Accounting (RE-FX) 

Purpose

An interface links accounting in Flexible Real Estate Management (RE-FX) with the Financial Accounting (FI) component. All postings and financial transactions with contracting parties are performed in the Financial Accounting component. This component is required if you intend to manage accounting and rent collection for your contracts.

Postings are performed for each rental object and real estate contract.

Implementation Considerations

In the Flexible Real Estate Management component, you set up accounting for Real Estate Management in Customizing, regardless of the accounting system, and then assign the settings to the Financial Accounting (FI) component.

Integration

You need to install the R/3 components Financial Accounting (FI) and Controlling (CO) as well as the Plug-In (PI package).

Features

Basic Accounting Principles

In the Financial Accounting (FI) component, accounting is a combination of G/L accounting and subledger accounting.

·        General Ledger

The general ledger contains all G/L accounts. You create the balance sheet as well as the profit and loss statement on the basis of the general ledger. Receivables, payables, output tax and input tax are posted to the general ledger.

For recommendations for RE-FX related to the new general ledger accounting, see Integration with New General Ledger Accounting.

·        Subsidiary ledgers

A G/L account (= reconciliation account) is posted by means of its subsidiary ledgers. Each posting to a subsidiary ledger account causes an automatic balance change in a G/L account.

The overview figures below show the posting functions in accounting:

·        Special general ledger down payments

Advance payments for operating costs and heating expenses logically belong to the subledger accounts. However, to adhere to proper accounting principles, these costs are not posted to the reconciliation accounts on the customer/vendor master record, but to other reconciliation accounts.

Special posting keys are used for these postings. These keys bypass the reconciliation accounts of the general ledger and post instead to special G/L accounts.

Overview Graphic: Down Payments in Special General Ledger

·        Service charge settlement

Overview Graphic: Posting Procedures of the Service Charge Settlement

 

Accounting is divided into the following activities:

Periodic Postings

Periodic posting on contracts posts (or reverses) receivables and payables to the contract partner for each contract.

Periodic posting for vacant rental objects posts imputed vacancy costs to a vacancy cost center.

One-Time Postings

One-time postings contain all the functions you require for creating and uniquely assigning a posting to a contract. You use one-time postings to pass on receivables directly to the customer (master tenant) if these are not included in the periodic posting.

Accruals and Deferrals

You use accruals and deferrals to post rents and operating costs to the correct periods as revenue is earned or benefits received from expense.

Incoming Payments

Using the Post with Clearing and Incoming Payments Fast Entry functions, you can enter incoming payments by selecting open items of rental contracts.

Bank Statement

With the electronic bank statement function, you can import electronic bank statements, automatically process returned debit memos, and assign incoming payments using the Postprocess Account Statement function. Here you can correct errors in the note to payee, find the contract that the payment belongs to, and post documents.

Display of Real Estate-Specific Documents

Use this function to select documents that were created in the course of periodic posting and service charge settlement. You can access these documents from the posting log or cash flows.

Dunning

The dunning program gives you access to all the functions of dunning. The dunning program is mostly identical to the dunning program of accounts receivable accounting in Financial Accounting, however there are certain special functions in Flexible Real Estate Management.

Cash Flow

In contract processing, you can display two cash flows:

¡        Partner-related cash flow

¡        Object-related cash flow