sap fico: Accounts Receivable (Users's Guide)

In contrast to general ledger accounting in which you only manage the total of receivables for the financial statement, you use accounts receivable accounting for recording all details regarding the business transactions such as invoices, credit memos and incoming payments. The interaction between the sales department and accounts receivable accounting assumes a significant role here. The sales employees are interested in sales orders and sales volume and they receive incentives in the form of bonus payments for their work. The task of accounts receivable accounting is to convert the invoice amount that was agreed on by contract with the customer into cash receipt. There is a general saying that states "sold and delivered goods remain a gift until they are paid".
The management will include rules to handle certain business cases for example how to handle insolvency of one or more customers or total loss in receivables, or if customers are paying too late or don't pay the total invoice amount, these all result in delayed or loss in the cash receipt, however the management must keep the business running. A key figure that is mentioned in business is the DSO (days sales outstanding) value, that is the period outstanding of receivables. Another addition to management is how much time and hence money is invested internally to go from sales order to cash receipt, this determined how well sales and financial account interact with each other, this calls for very clear responsibilities and goals.
I will not be mentioning on how to enter incoming invoices in this section as they are the same as in accounts payable, the only different is the transactions codes and the easy access menu location which can be seen below, which means we can focus on the sections that are related to the account receivable.

I do have a whole section on receivable accounting in my FI configuration and setup section, this covers the subject from a configuration point of view.
FI-AR Component
The SAP system includes two components or subledger's to save customer data

FI-AR (accounts receivable)
FI-CA (contract accounting)

This dualism is due to that enterprises use different business models - business to business (B2B) and business to consumer (B2C) in practice. The B2C business model primary concerns SAP industry solutions for communication enterprises, electricity provides and the media segment. One challenge is to map millions of end customers quickly and efficiently, the data model and the existing programs for FI-AR quickly reach their (time) limits. This is where FI-CA (contract accounting) emerged, which is based on the industry solutions for mass accounting. The processes and hence the programs such as invoice posting, dunning procedures or incoming payments are developed for these industries specifically for the FI-CA subledger. FI-AR and the general ledger are connected in real time, however they are connected asynchronously that is they are connected to the background processing with a time delay.
The FI-AR component keeps and manages account-based customer data, the component is an integral part of sales and distribution controlling, it also provides effective credit management through a close integration with SD (Sales and Distribution) module and information for the optimization of the liquidity planning through a connection with the cash management and forecast.
Account analyses, alarm reports, due date lists and flexible dunning are available for the open item management, an incoming payment can be assigned to the corresponding receivables manually on the screen or by electronic means. By means of the payment program you can automate both the debit memo procedure and the payment of credit memos. To document the processes in accounts receivable accounting you can use account balances, journals, balance audit trails and numerous standard reports. For key date valuations you revaluate foreign currency items, determine customers on the credit side and scan the balances established this way for remaining terms.
Master Data
Master data is made of three parts, the general data is maintained at the client level, this data is available for all company codes, at this level you specify the name of the subledger account in subledger accounting, the tax number and the bank details.
Next is the company code data, this includes the account number of the reconciliation account in the general ledger, the terms of payment and the settings for the dunning procedure. For integrated use with the SD module you are provided with additional fields for the customers master record, these fields contain information that is required for handling business transactions in the sales and distribution area and that is used exclusively in the SD module, the data includes terms of delivery, price list type and remarks regarding the customer, these specifications control the order processing, the shipping data and the billing information provided that these business transaction are recorded by means of a transaction to SD. I will be fully covering sales and distribution in another section.
The SAP system provides a special master record type for one-time customers, in contrast to the regular master records, this is similar to the accounts payable, the master record does not contain specific data of the business partner such as address or bank details. The information is entered for each business transaction during document entry. When posting to a one-time account the system automatically navigates to an entry screen to enter the business partners specific data.
Creating a customer is very similar to creating a vendor which we performed in the accounts payable section, you can either create a customer centrally or create it centrally/company code level, the below screenshot displays both methods, we will use transaction code FD01

The initial screen requests for a account group, customer name and the company code, the account determines the account numbering or lettering and the field status parameters. here I will just enter the minimum to get started, also if you notice you can copy an existing account using the reference fields.

