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Extended Incoming Payment Processing via Payment Advice Notes

Description

A payment advice note contains the details on an incoming payment that are needed for the allocation and clearing of open items. In the header of the payment advice note, payment amount, payment date and further information on the payment are noted. In the payment advice items, the specifications on the paid items are found. This includes amount specifications (gross amount, net amount, cash discount amount), reason codes and specifications that are used for identifying the open item (document number, reference number, billing document number, reference number at the customer, ... ).

A payment advice note can be created in different ways in the SAP system.

• A payment advice note available in writing can be entered manually

• When processing account statements, check deposit transactions or lockbox data, a payment advice note with details can be created automatically if an immediate clearing of open items is not possible due to differences

• When manually processing open items within an incoming payment, the current processing status of the items can be held in the form of a payment advice note.
  

A payment advice note is used for an automatic search and allocation of open items when settling the payment. Instead of selection specifications and subsequent processing of the open items, only the specification of the payment advice number is necessary. By means of the payment advice note, the items to be cleared including necessary difference postings and postings on account are proposed.

Payment advice notes are distinguished from one another by assigned payment advice types:

• 01 payment advice note from the lockbox procedure

• 02 payment advice note from account statement

• 03 payment advice note created within manual clearing processing

• 04 manually entered payment advice note

• 05 payment advice note from credit memo display (from the bank)

• 06 payment advice note from the customer (via EDI)
  

The functions described below can be found in the Accounts receivable menu of Financial Accounting.

1. Create payment advice note

Document entry -> Payment advice -> Create. With this function, you enter a payment advice note.

The key of a payment advice note consists of company code, account type, account number and the payment advice number.

The payment advice number can be assigned externally or internally. If no payment advice number is specified, the internal number is set up according to the procedure aadddddduuuuuubb . Meaning:

• aa payment advice type

• dddddd date of creation

• uuuuuu time of creation

• bb first letters of the user ID,
  

A payment advice note which is manually entered on 11/19/1994 at 14:22:12 by employee SMITH, would thus receive the payment advice key 04941119142212SM.

In the payment advice header, you enter the item-independent data such as the amount paid, the currency and the bank details.

In the payment advice item, you enter the data that is to be used for identifying an open item. A selection field and a value for determining the open items to be chosen is derived from your specifications according to a predefined rule. By specifying the gross amount or the net amount, it is possible to compare the allocated open item and possibly a difference posting. In this case, a key for the reason code can also be entered.

You enter the payment advice item either on detail screens or via user-defined fast entry screens similar to the fast entry of G/L account items when posting a document.

Navigation between the detail screens, the payment advice overview and the fast entry screens is similarly designed to the corresponding functions when posting or displaying a document. You can define any kind of line layout variants for the payment advice overview (overview of all payment advice items).

Payment advice subitems can be created during manual OI processing if the chosen open items are stored as payment advice notes with reason codes, reference information and cash discount terms.

It is also possible to enter payment advice subitems when manually maintaining payment advice notes (postprocessing of payment advice notes). This way, several (up to 8) different deduction amounts can already be entered in the payment advice note with the respective reason codes; this information is read later when the incoming payment is posted and results in corresponding difference postings.

It is possible to show the current totals for the payment amounts and the deduction amounts on the entry screens. This control information allows you to check the total of the amounts of all payment advice items in the payment advice header against the payment amount.

2. Change payment advice note

Document entry -> Payment advice -> Change. With this function, you change a payment advice. Payment advice notes that were created from manual OI processing can also only be changed again by means of manual OI processing.

No change documents are written when changing payment advice notes.

All fields in the payment advice note can be changed (particularly the amounts and the selection conditions).

3. Display payment advice note

Document entry -> Payment advice -> Display. With this function, you display a payment advice.

On the initial screen, you will find, just as when changing a payment advice note, a search function that allows you to specify the payment advice key generically, if known. The system searches for all appropriate payment advice notes and displays all payment advice notes found in a list (if more than one payment advice note was found). Selection criteria are the payment advice keys as well as the creation dates.

In addition, you can choose payment advice notes using the Payment advice list function and edit them from the list displayed.

In addition to the functions of the detail display and the payment advice overview, you can see who created this payment advice note when using which transaction via Extras -> Administrative data.

4. Delete payment advice note

Document entry -> Payment advice -> Delete. With this function, you delete a payment advice. In the configuration menu you defined beforehand how many days a payment advice note must be in the system before it can be deleted. This specification depends on the payment advice type.

