Example of the Federal Government Payment Process 

Initial Scenario

You are an employee of a US Federal Government agency. Having consumed goods, your agency has now been billed for them. It is time to pay.

Step 1

You enter the payment in the SAP System:

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       1.      In the Easy Access menu, choose Accounting ® Financial Accounting ® Accounts Payable ® Document Entry ®Outgoing Payment ® Post.

       2.      Enter the payment details and save them.

       3.      Execute the payment program with Create Payment Medium selected.

The system sets up an open item in the “Disbursements in Transit” (DIT) account.

Step 2

You notify Treasury that the invoice has arrived and needs to be paid by transmitting the data medium exchange (DME) file to them.

Step 3

Treasury makes the payment and notifies your agency that it has done so with the hard copy GOALS report.

Step 4

You now run treasury confirmation to account for the payment.

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       1.      Choose Public Sector Management ® Functions for US Federal Government ®Payment Processing ®Treasury Confirmation ®Execute Treasury Confirmation.

The Treasury Confirmation screen appears.

       2.      Enter the agency location code, file name, and other parameters as required.

       3.      Choose Execute.

The program creates check or electronic funds transfer (EFT) information and a file for bank reconciliation.

       4.      Run bank reconciliation.

The program clears the open items from the DIT account and posts the amounts to the Fund Balance with Treasury (FBT) account.

If everything has been done correctly, steps 1-4 are all the processing you need to do. However, problems may occur. Steps 5-7 tell you how to handle a couple of the most common ones.

Step 5

You determine that the wrong check numbers have been entered in the payment schedule. You need to reverse the whole check run to correct this problem.

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       1.      Choose Public Sector Management ® Functions for US Federal Government ®Payment Processing ®  Treasury Confirmation ® Reverse Entire Check Run.

The Treasury Confirmation: Reverse Entire Check Run screen appears.

       2.      Make the following entries:

·         Number of the payment schedule you want to reverse

·         Company code

·         Fiscal year

·         Posting date and period

·         Reversal reason

       3.      Choose Execute.

       4.      The system reverses the schedule confirmation transaction and deletes the checks.

Step 6

The schedule must now be run again with the correct data.

Step 7

Then another problem occurs. The check for a payment is lost in the mail. You run the reversal program to account for this in the system. The procedure is the same as that described in step 5 except that you must run the single check cancellation program. The system then reverses the confirmation transaction and payment transaction, and voids the check.

When the program has run, a new check can be issued, if desired.