The first details we will fill in is the address tab (left-hand screenshot), this is all self-explaining, the next screen/tab is the control data (right-hand screenshot), here we can enter tax details, locations (this help in SD for delivery locations, etc), you can also specify if the customer is also a vendor (if you do then a field called Clearing with ... in the account management tab in the company code will appear, you need to activate this field), and you can implement authorizations so that specific users can alter the customers details.

The next screen is the bank details (left-hand screenshot) again this is self explaining, the account management screen (right-hand screenshot) details the reconciliation account (remember the customer is a subledger), sort key, cash management group, also you can setup the interest calculation parameters, below are some of the parameters for the account management screen

reconciliation account - Each posting to an account of subledger accounting automatically creates an entry to the general ledger, this is done via the reconciliation account, the field status group in the master record of the reconciliation account specifies the screen layout for document entry. The items of the customers account are managed in the currency of the reconciliation account
sort key - used to sort line items, normally line items are sorted using the assignment field in the document.
authorization - specify who receives change or read authorization for this account

I have also mentioned how you use multiple reconciliation accounts in my account payable master data section.

Next we fill in the details for the payment transactions here we have the payment terms, tolerance group, automatic payment transactions

Terms of payment - is used for orders, purchase orders and invoices and provide information about dunning and payment transactions, the value entered here is used as a default value for the document entry
Tolerance group - you make specifications for granting of cash discounts and for handling of payment differences for each tolerance group, this entry affects dunning and entry of payment transactions. For manual closing the payment differences are accepted by the system up to the define tolerance and the items are closed
Payment history record - the system records the customer payment history, this is important for credit management.
Payment methods - you can define the payment methods that are allowed for the customer if the automatic payment program is used.
Payment block - this causes a block on the account, in the automatic payment program the block is effective if it is set either in the master record or in the document, if set in the master record all open items of this customer are transferred to the exception list.
Single payment - determines that all open items are paid or collected separately, this prevents multiple open items being cleared jointly with one payment.
Clearing with vendor - this checkbox only appears if a value is entered in the vendor field in the control data tab, however an actual clearing within the automatic SAP procedure only takes place if this field is selected

Next is the correspondence screen which involves dunning, the accounting clerk, bank statements, etc.

Dunning procedure - the dunning procedure which is company code independent and can be used by all company codes within a client. Only the dunning notices are controlled separately for each company code. To be consider as part of the dunning process you must define a procedure here.
Dunning Frequency/Interval - determines the minimum number of days that must elapse after a dunning run before an account can be dunned again. The date of the last dunning run is recorded in the master record, using this date and the frequency/interval the SAP can determine if it is available to be in the dunning run.
Grace day/minimum number of days in arrears - used to determine the due date of open items and whether an account can be dunned. An item whose days in arrears are smaller or equal to the grace days must be considered as not due.
Number of dunning levels - for each dunning level you can specify how many days in arrears a line item must be to reach the corresponding dunning level. The dunning level determines the associated dunning notice.
Processes to be dunned - you specify whether the stand and/or special G/L transactions are dunned with a procedure, special G/L transaction include bill of exchange payment request, payment requests, down payments and down payment requests.
Dunning block - the business partner is not included in the dunning run, you can enter a blocking key which is a descriptive text that indicates the reason for the block, blocked accounts are output in an exception list which includes the block reason.
Dunning level - normally this is set within the dunning program, however you can set it here, the dunning level influences the next dunning run, if set to 0 the system uses the minimum number of days in arrears that are specified in the dunning procedure to calculate the necessary days in arrears for all other dunning levels the system uses grace days
Dunning clerk - the name of the clerk whose ID is indicated in this field is printed on the dunning notices, the dunning and account clerks can be same of different
Accounting clerk - the name of the clerk whose ID is indicated in this field appears on all correspondence documents sent to the business partner, additionally it is printed on the dunning notices, if the dunning clerk field is blank

