Using the Payment Program
Purpose
The payment program pays the open items due of all the business partners or contract accounts you selected. It can be used to process both incoming and outgoing payments.
Prerequisites
Customizing Settings
The following Customizing settings are necessary for the payment program (see Customizing for Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable under 
Business Transactions
Payments
Incoming/Outgoing Payment Creation
):
Definition of payment methods
Structure of note to payee
Company code data
General
Payment is not made if the item to be paid is smaller than the minimum amounts that you enter here. You can, however, override this setting by entering the payment method in the line item. This enables you to clear residual amounts following contract termination.
Payment medium format settings
Payment method settings
Determination of value date
To determine the value date in the payment document, the system adds the number of days that you specify in the parameters here until the value date to the posting date of the payment run.
Account determination - dependent on the processing type you specified for the payment method:
Processing Type
Account Determination
Bank account
The system automatically determines a bank clearing account for the bank line in the payment document. In Customizing, you can define the G/L account differentiated by house bank, account ID, payment method, and currency of the payment (in Customizing for Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable under
Business Transactions
Payments
Incoming/Outgoing Payment Creation
Define Bank Accounts for Payment Program
Internal clearing
An open item is automatically generated in the deposit account for the
Insurance
industry component.Payment card
A posting is made to the reporting account defined in Customizing (see Customizing for Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable under
Business Transactions
Payments
Incoming/Outgoing Payment Creation
Payment Cards
Define Accounts for Payment Card Institute
).
Contract Account Specifications
In the contract account, the process flow of the payment program is influenced as follows:
Paying company code
The paying company code is determined from the company code group of the contract account. Payment method determination, house bank determination, bank line item of the payment document, the sender of payment orders, and other details are all determined by the paying company code.
Contract account used for payment in payment transactions
By specifying another contract account for the business partner, you can pay the items of both accounts together. The following details that are required for payment are determined solely by the contract account used to settle items:
Payment method
Payment lock
Processing block for a limited time (for debit memos)
Alternative payer
Payer’s bank details
Payer’s payment card ID
Line Item Specifications
The following details that the payment program takes into account in the open item can partly override the details defined in the contract account:
Due date details (net, cash discount, deferral)
Payment method
Payment lock
Alternative payer
Payer’s bank details
Grouping term
Indicator that the item can be cleared against other items only
Payment Run Specifications
You must also maintain the parameters for the payment run, restrict the quantity of data to be processed (by company code, business partner, contract account, due date period), control the bank selection, enter posting parameters, and make any other control settings. For more information, see Functions for Scheduling Program Runs.
Process Flow
When you start a payment run, the payment program carries out the activities described in the following topics:
Result
Following a successful payment run, the open items are cleared by payment documents and the data relevant for the payment media is saved. If you selected the indicator for an additional log in the payment run parameters, you can now refer to this log for further details on the program run. However, it only makes sense to do this in the test phase, or during problem analysis. You are not allowed to create a full additional log in a mass run. You can print the created payment data using the payment list, if required.