SAP FINANCIALS

ACCOUNTS PAYABLES

SAP KNOWLEDGE SHARING DOCUMENTS

SAP IDES DEMO SOLUTION ERP6 EHP5
Pramila Nagaraj
SAP Certified Candidate @ Source One Management Services Pvt. Ltd Bangalore

2014 Copy Rights SourceOne Management Services Pvt. Ltd Bangalore

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

General data

Company Code data

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)

Purchasing data (conditions (order currency, incoterms, etc), sales data, control data
(automatic purchase order, GR-based invoice verification, ABC indicator, etc))
specific to the purchasing
Partner functions
organization

applicable to every company

code and every purchasing
organization in your company

specific to the company code

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 codeS_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. If you get an error message stating that you cannot delete the data as it is a productive system
then use transaction code OBR3

You can also delete transactional data from a specific ledger for a particular fiscal year using transaction
code FAGL_DEL, the filter screen (left-hand screenshot) you can enter the ledger company code, account number and
fiscal year. You can also delete transactional data in a particular company code to prepare it for production startup,
you can use the IMG (right-hand screenshot).

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 four-character 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 you 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 transaction FK03 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 sub flow based on the release approval path and the amount we now need to define the
release approval path, using transaction code OBWC,

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 transactionOBWP,
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

Auto Acc
detrmn
transctn

G/L acc for DD

OBXU

SKE

276000

used for rounding differences

OB00

RDF

880300

Define accounts for bank

charges (Vendors)

used for any bank charges

OBXK

BSP

479000

Define accounts for

over/under payments

define revenue and expense accounts so that over/under payment

differences within tolerance limits during automatic adjustment
posting

OBXL

ZDI

800201 (880200 for reason

code SP - residual item)

Task

Explanation

Define accounts for cash

discount taken

used for any cash discount received when clearing open items

Define exchange rate

differences

see G/L accounting open item clearing

Define accounts for

rounding differences

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 code OB66, 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 us 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 code OBXP.
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

Report Name

F.40

Account List

F.41

Open Items

F.42

Account Balances

S_ALR_87012078

Due date analysis for open items

S_P99_41000099

Payment list

S_ALR_87012086

Vendor list

Declaration: This is related to my Practice in Demo System ERP6 EHP5 since after my SAP Certification. I have taken guidance from SAP Expert
of UK who had given me full instructions on how to go about with certain configurations in Financials. I have successfully completed one
Configuration Cycle.