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 Central Corporate Credit Card with Central Payment

Purpose

You use this process variant when your travel center books and pays for certain travel services (normally flights and rail connections) using a central corporate credit card (travel center card, lodged card, company Account, BTA card). The company receives the bill for this card and holds full liability for making the payments. The process variant can be combined with the process variants for personal corporate cards.

Prerequisites

To be able to use this credit card clearing process variant, you need to make sure that you meet all of the general prerequisites listed in Credit Card Clearing as well as those listed below:

  • You need to set up travel expense types for individual receipts in Customizing. These expense types need to include the setting already paid by company , and they also need to be assigned to the transaction key for the relevant credit card company. If you only use one specific service provider, you can enter this value as the default value.

    Activity: Define assignment table for credit card clearing

    View: Assign credit card transactions to travel expense types .

  • If you use several different central travel center cards, You should use one service provider . This allows you to complete a differentiated account determination process. Whereas expense types without the service provider are always posted to same clearing account, expense types with service providers are posted to the special clearing accounts for the corresponding central credit card.

    Activity: Assignment table: Define Credit Card Information

    View: Assign Credit Card Transactions to Travel Expense Types

  • If you have entered several service providers, you need to use a special wage type for determining the account for each credit card company, you then need to assign this to the combination expense type + service provider.

    Activity: Assign travel expense types for individual receipts

    View: Wage types for Receipts

  • You need to make sure that you select the with credit card information option for all wage types that are assigned to expense types that have already been paid by the company . This setting ensures that the credit card information, for example credit card number and transaction number, required for automatically clearing the open items is transferred to FI.

    Activity: Assign wage types to symbolic accounts

    View: Symbolic account assignment for FI

    Here: Assign the wage type defined as being paid by the company to a second symbolic account - the clearing account - and select the fields without CO Receiver and with credit card information.

SAP recommends the following procedure for comparing transaction data from the posted travel expenses with the items in the invoice file from the credit card company:

  • Create a new G/L account for each central travel center credit card - with OI (Open Items) Management - as the clearing account for paid travel expense receipts

    (Account is the same as the GI/IR account from Materials Management).

  • Set up an infrastructure for electronically processing invoice receipts in Accounts Payable Accounting.

Process Flow

  • You have a central corporate credit card that is used by the travel center in your company, or by the travel agency, to book and pay for trips.

    For the employee, this means that the larger travel expense items such as flights and hotel accommodation are not charged to their own bank accounts. However, in order to make sure that their travel expense statements are complete, and that all costs are assigned to the correct cost objects, the employee must integrate the receipts already paid by the company into their travel expense statements alongside their own expense claims. The Display Credit Card Receipts function (Report RPRCCC_DISPLAY_RECEIPTS) allows you to display which receipts have yet to be assigned to a travel expense statement. As with all of the other process variants, the credit card providers send you daily transaction data so that it can be imported into Travel Management. Depending on the credit card company concerned, you will receive transaction on a daily or periodic basis for importing into Travel Management.

  • Credit card receipts, that are marked as having already been paid by the company cannot be deleted from the document buffer, as each individual receipt must undergo invoice verification and evaluation processes in Financial Accounting. If the credit card receipt has already been paid, you cannot change the currency, amount or exchange rate. You can only transfer amounts to other paid expense types using the Receipt Wizard . However, this process is not normally required for receipts that have been paid for using the central travel center card.

  • In parallel to this, you also receive invoice files at regular intervals (for example, every 10 days) that - as long as the correct infrastructure exists - are automatically entered as preliminary invoice receipts in Financial Accounting. The offsetting entry in the creditor account for the credit card company takes place using the clearing account for paid travel expense receipts depending on the travel center card used. This is the account that is also posted to by travel expense accounting.

  • In addition to the standard criteria currency and amount, the unique transaction number from the credit card company, and the credit card number are also used as criteria for clearing and settlement. At the end of the month you only need to manually process open items that have queries and/or items that do not have a travel expense statement or credit card invoice.

Special Features for External Service Providers

Travel services for external service providers that travel to complete work on behalf of the company, are also often booked using a central travel center credit card. As these external people do not have a personnel number within your company, these lines are identified as errors when the credit card file is imported into SAP Travel Management (RPRCCC00). In such cases, it is worth defining a separate business process. The following options are available:

  • Creation of travel master records (FI-TV-Mini Master) for each external service provider in a separate number range and accounting area.

    Advantage: Clear assignment of responsibility and costs, decentralized travel expense accounting for external service providers (invoice verification) and transfer to FI.

    Disadvantage: High administration demands

  • Creation of one travel master record (FI-TV Mini Master) for each cost center area in a separate number range and accounting area.

  • Manual posting to clearing account for paid travel services per travel center card.

Posting Example

500 EUR Airfare paid for using central travel center credit card.

 

Expense

 

Credit card vendor

1)

500

-

 

-

-

2)

-

-

 

-

500

 

Clearing paid receipts

1)

-

500

2)

500

-

1) 1) import CCF (Credit card file), Travel Expense Accounting

  1. Receipt of credit card company invoice file.

Special Features for Cash Withdrawals using Corporate Credit Cards

If you allow employees to use their corporate credit cards to make cash withdrawals, this can help you to manage and reduce the requirements for trip-related advances.

Corporate Credit Cards with Personal Liability (Process Variants 1 and 2)

  • To allow cash withdrawals for corporate credit cards with personal liability, you need to create a travel expense type for individual receipts: CASH. This travel expense type include the setting To be reimbursed to employee , and must be assigned to the corresponding transaction key for the credit card company concerned.

  • After the credit card transaction have been imported into SAP Travel Management, the traveler can then assign the cash withdrawal transaction to the correct travel expense types. As the expense type CASH is a non reimbursable expense type, the traveler has to split this transaction line by assigning it to the different business expenses for which the cash was used (for example, taxi, tip, bus trip and so on). SAP recommends that you use the Receipt Wizard to do this. The Receipt Wizard ensures that the correct amounts and exchange rates are used. Private expenses are simply deducted from the original amount.

Corporate Credit Card with Company Liability (Process Variant 3)

  • To allow cash withdrawals for corporate credit cards with corporate liability, you need to create the expense type CASP. This travel expense type include the setting Paid by company , and must be assigned to the corresponding transaction key for the credit card company concerned.

After the credit card transaction have been imported into SAP Travel Management, the traveler can then assign the cash withdrawal transaction to the correct travel expense types. As the expense type CASP is a non reimbursable expense type, the traveler has to split this transaction line by assigning it to the different business expenses for which the cash was used (for example, taxi, tip, bus trip and so on). The traveler then identifies any private expenses using the Receipt Wizard. These private expenses are then debited from the employees account.