This topic describes the functions offered by the system for processing payment advice notes.

A payment advice note contains the incoming payment details required for allocating and clearing the relevant open item. Payment advice note headers contain the payment amount, payment date and other information about the payment. The advice items contain information on the paid items; the amount, difference reason codes. They also contain information used for identification purposes such as document number, reference number, billing document number, customer reference number and so on.

A payment advice note can be created several ways in the SAP R/3 System.

• You can enter handwritten advice notes manually.

• When processing bank statements, check deposit lists or lockbox data, you can have the system create a payment advice note with the detail information automatically. This may be necessary if the program cannot clear open items immediately due to differences.

• When manually processing open items for incoming payments, you can create an advice note to record the current processing status of the items.

• Payment advice notes can be imported into the SAP R/3 System using EDI.

Payment advice notes are used during payment clearing to search for and allocate open items automatically. Instead of having to enter selection criteria and then process the open items, all you have to do is specify the payment advice note number. The system uses the payment advice note to propose items for clearing, including any necessary difference postings and payments on account.