The last screen is regarding any insurance that you may have, I have already covered withholding tax in my FI setup and configuration section.

policy number - you can define the link to an export credit insurance policy
institution number - you can define a number for the institution
amount insured - you define the value of the insurance
valid to - here you can enter the renewal date
lead months - this signal factor you must maintain the maximum date of required payment to be granted for your customers
deductible - some export credit polices include a deductible share of the policy-holder, this rate is between 20 and 40% depending on the insurance risk

When you save the customers account you will be informed by SAP as per the below screenshot

The customer will now be available for you to post invoices, etc.

If you display the customer and you receive the below informational message (left-hand screenshot) this means you need to confirm the customer (you need to be a different user), from the display screen select extras -> confirmation of change from the menu bar and you will be taken to the customer confirm change screen (middle screenshot), if you notice in the confirmation status (company code) it needs to be confirmed, select the confirm button and the screen will be updated, you will then not see this message again.

As in vendors you can block customers, using transaction code FD05 the initial screen (left-hand screenshot) requests for the customer name and company code, you can block for all company codes or just the selected company code. You can also do this centrally using transaction code XD05.

The subledger's provide you the option to set flags for the deletion of all master data or company code specific master data of certain company codes, you can use transaction code FD06,

general data - this flag prevents the deletion of general data from the master record by archiving the program
selected company code inc. general data - this flag you determine the company-specific data of the master record must not be deleted, if set none of the associated general data is deleted.

Overview of the Integrated Business Transaction
Like we did in the accounts payable I am going to explain the business transactions relating to account receivable, this usually concerns the individual steps from order entry to incoming payments (order to cash), again different departments will be involved, departments of sales and distribution, accounts receivable accounting, controlling, and treasury.
During the incoming orders in the sales and distribution department two critical checks are implemented in the background

can the goods be delivered at the requested date
does the customer have a sufficient credit limit

Both may require interaction with the customer, a successful incoming order impacts the future cash inflow of an enterprise, with the date of required payment you are provided with a date for the planned cash receipt, this is significant for the treasury department. The controlling department can identify planned revenues for products x, y, and z, already in the forecasts by means of the incoming orders.
In real life the next steps of the process chain, the goods issue, is carried out days, weeks or even months after the incoming order, at this time the goods are removed from storage and delivered to the customer, again credit checks may be performed just before the goods are sent. The next step is the billing documents for the delivery and services provided as a receivable in the accounts receivable accounting. The customer is requested to pay within the time period that was agreed on the incoming orders, at the same time this information is forwarded onto the controlling and treasury departments. The billing status is much more meaningful that the incoming order status for a profitability analysis of products x, y and z for a liquidity planning. At this point the order is processed, the goods are delivered and the billing brings in the cash receipt closer.
There is a saying as in accounts payable that "delivered goods remain a gift until they are paid", a customer will receive written dunning notices in multiple dunning levels after the date of required payment has been reached. In practice you use three or four dunning levels with dunning intervals of 7 to 14 days, however customers (not all customers) normally delay payment until they receive the third or last dunning notice. Dunning can be performed by email and by telephone where you would call the customer to remind them at the payment is due, plus this adds the bonus that you can ask them if they are satisfied with anything or if you can help them with more services, almost trying to obtain additional sales without being too demanding but using the justification of the dunning notice for the call.
The final step of the process chain takes place when the customer pays, the payment is credited to the enterprise account, and the information is available via an electronic bank statement. Payment notes indicate which bills are supposed to be paid with the cash receipt, these notes are used for an automatic clearing of the original bill, however there may be times which manual intervention is required to match the payment with the order.
Monitoring Credit Limits
It is important to monitor the credit lines of customers, credit checks are performed and goods/services are not performed or sent until clarification has been obtained with the customer for the credit limit breaches, it maybe that credit limits can be increased or that they customer will pay over the phone to reduce the amount of credit they have. Over time credit limits will match what the customer needs and hopefully there will not be too many issues, as the last thing that you want to do is make the customer go else where for the goods or services but at the same time you need to make sure that orders are being paid on a reasonable timescale.
The SAP credit management system allows you to keep the history on each customer in one place, this includes payment history, dunning levels and order volumes and external information regarding credit ratings.
When you enter a order (transaction code VA01) or invoice (transaction code FB70) the system will check and alert if any credit limit (right-hand screenshot) is breached or if a clerk does not have the limits to input the invoice (left-hand screenshot), you can see how to create credit limit areas in the FI setup and configuration section.

