Claim Settlements

This function is used in market development funds (MDF) and trade promotion management (TPM) to make payment for claims against funds for marketing campaigns and promotions.

Settlements are always created on the brand owner side and represent actual budget consumptions that are taken from one or multiple funds.

The following are also processed by claim settlement:

Claim Settlements are processed by using the SAP CRM Billing application. The settlement due list, for example, is based on the billing due list.

For more information about the functions of the billing application, see Billing.

Integration

Payment is carried out in the connected ERP system, which can be SAP ERP or a non-SAP application.

For more information, see Accounting Integration for Claim Settlements.

Prerequisites

You have made the appropriate settings in Customizing for Customer Relationship Management, under Claims Management —> Define Basic Settings for Claim Settlements.

Features

Settlement Due List
When claims are approved, settlement-related data is automatically collected in a settlement due list. Claim items are copied as settlement due list items. The settlement due list is the basis for settlement.
- When claims are corrected, the original settlement due list item is blocked, and a new settlement due list item is created for the corrected claim.
- When a claim correction is cancelled, the predecessor claim is reactivated and the original settlement due list item is unblocked.
Note
Only claim items with an item category that has billing relevance are transferred to the settlement due list.

End of the note.
Settlement Execution
- You can set up a settlement to run periodically, or you can trigger it manually to run at a chosen time.
- You can use direct payment to settle a claim as soon as it is approved.
- You can set up an availability check to determine at a line level whether funds are available to refund the claim.
  For more information, see Availability Control in Claims and Funds.
- You can create collective settlement documents that contain multiple claims items to be settled to a given payee at a specific time.
- For mass settlement, the system can generate a single document that contains items from multiple preceding documents. The system provides splitting criteria to facilitate this process.
- Split logic ensures that the selected number of claims items are assigned correctly to settlement documents.
- Settlement uses organizational data to determine the billing unit, pricing conditions, texts, partner data, and so on in the settlement due list. Claim-specific data, such as fund, reference object, and fund usage are also transferred to the due list.
- Claims can be partially settled, for example, if insufficient money is available in funds for immediate full settlement. For more information, see Partial Settlements.
Claim Settlement
During settlement, the system generates a settlement document for the relevant account and posts accounting data to financial accounting. You can edit settlement documents on condition that no transfer to Financial Accounting (FI) has taken place. You can make corrections to settlement documents in the event of over- or underpayment, or inadequate proof of performance.

Settlement documents contain information about how money in funds is spent. For example, you may have done one of the following:
- Made prepayment to a partner to run the marketing campaign or promotion and use proof of performance documents (received from the partner) to deduct the prepaid amount
- Made direct payments to multiple payees
- Settled direct payments, that is, settlement of a claim that contains no marketing or promotion information
After settlement documents are generated, they are updated with the settlement values.
- Cancellation of a settlement document results in the system creating a cancellation document that is linked to the settlement document. Cancellation is dependent on the claim settlement status and whether prepayment has already been used to settle a claim.
  For the funds associated with the cancelled item, the value category Approved Claim is posted with [minus the validated amount of the item cancelled], and the value category Released to Settle with [minus (validated amount of item cancelled minus settled amount of item canceled)]. These postings are linked to the claim.
  
  Value category Settled is posted with minus the settlement amount of the item cancelled, and value category Expended with the settlement amount of the item cancelled. These postings are linked to the cancellation document.
Transfer of Settlement Data to Accounting
Data can be transferred automatically to accounting during settlement, or you can trigger the transfer manually, depending on your Customizing settings.

More Information

SAP Note 1106673