Component documentationCredit Card Clearing

 

Credit card clearing helps you enter individual receipts in the expense report that were paid for with a credit card.

You can use the following types of credit cards:

  • Personal corporate credit cards with personal liability and payment

  • Personal corporate credit cards with company liability and payment

  • Central travel center cards with company liability and payment

Credit card clearing allows you to enter individual receipts easily and efficiently. As well as reducing the effort to enter receipts, credit card clearing offers other advantages:

  • The currency exchange rate is the same as the actual rate used by the credit card company.

  • Payment and management of trip-related advances are not required. This can enable you to reduce process and financing costs considerably.

  • Useful additional data about the service provided (for example, hotel, restaurant, and so on) is available in a standard format, which makes it easier to check expense reports and provides useful information for negotiating with service providers.

  • Using a travel center card, you can complete full cost entry in the expense report in a simple way and help make the invoice verification process in Financial Accounting more efficient.

Credit card clearing therefore not only helps you create the expense report but also makes the subsequent monitoring and reconciliation processes easier in Financial Accounting. This is explained further in the detailed descriptions of the different process variants listed below.

Integration

The imported credit card transactions are available in the following SAP Travel Management applications:

  • Travel Expenses transactions in SAP GUI

  • Expense report and express expense sheet in the Web Dynpro ABAP-based user interface

If you use both credit card clearing and SAP Travel Planning:

  • If a travel plan contains bookings, the system automatically generates corresponding travel planning receipts when creating the expense report and displays these in the receipt overview of the expense report.

  • Employees can link credit card receipts to travel planning receipts in the expense report. For more information, see Transfer of Receipts from the Receipt Buffer.

Process Variants

The following process variants are available in credit card clearing:

Prerequisites

To be able to use credit card clearing, regardless of the process variant selected, you need to fulfill the following requirements. Special Customizing settings are described for the individual process variants.

Credit Card Requirements

  • The travel expense settlement currency for the employee must match the settlement currency for the credit card.

  • The credit card company must provide the data (credit card files) in one of the following formats:

    • File format CCD

    • File format MasterCard CDF 3 from MasterCard

    • File format VISA VCF 4 from Visa

    • File format AMEX GL1025 from American Express

    For more information about the valid file formats, see Importing the Credit Card Transactions.

General Customizing Requirements in Travel Management

  • In feature TRVPA, you have activated CCC for the corresponding organizational unit.

    Customizing activity: Start of the navigation path Travel Expenses Next navigation step Dialog and Travel Expenses Control Next navigation step Travel Expenses Control Next navigation step Set Up Feature TRVPA for Travel Expenses Parameters End of the navigation path

  • You have defined corresponding IDs for your credit card companies.

    Customizing activity: Start of the navigation path Travel Expenses Next navigation step Master Data Next navigation step Credit Card Clearing Next navigation step Define Credit Card Companies End of the navigation path

  • You have checked whether an internal expense type is assigned to each credit card transaction key and is defined according to the processing type you require.

    Customizing activity: Start of the navigation path Travel Expenses Next navigation step Master Data Next navigation step Credit Card Clearing Next navigation step Define Assignment Table for Credit Card Clearing End of the navigation path

  • You have made the settings for the specific file formats listed above for the credit card companies.

    Customizing activities under: Start of the navigation path Travel Expenses Next navigation step Master Data Next navigation step Credit Card Clearing Next navigation step Settings for Specific File Formats of Credit Card Companies End of the navigation path

Features

Credit Card Clearing Process Flow

The following diagram shows the credit card clearing process for the process variant “Personal Corporate Credit Card with Settlement via Employee's Private Bank Account”. The numbers used represent:

  • The individual subprocesses of credit card clearing

    You carry out subprocesses (4) and (5-7) using Travel Management. Subprocesses (2), (3), and (8) are external processes.

  • The optimum runtime of the individual subprocesses in the overall business process

  1. Employee triggers credit card clearing by paying a bill with a credit card (1).

  2. The service provider (for example, the hotel) invoices the credit card company for the transaction that the employee paid for by credit card (2).

  3. The credit card company reports the employees’ credit card transactions to your company regularly using credit card files (3). You import the incoming credit card transactions into the SAP system (3)

  4. After the trip, the employee creates an expense report, uses the credit card receipts from the receipt buffer, and enters any additional trip data (4).

    The following steps are then carried out in your company:

  5. Approval of expense report (5)

  6. Transfer to Financial Accounting (6)

  7. Payment to employee’s bank account (7)

  8. The credit card company debits the employee’s bank account (8).

This process is illustrated in Overall Travel Management Process.