Dispute Management
I will cover the dispute management lightly here until I get more experience with it, all businesses have to deal with disputes with customers and vendors, and they can be divided into three categories

The customer informs the enterprise proactively - the complaints department, the account manager and accounting must all be able to initiate a dispute case
The customer claims payment deductions - the SAP system unsuccessfully tries to settle a number of invoices by means of a electronic bank statement. The dispute management can automatically generate a dispute case with the associated items, indicate difference and forward it to the clerk defined in the customer master record.
The customer hold backs the payment - the open items become over due after the terms of payment have expired, a dispute case can be created automatically before the dunning notice.

The dispute case created remains connected to the open items or the business transaction, you can open the dispute case processing from the SAP menu as seen below

When you open the dispute management you are taken to the initial screen as per the below screenshot (left-hand screenshot), I have highlighted in red boxes some simple search options that you can use to find open cases, also you have different RMS (Record Management Systems) which are used for the logical separation of different business areas (right-hand screenshot), which are physically used in the same client of an installation. By dividing the records of a company into discreet units means that it is possible to provide particular groups of users access to particular records.

You can check to see the history of the dispute (left-hand screenshot) and see what documents or items the dispute has been connected to (right-hand screenshot), we will take a closer looking a moment when we create a dispute case.

So lets create a dispute case with a existing transaction, for this example I will use customer DDCUS01 and select a open transaction, you can then select environment -> create dispute case

The dispute case initial screen looks like below, fill in as much as you can and then select the save icon

The SAP system then displays a confirmation message that a dispute has been opened for this document, it a shame that you don't see the dispute case ID

You can add an additional column called case ID in the customer line item display screen, which displays the dispute case id for all the documents, you can either double-click the case ID or selectextras -> display dispute case to see the dispute case

The system then displays a list of the dispute cases, again you can double-click on the dispute case to see the header information

The dispute case header information has lots of details which includes who opened the case, the amounts involved, contact details, reasons for dispute case, etc. Notice the amount as we will be creating a credit memo later and linking to this dispute case

We can then use the dispute case manager to also view dispute cases as we saw earlier, here you can see the two cases that I have open (including the one we created earlier)

Lets say that we have agreed to create a credit memo for 1500.00 for the damaged goods (something is better than nothing), once the credit memo has been created we use clearing to make a residual payment against the original invoice (I have covered in detail residual payment in my account payable section manual payment run)

Now lets see what has happened in the dispute manager, here we can see three entries, the original invoice, the credit memo and the residual item, so the dispute manager knows what has happened, the original invoice has now been resolved but because we still have the dispute case open it has attached to the residual item. You can double-click any of the below line items to obtain more details.

If we look at the header we can see that the amounts have been adjusted because a credit memo has been applied

You can view the changes in the log files

Finally, you can close the dispute case by either paying the invoice and clearing the open item or by using the dispute header and selecting the void button, you can then see the closed by completed (left-hand screenshot), also if you look at the open item the case ID has been removed (right-hand screenshot)

Dunning
You can dunne by two methods either by telephone or by email, generally customers ignore the first couple of dunning notices and until the more threatening ones are sent the customer takes no notice of them, of course this then delays the payment, this first thing to do regarding customers and credit risk management is to obtain a list of the customers who are at risk, we must collect the relevant information regarding customers in arrears for example open postings, incoming payments, dunning's or risk assessment. Then you can call the customer to remind the customer of the payment and to make arrangements for the promise to pay or dispute the payment. You can find the SAP collections management tools as in the below screenshot, in this section we will look at the worklist, I cover this section in more detail in the sales and distribution section,

