identifier sales text - self explaining day limit - used for two part payment term configured under a single key own explanations - you can use your own explanation text account type - you can select the the type of account fixed day - the system will overwrite the day of the baseline for payment of the line item with the fixed day additional months - this provides additional cushion for payment, for example if you add 01 in this field and the baseline date is 01-25-2013 then the baseline date is postponed to 02-25-2013 block key - the system will use a blocking reason when you try making postings to a vendor that has been assigned to this payment term, blank means that it is free for payment. payment method - select a payment method (check, bank transfer, etc) that will be associated with this payment term. default for baseline date - select what you want to use as the baseline date, if you select no default then you will be forced to enter it manually during document entry installment payment - you can break up a payment into several parts with different due dates rec entries supplement fm master - use if the terms of payment in a recurring entry are to be taken from the customer or vendor master record, when no terms of payment key have been entered in the recurring entry original document, in the master record you can define a terms of payment (use transactionFK03 to view payment terms). percentage in payment terms - the fields are self explaining, you can also have a fixed date and additional months

You can define cash discount base for incoming invoices using transaction code OB70, this can also be define using transaction code OBY6 under option discount base is net value

There may be times when you want to release a payment that has been blocked, once released you can then pay for that line item. You will need to configure the workflow variant with the document types for payment release, the level at which the release happens and who can release the payment and up to what amount. we will use transaction OBWA,

workflow var - this is a identifier currency - self explaining wf var.name - self explaining posting release - select this if you want a mandatory posting release before a posting a document release from - this indicates the amount beyond which you want the release activated subworkflow - we selected the SAP supplied WS10000055 release pmnts - this is used to impose a payment release before a payment can be made creator permitted - don't select this if you want to prevent the documents creator from releasing the payment this way you can impose dual control

payt release - enter the amount beyond which you will require a payment release pmnt rel.ver - select the appropriate line item variant, in this case DD - posting key, account, business area, name, tax, etc

Now we can assign the above variant/s to the company codes using transaction OBWJ,

Next we will define release approval groups for release of payment, we need to create approval group first using transaction code OBWB,

Since the system determines the subflow based on the release approval path and the amount we now need to define the release approval path, using transaction codeOBWC,

Next we tie everything together, the approval groups, release approval paths, workflow variant, document type using transaction code OBWD,

We now need to to assign the above procedures (for amount and payment release) for each combination of workflow variant, release approval path, currency and amount, we will use transaction code OBWE,

wrkf - the workflow payment release apth - the release approval path amount to - the amount on which the specific release approval procedure will be triggered crcy - this is default by the system, which is the currency of the workflow variant rel levels - the system determines the number of release levels and saves them in the parked document swf amnt rel - the amount release for parked/posted documents is executed via a sub-workflow template, select a workflow template that has already been predefined for this purpose for parked documents: WS10000052 (for single level release), WS10000053 (for two level release) or WS10000054 (three level release), if not amount release is required you may enter a blank workflow template (WS2000006) you can use similar sub-workflow templates for posted documents (WS00400011, WS00400021 or WS00400022) swf pmnt rel - this is the same as above but for payment release

You can also define relevant document types for release of payment using transaction code OBWQ, I will leave you to invest this option. The authorization is in the form of an organizational object (business unit a user is attached to or the position of an individual in the organization) that will then be assigned to the release approval step. We will use transaction OBWP, the currency will be completed by the system. If you highlight an entry and then select goto -> details (org object) you can then add the organizational group or type of role as you can see in the right hand screenshot

You can define payment block reasons to identify and differentiate the invoices that are blocked for payment, once defined payment reasons are available for all company codes. We will use transaction code OB27, SAP supply a number of payment block reasons as seen in the below screenshot.

Outgoing Payments Outgoing payments are payment to your external (business partners that you purchase goods and services) and internal vendors(your staff or other divisions of your company), you will need to configure the following for outgoing payments

Global settings Manual outgoing settings Automatic outgoing payments

We will start with the global settings, you will need to define various accounts to record payment information, (such as cash discount), overpayment, and underpayment, rounding off differences and exchange rate differences, use transaction code FBKP to see the auto acc detrmn transctn
Transaction Code OBXU Auto Acc detrmn transctn SKE

Task Define accounts for cash discount taken Define exchange rate differences Define accounts for rounding differences Define accounts for bank charges (Vendors) Define accounts for over/under payments

Explanation used for any cash discount received when clearing open items see G/L accounting open item clearing used for rounding differences used for any bank charges define revenue and expense accounts so that over/under payment differences within tolerance limits during automatic adjustment posting

G/L a

27

OB00 OBXK

RDF BSP

88

47

OBXL

ZDI

800201 (880200 for reas

You can also see them in the IMG as per the below screenshot

Once you have created the accounts we can define the posting keys for clearing, we will use transaction code OBXH, which we have already seen in the G/L account open item clearing.

