Purpose

The settlement process allows oil companies to:

Transmit transaction data received from service stations to clearing houses

Collect payment from the appropriate clearing houses for sales made using credit or Eurocheque cards, or create invoices to bill fleet card companies

Charge dealers a participation fee for handling their payment card transactions. For more information, see Service Station Partner Invoicing .

Pay the handling fees charged by clearing houses and fleet card companies.

Prerequisites

For information about the general prerequisites for SSR payment card handling, see the corresponding section of Payment Card Handling .

For the settlement process to function, payment card transaction data must have been uploaded from service stations into the Detailed Transaction Files (DTFs) or into the reconciliation upload tables, where appropriate.

In Customizing for the Industry Solution Oil & Gas (Downstream) , you assign a settlement type and a settlement source (such as clearing house or service station transaction data) to a company code and payment card type by choosing SSR → Payment Card Handling → General Settings → Assign payment card type to company code.

Process Flow

Periodic settlement is started either manually or automatically. For more information see Running the Settlement Process . You can use this process to:

Transmit DTF transaction data received from service station locations to the clearing house or fleet card company

Settle with the clearing house or fleet card company. The system can:

Create a billing document for gross amount less fleet card company fees for sales made using fleet cards, and bill the fleet card company.

Create a billing document for the clearing house fee in the case of sales made using credit cards and Eurocheque cards

Create a CO distribution posting for fees if this has been defined for the clearing house object

Post the settlement amount to the clearing account defined for the clearing house in the case of credit cards and Eurocheque cards

You determine which of these functions apply to a settlement run by using the default parameters defined for a settlement type or by choosing the appropriate function (for example, settlement with transmission or settlement without transmission) in the settlement transaction.

The clearing houses and fleet card companies check the transaction data received from the oil company (or from the service station).

If the transaction data is accepted by the clearing house it deducts its fee from the total payment card amount and pays the net amount to the oil company's bank account. Fleet card companies settle by paying the amount that they are billed for (which already contains the deduction for their fee).

Some clearing houses also send the transaction data to the oil company either in a detailed (transaction by transaction) or aggregated (summary) format. This data can then be used as the source for the settlement documents. This is determined by the settlement source indicated in Customizing. In Customizing for the Industry Solution Oil & Gas (Downstream) , you assign a settlement source (such as clearing house or service station transaction data) to a company code and payment card type by choosing SSR → Payment Card Handling → General Settings → Assign payment card type to company code.