Balance Confirmation 

Purpose

Obtaining the balance confirmation – a part of balance sheet preparation for the year-end – corresponds to the activity of an accounts receivable accountant. The customer has the following options:

·        Confirm total balances

·        Not confirm the total balances

·        Confirm or not confirm individual items 

·        Not give a reply, or to specify reasons why the accountant cannot process the balance confirmation

For paper balance confirmations, the reasons for differences or comments were usually entered on the reverse of the confirmation for individual items. The paper confirmation was then sent back to both the SAP accounting clerk and also the auditor.

With SAP Biller Direct this function is now available in the Internet as a balance confirmation at the current date, or at any specified date.

By using this process your business partner can compare the open items at the current date with his accounting.

Prerequisites

·        You have made the settings in the customer master data as described in Entries in the Customer Master Data.

·        To enable an e-mail to be sent to the external auditor, you have made the following settings:

¡        With the configuration tool Extended Configuration Management (XCM) (see section Configuring the Web application with XCM) you have activated the option for sending an e-mail to the auditor.

¡        You have entered the e-mail address of the external auditor in Customizing for Financial Accounting. You do this under Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable ® Business Transactions ® Closing ® Count ® Balance Confirmation Correspondence ® Define Reply Addresses for Balance Confirmation

¡        You have entered the company code address data in Customizing for Financial Accounting. You do this under Financial Accounting Global Settings ® Company Code ® Enter Global Parameters

Process Flow

...

       1.      Your business partner logs on to SAP Biller Direct.

       2.      He then chooses Balance Confirmation in the menu bar.

A standard letter to your business partner is then displayed with the request that the balance be checked for agreement with the books of the business partner. An itemization of the open items is attached. This means the open items are displayed at the current date (key date) having the same details as the usual open item display. They contain, in addition to open bills credits, payments and on account payments, non-cleared down payments and bills of exchange.

       3.      To display the bill details, your business partner clicks on the PDF symbol.

       4.      To confirm individual items or enter a note on them, your business partner selects Yes or No. For each line item he can enter a comment explaining any differences.

       5.      To make the confirmation easier, your business partner can either print the list or download it in Excel or CSV format.

       6.      To reply to the communication, your business partner chooses Reply.

He can either confirm agreement of the balances or comment on any differences. In doing so, he can supply the individual items with appropriate notes, or enter a general remark.

       7.      Once your business partner has selected confirmed, no confirmation or no reply, the balance confirmation is sent to the accounting clerk. If you have made the necessary settings, an e-mail is also sent to the external auditor.

Result

You receive a balance confirmation. The result of the balance confirmation is sent as a text e-mail to the accounting clerk assigned in the SAP system and to the external auditor.