You can enable translation posting which means you will post the translation gain/loss when clearing open items in a foreign currency, we will use transaction codeOB66, the translations are posted if the items to be cleared have already been revalued once during foreign currency valuation. The SAP system posts the difference to a separate translation account with the offsetting entry posted to a clearing account.

We can now set the payment block reason with the associated terms of payment key, when entering vendor or customer postings you will see that the system proposes the terms of payment with the block reason of the payment terms key, use transaction code OBBC, notice that payment terms DDV2 will propose the block reason as "B blocked for payment" when a payment term is proposed for the vendor.

This completes the global settings and we move onto the manual outgoing payment configuration, we have setup the global settings above and thus we need to only configure the below for the manual outgoing payments

Define tolerances (vendors) Define reason code (manual outgoing payments) Prepare cross-company code manual payments

Similar to tolerance groups for G/L accounts, we need to create a similar setup for vendors, the SAP system when using tolerance groups will use the lower tolerance if more than one group is available, you should setup a null group which will act as the default tolerance group and any others that you need to place additional limits, we will use transaction code OBA3, in the screenshot below on the left hand side you can see the D11 tolerance group and on the right hand side you can see the null tolerance group for DD11 which has more restrictive amounts.

grace days due - the number of days is added to the payment deadlines so that you can still provide a cash discount after the deadline has passed arrears base date - use the drop down values to indicate how the arrears base date is arrived at, leave blank if you want the days in arrears according to the document date. cash discount terms displayed - this specifies to display the cash discount terms, blank, 0 or * will display the discount term, 1,2 or 3 will display the respective cash discount term permitted payment differences - self explaining payment terms from invoice - use this if you want the terms of payment to be transferred from the original line item to residual items created because of under/over payments fixed payment terms - the payment terms will not be transferred from the original document only grant partial cash disc - grant only a partial cash discount if an outstanding receivable is posted due to an insufficient payment when clearing an invoice dunning key - select an appropriate key if you want the system to enter the dunning level into an automatically generated residual line item
DD11 Tolerance Group DD11 Null Tolerance Group

Defined for each company code the reason codes help you to post residual items and partial payments to an account ( from payment differences) in processing outgoing payments manually. The reason codes 050 and 060come with the SAP system, you can use transaction code OBBE,

rcd - a three character identifier reason code short text - self explaining long text - self explaining corrt - this is the correspondence type to go with reason type c - this is the charge indicator, so that payment differences with this reason code are charged off via a separate G/L account depending on the reason code d - this will provide disputed items from payment differences during residual item formation. do not copy text - used for not copying the reason code predefined text into the segment text of the residual item or partial payment so that you can enter the text manually adv note diff - select if you do not want to consider the tolerance for payment advice notes

We will need to maintain the pairs of company codes for which you want to make manual outgoing payments, for each of the clearing transactions such as outgoing payments (AUSGZAHL), incoming payments (EINGZAHL), credit memo (GUTSCHRI) and transfer postings with clearing (UMBUCHNG) you may maintain the company code pairs, we will use transaction OB60, the first column is the paying company code that will make payments on behalf of the company code in the third column

Automatic Outgoing Payments You can use SAP's payment program to handle both outgoing and incoming payments automatically, you can use several payment methods (cheque, bill of exchange, etc), the program comes with required forms and print programs that meet country specific payment requirements of almost all countries, the program can help you with the following

enable you to clear open items (between vendors and customers) make inter-company payments process both domestic and foreign payments block payments any other actions

The payment program determines what is to be paid, when to pay it and how to make the payment, through payment rules that you define in the payment program configuration, you can even group several open items that are to be paid into a single

payment. The rules will determine the due dates for payment, payees to whom the payment should be made, house banks from where the payment should be processed and the appropriate payment methods relevant for the payee or country. The configuration order is the following 1. Setup all company codes for payment transactions 2. Setup paying company codes for payment transactions 3. Setup payment methods per country for payment transactions 4. Setup payment methods per company code for payment transactions 5. Setup bank determination for payment transactions 6. Define value date rules 7. Make settings for displaying payments 8. Make settings for displaying line items 9. Check payment block reasons (default) 10. Prepare automatic postings for payment program 11. Define payment forms 12. Assign payment forms for payment methods in company code 13. Assign payment medium program for payment method in country 14. Make settings for payment medium formats from payment medium workbench Transaction code FBZP will allow use to configure the above, you can also use transaction code OBVU (configure paying company code) and OBVCU (configure the payment methods)