Every payment advice note successfully used for payment settlement is then deleted automatically.

5. Reorganize payment advice note.

A reorganization of payment advice notes should normally not be allowed. It can be carried out using program RFAVIS20 . Selection criteria are the payment advice keys and the creation dates. To display the list, you can select from different hard-coded variants. Only those payment advice notes are chosen that could be deleted due to the minimum retention period in the system determined per payment advice type. If the "Proposal list" parameter is selected, a proposal list of the payment advice notes that can be deleted appears for control purposes. From this list, the payment advice notes to be deleted can then be selected and deleted.

6. Create payment advice note from manual OI processing

When processing open items, you can hold the selected items with the current processing status in the form of a payment advice note. To do this, choose the path Edit -> Create payment advice. A window appears where you enter the required key of the payment advice note. You can alternatively have an internal number assigned.

If you already referred to a payment advice note when selecting the open items (more on this in the following section), the following rules apply:

• If the old payment advice note has been created from OI processing as well, the old payment advice note is deleted when the new payment advice note is held.

• If the old payment advice note was created in other way, no new payment advice note can be created from OI processing.
  
  Creating a new payment advice note would cause the old payment advice note to be deleted. Details needed for processing could thus be lost, for example, information on all payment advice items to which no open items could be allocated.

7. Selection according to payment advice note for manual incoming payment processing

The Payment advice number field was included on the selection screens for incoming payments. By specifying the required payment advice key, you predefine the open items to be chosen. Further selection specifications or specifications on processing the open items (further accounts, clearing by age, automatic search, further limitations) are ignored when specifying a payment advice number.

If you do not want to specify the payment advice key completely, you can mask your entry with "*". For more information on this, refer to the online documentation for the input field.

The specification of the account number is not absolutely necessary, but generally speeds up processing.

For every payment advice item, the items that meet the selection criterion are chosen. If a document number is entered in the payment advice item, it has priority over further selection specifications. The items chosen in this way are completed by all items with invoice reference (invoice-related credit memos, partial payments) that belong to an invoice already chosen.

If several open items for one payment advice item are found by means of this procedure, the gross total of all allocated items is then compared with the gross amount of the payment advice item. If a difference results here, an optimization algorithm tries to find a combination of the allocated items whose gross total comes closest to the gross amount of the payment advice item.

If another difference between the payment advice item and the total of the allocated open items remains after the optimization, residual items are automatically created. If payment advice subitems that explain the difference exist, their amounts are copied together with the specified reason codes and reference information. If yet another difference remains, it is assigned the reason code from the payment advice item.

In case no payment advice subitems exist to explain the difference and also no reason code is specified in the payment advice item, then the total difference is automatically split up. In this case, up to three residual items can be created, one each for

• a difference with the gross amounts

• a difference with the cash discount amounts

• other differences
  

Other differences then occur if the net amount in the payment advice item does not result from the difference gross amount minus the cash discount.

The difference postings due to different gross amounts or different cash discount amounts can be assigned a separate reason code. The reason codes are set in customizing.

The difference postings are created as a residual items for the open item with the biggest amount that was allocated to the payment advice item.

If several difference postings for a payment advice item have the same reason codes, they are grouped together.

If no open item can be allocated to a payment advice item, a posting on account to this item is automatically created. In the item text, the selection specification from the payment advice item is noted to facilitate a later allocation of this payment. The total amount of these postings on account is displayed when processing the open items in the On account from payment advice field.

If these postings are not to be created, for example, because the difference is to be allocated manually or posted in total, you can suppress the creation of the postings via Edit -> On account from payment advice -> Inactive. With Edit -> On account from payment advice -> Active, you can cancel your decision. Instead of these two functions, you can also double-click on the On account from payment advices field.

When posting a clearing procedure, the underlying payment advice note is automatically deleted, providing at least one open item that is allocated to a payment advice item is active.

8. Authorization concept

For payment advice management (create, change, display and delete), two new authorization objects are available:

• F_AVIK_BUK: Payment advice notes: Authorization for company code

• F_AVIK_AVA: Payment advice notes: Authorization for payment advice types

Change system parameters in customizing

In the Financial Accounting Implementation Guide under "Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable", choose the step "Payment advice: choose selection fields" .

You customize procedding and display formats for advices in the Accounts Payable/Receivable IMG. To do so, select the relevant steps in the "Payment advices (incoming)".