Performing Open Item Clearing

Open items, such as invoices that have not been paid, are incomplete transactions.

To complete a transaction, you must clear it. A transaction is cleared when a clearing posting is carried out for an item or group of items, so that the resulting balance of the items is zero.

You cannot archive documents with open items. The documents stay in SAP S/4HANA until all open items are cleared.

An example of posting with clearing is as follows:

1. An invoice is posted to a customer account. This invoice is regarded as an open item because at this point it is unpaid.
2. The customer pays the invoice and the payment is assigned to the open item.
3. The invoice is cleared with the payment and the resulting balance is zero.

In this clearing procedure, you manually select open items that balance to zero from an account. Examples of situations where you perform clearing manually are as follows:

• For bank subaccounts and clearing accounts
• For situations where you have agreed upon a debit memo procedure
• For refunds from a vendor

A clearing transaction always creates a clearing document.

When using the post with clearing function, enter the clearing document amount and select the open items that require clearing. If the total amount of selected open items equals the amount of the clearing document, SAP S/4HANA clears the open items by creating one or more clearing items. If the total amount of selected open items does not equal the amount of the clearing document, the system allows you to post the difference.

The following options are available for clearing open items:

• Clear several accounts and account types.
• Clear items in a particular currency.
• Post differences that result from assigning items to each other.
• Enter any number of additional line items (for example, bank charges).

A post with clearing transaction can be performed either manually or automatically using the automatic payment program and the automatic clearing program.

SAP S/4HANA fills the Assignment field automatically for a line item when you post items according to the Sort field entry in the master record.

The Assignment field can be a combination of up to four fields with a maximum of 18 characters. For example, to display the document number with 10 characters and the posting date with six characters, SAP S/4HANA includes them in the definition of the assignment field.

Similarly, if the sort key is set to the purchase order number in the business partner master record (Customer/Vendor), then SAP S/4HANA fills the Assignment field in the business partner line item with the purchase order number.

If the sort key is set to the cost center in a general ledger master record, then SAP S/4HANA fills the Assignment field in the general ledger line item with the number of the cost center.

Line item sorting in the line item display and clearing functions can be based on the assignment field. For example, when an invoice is posted in sales order management, an accounting document is created in Financial Accounting (FI). The document has a document number that is different to the number of the sales order management invoice. You can use the reference and assignment in the sales order management billing document to trace the document in sales order management that the accounting document is based on. The reference and assignment in the accounting document are copied from the reference and assignment in the sales order management billing document.

You can define which numbers (purchase order, order, delivery, or billing document number) are copied into the sales order management document as reference and assignment and then transferred to FI. You can then use these fields as selection criteria in FI.

The data entered in the document header is similar to the data entered when posting invoices.

The document header consists of the following sections:

• The payment header
• Bank data
• Selection of open items

Enter the following information in the payment header section of the document header:

• The document date.

• The document type, proposed by SAP S/4HANA and based on the transaction called.

• The company code, if no code is proposed.

• The date specifications, including the document and posting dates and the posting period. The current date is the default document and posting date, and the posting period is derived from the posting date.

• The currency specifications, including the currency code, the exchange rate, and the date for currency translation. In the absence of a manually input exchange rate or translation date, the application uses the exchange rate from the exchange rate table on the posting date.

• Any payment references needed to identify the incoming payment, such as the reference document number, document header text, and clearing text fields.

Enter the following data in the bank data section of the document header:

• The general ledger (G/L) account number for incoming or outgoing payments.

• The total payment amount.

• The bank charges for services: SAP S/4HANA automatically posts these charges to a special expense account.

• The value date: This date is used to evaluate the position in cash management. It may be the current date, which is the default date in the system.

• The text description: This is an optional description of the item. Start the line with an asterisk (*) to enable the text to be printed on external correspondence too. You can also work with text templates to select an entry from a list of standard texts.

• The assignment number: This is created by SAP S/4HANA, or entered manually.

S/4HANA references the following information when calculating post charges:

• Incoming payments: The application adds the bank charges to the payment amount to form the clearing amount.

• Outgoing payments: The application subtracts the bank charges from the payment amount to determine the clearing amount.

The Post Incoming Payments: Process open items screen lists all of the unassigned open items. Unassigned open items can include payments, debit or credit memos, and invoices.

You can post the document if the Amount Entered field is the same as the Assigned field.

The cash discount granted is determined by the terms of payment of the line item. SAP S/4HANA calculates the assigned amount based on the cash discount. To change the cash discount, either overwrite the absolute cash discount or change the cash discount percentage rate. The discount must not exceed the set tolerance limits.

To check the document that you have entered, under Document→Simulate, display all of the items including those created automatically. If the debits and the credits match, you can post the completed document. If you subsequently discover that the document contains an error, reset the cleared items, reverse the document, and re-enter the original posting correctly.