We will start with all company codes as we want company code DD11 to take care of the payments for company code DD12, so select the top button and then select the new entries button,

company code - self explaining

sending company code - enter the vendor or customer that will be sending the payment, if left blank then the sending company code with be the paying company code paying company code - the company code that will be making the payments separate payments per business area - group the payment line items per business area pyt meth suppl - pre-define a payment method supplement in the customer/vendor master record tolerance days for payable - adds up the number of days specified here when determining the cash discount periods and the due date for net payment, for example if the value is 5 and the invoice date is 01-05-2013 then it means it will not be paid until 06-05-2013 outgoing pmnt with cash disc from - only items with the cash discount percentage greater or equal are paid with the cash discount deducted., if the percentage rate is less then the payment is made at the due date for net payment. max cash discount - deduct the maximum eligible discount when paying the vendors even if the payment is after the expiration of the discount period vendors block - enter the special G/L indicators see the below right hand screenshot customer block - again these are special G/L indicators that are different from the vendors

Now we can move on to the paying company codes, we will use transaction code FBZP, and select the paying company codes button, then select new entries,remember to configure for each company code

paying co code - self explaining minimum amount for incoming payment - the amount where the system will only generate a debit memo for an incoming payment, in all other cases the amounts will be printed in an exception list minimum amount for outgoing payment - the amount above which a the system will create a outgoing payment, again an exception will be printed if the payment is equal or less than no exchange rate differences - if you don't want any exchange rate differences then select this, if selected then the exchange rate difference will be calculated using the translation rate and the difference thus calculated will be posted automatically for each payment no exchange rate differences partial payment - same as above separate payment for each ref - this is to settle in a single payment invoices or credit memos that have the same payment reference bill/exch payment - use for bills of exchange payment requests or the check or bill of exchange procedure in the paying company code.

Next we setup the payment methods per country for payment transactions, we will again use transaction FBZP and select the pmnt methods in country button, we will be using the stand SAP supplied methods, on the initial screen you see that each country

as a number of payment methods, the screenshot below display the US has 10 different payment methods.

Now on to setting up the payment methods per company code for payment transactions, this stipulates the conditions for a particular payment methods usage, you can determine the minimum and maximum amount limits for each of the payment methods and specify the grouping criteria for the payment items, you can also make specifications for foreign currency payments, payment form per payment method and optimizing bank selection, again use FBZP and select the pmnt methods in company code button. You will need to create for each company code and each payment method

paying co code - self explaining pymt method - see below right hand screenshot minimum and maximum amount - the amounts which the payment will not be selected distribution amt - any payment exceeding this amount will be analyzed to see if can be split into more than one payment totaling this amount single payment - use this to make individual payments for each of the line items that have been identified with the payment method payment per due date - group payments that are due on a particular day, which means you can take the maximum cash discount foreign business partner allowed - to make payments to business partners abroad foreign currency allowed - the payment program makes payments in other currencies than the local currency of the company code

cus/vendor bank aboard allowed - for making payments at the vendors or customers home country from the business partners bank itself. bank selection control - if you select the postal code the payment program uses the postal code to arrive at a bank which is geographically nearest to the business partner, the bank option group selects the optimal pair of banks when you use the electronic payments methods. form for the payment medium - this confirms form such as F110_PRENM_CHECK for the payment method C

The below diagram determines the correct payment method as the payment method can be maintained in many places,

We can how configure the line item to determine the bank from the customer and vendor master records or maintain the bank to be used for payments, we will need to configure the following

The permitted banks and their ranking list The bank account that will be used for payments, for each house bank and payment method (and currency if required) The amounts (both for incoming and outgoing) that are available for the payment run for each account at the house bank How many days can elapse between the posting date of the payment run and the value date at the bank, depending on the payment method, bank account, payment amount and currency If the system can determine the value date, taking into an account the bank calendar and any individual arrangements entered with the bank. The charges that are to be printed on the bill of exchange forms

We will first create a house bank and define the bank accounts that we will use, a house bank contains all the banks with which your company maintains a bank account, you will have a house bank for each bank you do business with, see bank accounting for more information, this configuration will then be used for the bank determination, we will use transaction code FBZP and select the house banks button, in the screenshot on the left you can see that we have created a house bank for CITI and entered the bank for CITI, you can also add contact details, etc. Once the CITI house bank has been created we can then add the bank accounts to this bank which you can see in the screenshot on the right, you may have more than one account in the CITI house bank, just add additional accounts here.