On the initial screen you can select from one of the configured collection groups, here I will select group_us

The system will then (based on rules) highlight the business partners and their position regarding credit risk, the list is sorted by the riskiest customers (the ones who probably will not pay), the list also contains the outstanding payments, what needs to be collected (overdue), any promises by the customer regarding a payment, and the broken promises, disputed amounts and dunning. The accounting clerks will use this list to call customers to find out if the customer is willing to pay outstanding invoices, we will take a look at copperfield LTD

First we can select a valuation according to strategy option to find out why a customer appears on the worklist at a particular position, in our case this customer is at the top of the list, so lets we why

The valuation this company has a very high valuation meaning that this company is a high risk, the valuation is broken down into section each with a score, each section has details on how that score was achieved, for example the score 25 was achieved because there a number of days that are overdue by 15 days which totals 2,000 USD, we also have a total of 1,000 USD that are overdue by 30 days giving a score of 20, etc. basically the higher the score the higher the risk that we will not get the money from the company and it would be a good idea to find out from the company itself to see why they are not paying, perhaps they are in financial difficulties and if this is the case then we must block the company to make sure that we do not supply any more goods or services.

We can also drill down on each customer by double-clicking on the customer line, here we can see a breakdown on the documents (invoices), we can see posting dates, due dates amounts, if any payments have been paid, any promises made for payment. If you double-click on a line here you are taken to the document itself,

From this point we can either create a promise to pay, dispute case, resubmission, I have already covered disputes so lets take a look at promise to pay.

After selecting a document and the promise to pay, the bottom half of the screen changes to a promise to pay screen, here you can enter details that have been agreed with the customer (after a phone call) on what date a payment is expected, remember this is only a promise and not actual payment and as we will see soon promises can be broken

We can see open and broken promises in the promise to pay tab (left-hand screenshot), here we can see a number of promises that have been broken and we have a open promise to pay an invoice, again we can use this screen to chase the customer for payment, or make a decision to block the customer until we receive payment. If you double-click on a document you can taken to the case screen, here details have been entered regarding the telephone calls to the customer

Lastly we can see all the dispute cases we have with the customer, again this should be checked regularly and phone calls should be made to chase the customer for payments, remember all this chasing is costing your company money which reduces your profit, the less people that we have to employee to chase customers who don't pay the better for the company.

As you can see the collection management component hooks into the dispute management component, account receivables and credit management.
Next we will look at dunning via email, most customers are loyal and do pay on time, however customers can get busy or are very large that they do need a gently reminder that a payment is due, it the same for us when we forget to pay a utility bill, a letter is pushed through your door as a gentle reminder to pay, the longer you go without paying the gentle reminder turns into a threatening letter, and they have a right as you have used your service and thus you must pay for it, the procedure is below

Reminder by sending a copy of the invoice or an account statement
Dunning notice including the due date of the debt and request for payment
Notification of collection implemented by a collection agency
Assignment to a collection agency
Last dunning notice with threat of legal action

The dunning program selects the open items of the business partner accounts and determines the dunning level of the respective account or documents and creates the dunning notices. The dunning procedures are independent of the company code and define the dunning interval, the grace days for the due date determination and the number of dunning levels.
The dunning program passes through multiple successive steps and includes both manual and automatic processes

Maintain Parameter - to trigger an automatic dunning you must specify the key date for the due date check and which accounts the dunning program is supposed to check. The dunning program creates a dunning proposal that you can edit on the screen
Create dunning proposal - this is implemented automatically by the dunning program
Edit dunning proposal - the user can specify the dunning's he wants to edit, you can select according to processor or dunning level for example. In the dunning proposal the user can decrease the dunning level of the individual items, also you can release items or accounts for dunning for which a dunning block is defined, all changes of a dunning run can be logged
Print dunning letter - the dunning level and the dunning date of the line items as well as the account concerned are not updated until the print of the dunning's. Therefore the dunning proposal can be repeated as often as you like, both customers and vendors can participate in a dunning procedure.

