Bank Area - SAP Documentation

Definition

Organizational unit of Bank Customer Accounts that allows independent account management. This also means that the account numbers that exist in a bank area must be unique.

Note Note

In SAP In-House Cash , the number of bank areas that you define corresponds to the number of cash centers you have.

End of the note.

Structure

Customizing Settings

You make settings for bank areas in Customizing for Bank Customer Accounts (BCA). The important settings are described below:

Bank key
Check digit method that controls or checks the issuing of account numbers
Time at which posting cut-off is to be automatically executed every day
Exchange rate category that stores conversion rates in the system
Country, language, and the public holiday calendar used

Special Feature: Bank Area and Bank Key

The bank key is particularly significant, since bank keys, along with the account number, are used for the processing of payment transactions. All banks participating in payment transactions can be identified by a unique numerical labeling.

Branch offices either have their own bank identification number or one that is related to their main office.

The internal organization of a bank may require several bank areas to depict the bank structure.

One Bank Key Can Involve Several Bank Areas

The system checks that the account number is unique in all bank areas with the same bank key. In addition, to avoid the creation of the same account number simultaneously in different bank areas, the system locks this account number in all bank areas belonging to the bank key.

Note Note

If the previous or feeder system transfers payment items, the bank area must first be determined by means of the bank key. The system is equipped with suitable checks for this.

When payment items are forwarded externally, the system may not be able to determine the appropriate bank area. If such a payment item is forwarded by a Business Application Programming Interface (BAPI) to the system and the system cannot determine the bank area, the BAPI is terminated with the return code system error. This means that no items are processed.

End of the note.

Integration

The bank area, as the central element, affects almost every unit of the system.

Assignment of Company Code

If you use SAP Financial Accounting (SAP FI), you must assign one company code to a bank area. You can assign more than one bank area to a company code, but can assign only one company code to a bank area.

Financial Accounting System Assignment

You can assign different financial accounting systems to different bank areas. However, you cannot assign more than one financial accounting system to a particular company code.

Example Example

You assign the following company codes and financial accounting systems to the bank areas listed below:

End of the example.

Bank Area	Company Code	Financial Accounting System
0001	0001	A
0002	0002	A
0003	0001	A
0004	0003	B

You now want to assign bank area 0005 to company code 0002 and financial accounting system C. The system does not allow you to save this record since company code 0002 is already associated with the financial accounting system A.

The following graphic illustrates the assignment of company code and financial accounting systems to bank areas:

This graphic is explained in the accompanying text.

Example Example

If you are using multiple accounting systems (FI), and are using the Reserve for Bad Debt (RBD) tool to aggregate accounts for a business partner, you must ensure that you do not aggregate accounts across company codes.

End of the example.