Finally you will end up with all the account/s for your bank/s here

Now we have our house banks configured we can configure the bank determination, we can use transaction code FBZP and select the bank determination button, on the initial screen highlight the company code and then you can see the bank selection to the left

ranking order - the permitted house banks and the ranking order which will be used for payment bank accounts - the bank accounts that will be used for payment available amounts - the amount limits that are available for the payment run value date - the elapse days between the posting date of the payment run and the value date at the bank expenses/charges - any charges that the bank has levied on any payments, either as a absolute amount or as a graduated scale by maintaining the charge indicator

I am not going to go in to much detail as most of it is self explaining, the below screenshot is the ranking order, the highest ranking order will be used first if a number of house banks are identified

The screenshot below lists all the accounts that are associated with the house bank, you can also assign a business area

The next screenshot details the available amounts for outgoing and incoming, if the amount on the bank account is not sufficient for an outgoing payment it does not attempt to draw the balance from another bank, instead the payment program selects another bank to see if there is sufficient amount to cover the entire payment, based on ranking order, if it does not find another bank account then the payment is not made. You can leave the incoming payment amount as blank which means it will receive all incoming payments.

The value date represents the probable number of days before the debit/credit memo is accounted into a bank account, by adding these days to the posting date the system arrives at the date on which the debit/credit memo is to be expected on the bank account. You can also maintain value date rules so that the system determines the

value date automatically using a bank calendar and/or individual agreements with the bank as decision criteria

So now we have configured the bank determination for payment transaction what does actually happen during a payment run, for a payment method and currency combination the payment program identifies the house bank, if no house bank is identified the program tries for a house bank for the same payment method without currency specification. The same iteration is then carried out to determine the appropriate account ID, the program then checks if the available amounts are sufficient to make the payment, if more than one house bank is identified the payment is made from the house bank with the highest priority according to the ranking order defined, if there is a payment optimization entry, the selection will be based on this which override the ranking order. If an house bank is not found then the payment will not be made. We mentioned the value date above now lets define the value date rules, you have seen how to add a lag between the posting date and the value date by maintaining the days to value date in the payment configuration settings or check cashing time in the customer and vendor master record. You can also define a rule for each payment transaction (for example crediting an incoming check) at a house bank to arrive at the value date automatically, we will use transaction code OBBA, when configured the system will add or subtract the specified days as a deviation to the reference date (document or posting date), the system then checks the resulting date with a factory calendar to decide whether it is a working day before finally deciding the value date for that transaction. You can use the transactions codes O7V4 and O7V5 for the settings for displaying payments and the settings for displaying line items.

The SAP system comes with several standard posting keys and special G/L indicators, however you can change (not recommended) or create new entries using transaction code OBXC, you should see three procedures ZBA - bank posting, ZWE - bill of change/payment request and ZWO - bank bill liability grouped under the ZAH (payment program), for each of these procedures you can see the default postings keys, you can see ZBA posting keys in the below screenshot

You can also see the similar settings that are available for the automatic posting for payment requests covered under the the procedure ZAF, use transaction codeOBXP. You can generate payment media using either the classic payment medium programs (RFFO*) or the payment medium workbench (PMW). You can use transaction code SE71 to copy an existing standard form and make changes to it, if you desire. To change the standard text that you want for the letter head, letter footer and the sending address in the letter window per company code you can use transaction code S_ALR_87003346. Next assign the payment form to each of the payment methods you have defined for your company code, we will transaction code S_ALR_87003339, you can see in the screenshot below that I have assigned the payment form to each of the company codes, you may enter a second form for payment methods that use two forms (for example F110_US_DATA as the next form for a payment method like T, W, etc).

Next we assign the appropriate classic payment medium program (RFFO*) to each of the the payment methods for the country to create the payment media, we will use transaction code S_ALR_87003353, as per the screenshot below

Reporting Reports help you to analyze accounts payables that allow you to monitor and manage account balances, as part of the reporting SAP provides standard evaluations and drilldown reports. An evaluation is made up of a evaluation view, evaluation type and evaluation. The evaluation can retrieve data for example modeling you organization by grouping company codes in different countries. You will need to define these variants and attach them the same to the data retrieval program (RFKRRSEL), for each of the evaluation views you can define the evaluation types like due date, overdue items or currency risk, you can also if the evaluation data is to be regenerated every time the evaluation is run. You can access all the standard evaluations using transaction code S_ALR_87012077 (vendor information system) or F.46

The drilldown reports you can use the standard reports as per the table below or use customizing activities to define the form or report, define the global variables and translate the report.
Transaction Code F.40 F.41 F.42 S_ALR_87012078 S_P99_41000099 S_ALR_87012086 Report Name Account List Open Items Account Balances Due date analysis for open items Payment list Vendor list