You can access the dunning program via the easy access menu as in the below screenshot or you can use transaction code F150,

The initial screen looks similar to the payment program, here we enter a run on date (which is used in the dunning letters) and a unique (for that date) identification which will identify different dunning runs, then we enter the details into each tab

In the parameter tab we enter the following, the dunning dates and the company code DD11, we will dune all customers

dunning date - the date that appears in the dunning letters, the system use it to calculate the days in arrears
documents posted up to - all documents posted upto this date are checked for the due date during this dunning run
company code - the system only considers the documents of the company codes that are entered here, you can enter single values or intervals
customer account (vendor account) - the dunning run considers the accounts of the customers or vendors that are entered here

The free section allows you exclude or filter the items in the dunning run, you can narrow your filters using the left-hand screenshot, the right-hand screenshot lists the fields that you can use to filter the dunning run.

The last tab is the additonal log, here you can log a high level of detail for all or particular customers or vendors

You can then save the dunning proposal, which can be edited before running

The status screen is also indicates that the parameters have been saved

Now we select the schedule button to perform the dunning run, here I start the run immediately

The dunning run consists of three steps

Select accounts - first the dunning procedure checks the business partner record to see when the last dunning run's date in the masters data is before the date that is determined by the dunning interval
Dun items - all documents found for the selected accounts are searched and checked for their due date
Dun accounts - finally you determine the dunning level at which the account must be dunned

Depending on the volumes of customers this procedure could be run in the background and during quiet times, the status section is updated of the scheduled dunning run (left-hand screenshot), if you press enter several times eventually the dunning run completes (right-hand screenshot)

We can then have a look at the log file, you can see some of the common problems that may occur

No dunning procedure exists, not dunnable - the program cannot determine at which interval and levels the customer is supposed to be dunned, you need to look in the business partners master data to see if a dunning information has been setup, the result is that the business partner will be excluded
Account XYZ is blocked by dunning run 02082013 PFV1 - the business partner has already been selected in another dunning run, the identification has been given to you, a business partner can only exist in one dunning run.
Amount not sufficient for dunning - the amount has fallen below the minimum amount defined in the dunning procedure, sometimes a high credit memo can result in the balance of a customer account becoming a payable, the same for a vendor and you have defined a clearing.
Account has payment method for incoming payment - in the customer account you have defined an automatic debit or a debit memo procedure for the payments methods, because the payment run enables you to collect money yourself, it is not due to the customer that the documents have become overdue.

In our case we can see a number of documents which are considered to be dunned and thus will receive a dunning letter which we will see shortly

We can also have a look at the dunning list which details the documents that are to be dunned, there is lots of information here, days in arrears, due date, posting key, currencies (both local and foreign) and amount

So lets have a look at a dunning letter, we can select the sample printout and fill in the details as in the screenshot below, then select the spyglasses

Here we can see the dunning letter to customer DDCUS01, I have to split the screenshot into two sections as the letter is too big to capture in a single screenshot, the letter details the outstanding open items, which includes the due dates and the amounts

Here is customer DDCUS02 dunning letter

Lastly after the dunning letters have been printed the documents get updated with the dunning details, notice the dunning columns, the last dunning run date in entered and the dunning level column.

