Clearing Agreement 
An object that specifies the conditions for the transfer of payment orders within or between financial institutions (internal or external clearing agreement).
A clearing agreement includes the following parameters:
Whether and how payment items are transferred individually or collectively
How payment information is exchanged
How the transaction value is procured
Each financial institution involved in the payment transaction has at least one clearing agreement with another clearing institute.
You can use clearing agreements to specify how the system processes internal and external payment items.
The system analyzes the clearing agreement rule set in one clearing area and considers only active clearing agreements. If a new clearing agreement is in processing or for release, the old clearing agreement is still active. As soon as the new clearing agreement is released, the old clearing agreement is replaced by the new clearing agreement. For more information about the release workflow, see Release Workflow.
If the system cannot determine any valid clearing agreement because no appropriate rule can be found, Routing Control raises an exception and hands the error situation to Exception Control. This component defines an adequate response for the exception. For more information, see Exception Control (FS-PE-EH). To avoid this kind of error, you can define a default clearing agreement by creating a rule without conditions. You attach this rule as the last rule in the rule set.
If the system determines a clearing agreement to be used but you have set a lock to the according route, the alternate route and clearing agreement are used.
You can manage clearing agreements and their rule sets as follows:
On the SAP Easy Access screen, choose 
Payment Engine 
Master Data Routing Control Manage Routes and Clearing Agreements 
(transaction /PE1/RN).
For more information, see Managing Clearing Agreement Rule Sets and Managing Clearing Agreement Rules.
Structure
Clearing Agreement Screen
The clearing agreement screen is organized in the following screen areas:
Search area
You can enter a text to search for clearing agreements currently loaded in the navigation tree. When you run a search, a new node with the result is created in the tree.
Navigation tree
Displays existing routes, clearing agreements, and customer agreements in a hierarchical structure.
Business object
Displays details about the selected route, clearing agreement, or customer agreement organized on tab pages.
Rules
Displays the rules in a rule set associated with the selected route or clearing agreement.
Clearing Agreement Screen
Clearing Agreement Details
The clearing agreement screen contains the header data, basic data, administration data, and if the clearing agreement is for external routes, the external clearing agreement data. This information may differ depending on the clearing scenario (for example, direct clearing) and depending on how the payment items are processed (for example, collect items).
Basic Data
On this tab page, you can assign a charge group for payment transactions based on financial conditions. This enables you to determine charges during clearing and settlement.
Based on your Customizing settings, you can edit the charge conditions. From the SAP Easy Access menu, choose Payment Engine Master Data Charges Edit
Condition Groups . To make the required settings in Customizing for Payment Engine (FS-PE), choose Charges .
You can use different characteristics to determine if the condition is used. These include the following:
BIC
Charge category
Transaction type
Payment order type
Ability to be processed in straight-through-processing
You can define and assign additional characteristics in Customizing for Payment Engine (FS-PE), under Basic Settings Charges . You can add more characteristics by implementing
the Business Add-In (BAdI) BAdI: Assignment of Differentiation Values for Charges in Customizing for Payment Engine (FS-PE), under Basic Settings Charges Business
Add-Ins (BAdIs) . This BAdI determines which particular value applies during runtime to a specific differentiation criteria and if a charge is thus to be applied. You can define the list of possible values for additional differentiation categories by implementing Business
Add-In (BAdI) BAdI: Definition of Additional Differentiation Categories in Customizing for Payment Engine (FS-PE), under Basic Settings Charges Business
Add-Ins (BAdIs) .
For more information about financial conditions, see SAP Library at http://help.sap.com/, under SAP for Industries SAP for Banking Banking Services from SAP Release Banking
Services from SAP 8.0 Application Help Financial Conditions (CA-FIM-FCO) .
External Clearing Agreement
This tab page is displayed only for external clearing agreements.
Note
Account Symbol field
Since an account symbol can be used for several clearing agreements, it is easier to change the account to be used by maintaining the account symbol instead of modifying several clearing agreements. You can maintain account symbols in Customizing for Payment Engine under
Clearing Define and Maintain Account Symbols .Execution On checkbox
If you choose this option, the following fields are displayed:
Base time
Specifies the date that the system uses to calculate the planned execution time of payment transactions. If you choose the due date, the system uses the due date to calculate the planned execution time of direct debit transactions and the planned closing time of the collector that collects the corresponding payment items.
Markup/Markdown
Specifies the number of days to be added to or subtracted from the base time to calculate the planned execution time and planned closing date
Bulk Type field
You specify the bulk type if you are bulking outgoing payment files and request agent outputs (for example,CAMT files).
Internal Clearing Agreement
This group box is displayed only for internal clearing agreements if the Collection of Items is selected on the Basic Data tab page, and the collection type is Collector on the Collector Process tab page.
Separate Provision of Cover Fields
This tab page is displayed only for external clearing agreements when the option for a separate cover provision is selected on the Basic Data tab page.
Integration
Clearing agreements are integrated in the Routing Control component. After routing, the system delivers the payment items to the Clearing Processing component with the reference to a clearing agreement. The information in this clearing agreement together with the information in the referenced route, customer agreement (if present), and value date agreement determine how the system processes the payment items.
For more information, see Routing Control (FS-PE-RP) and Clearing Processing (FS-PE-CP).