You can check the dunning run status to see what events have happened regarding the dunning run, here we can see the following

the dunning parameters were saved (maintained)
the dunning run was scheduled and complete
the printing of the dunning letters (this updates the documents)

Evaluation in Accounts Receivable
The are many predefined evaluations in SAP, I will show you a few which is only a small fraction of the many possibilities available, particularly in the area of receivables, where transparency is worth a lot of money. First lets look at our customers, using transaction code F.20 (left-hand screenshot) you can list customers details, you can chose what information is displayed and you can also limit the customers or the company code, the report can be seen in the right-hand screenshot

Next we can look at the customers balance, this will help to find good volume customers, hopefully they are also paying on time, we will use transaction code S_ALR_87012172 or you can use the SAP easy access menu as seen below

Again we get a similar filter screen (left-hand screenshot) which can widen or narrow your search, the report is displayed in the right-hand screenshot

Next we can see the customer payment history which is equally important as sales, you can use transaction code S_ALR_87012177 or use the SAP easy access menu as seen below

Again we start with a filter screen (left-hand screenshot), the report is displayed in right-hand screenshot, this report can detail the customers who pay late regularly (see the arrear column and the ones with the minus sign)

Customer valuation with OI sort list is a good aging report (transaction code S_ALR_87012176), it details customer information, commitments, sales information, payment information, dunning information sales amounts and payment amounts, etc. You can also adjust the due date sort list into whatever days you want (see left-hand screenshot)

The accounts receivable info system is a kind of data cube that is filled with up-to-date information at regular intervals, we saw this in the accounts payable section, you can view rotate and turn the cube to view it from different perspectives, you can use transaction code F.30, the initial screen is shown below, remember that the data of the cube is static and needs to be refreshed from time to time which I will show you how to do in a moment

The DSO (days sales outstanding) is the period between the billing and the incoming payments, this monitors the customer payment behavior, you can breakdown into complete client (group) or individual credit control areas (see screenshot above). In the below screenshot we can see the DSO information at the client level, we are basically looking for low levels in the DSO days column, if this become to high (I have a high level here as i need to update notice the key date in the top right-hand corner) then you need to investigate why it is taking so long to get the payment, perhaps the dunning needs to be more efficient. If you double-click on any of the company codes you will get the right-hand screenshot which breaks down into the customers.

Next we can have a look at the over due items, here I am looking at the client level which details all the company codes, again we are looking in the days in arr column for high number of days, you can also keep drilling down by double-clicking on a company code, this will display the document numbers.

If a receivable exist in a foreign currency the gain or loss from exchange rate fluctuation is implemented at the time of the incoming payments, you can use the currency analysis of the accounts receivable info system to illustrate the effects of the current exchange rates in advance. In the screenshot below you can see that the customer Becker Berlin we can see the difference of -229.49. The currency analysis helps you keep an overview of the possible risks and the losses and gains from the exchange rate fluctuation during the periods between the billing and the incoming payment.

To update the info system, we will use transaction code F.29, enter a job name and then click on the step button

We enter the job details, SAP have automatically suggested a program name and a variant, select the save button

Then we select the start condition button and the below screen will be displayed, here I have selected immediate, however you could create a schedule here if you wish

When you save you will get confirmation at the bottom of the screen

If you select the own jobs button you should be able you see your job at the bottom (left-hand screenshot), you can drill into the job to obtain more details as per the right-hand screenshot.

Now lets have a look at the over due items again we can see that the key date has been updated, remember to update the data before you start analyzing

Next we can have a look at the credit management, you can use transaction UKM_MALUS_DSP or use the SAP easy access menu as per below, you will be taken to a filter screen which you can apply any filtering

The report will eventually produce a list, here we can see the exposure details of each business partner, the credit exposure, credit limits, utilization, it even has a icon to give a visual indication, anything over 100% utilization needs to be investigated

Hopefully with the above you should be able to identify any customers who are not paying and thus you could change the dunning procedures to try and get the payments in on time without upsetting the customer.
You can also have quick access to the payable reports using transaction F.99, you can even turn on the technical name of the reports.

Lastly we have already discussed the dispute management but again this area also needs to be kept an eye on, you don't want the customer coming back saying they are waiting on you to decide on something, make sure that each dispute is upto date and that the customer is regularly updated, the accounting clerks should be checking the dispute cases on a regular basis.

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Thursday 1 January 2015

Accounts Receivable (Users's Guide)

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