A Co-liability is a legal relationship where several debtors are each liable to pay the liability to a certain extent.
SAP Co-Liability Functionality
- Shared or Co-liabilities is an important topic for public sector organizations to collect outstanding and overdue invoices from all involved debtors of whom are liable for these outstanding debts. Shared liability can be found relevant in general based public laws (for example, co-ownership on properties, companies, and so on) but can also be relevant in the case of given warranties or other obligations such as child support.
- To handle shared liabilities, it is necessary to distribute the original overdue main obligations on the accounts from the involved co-debtors, to allow dunning and different collection activities independent for each involved account. On the other side every payment, write off on the original or distributed posting should be consider within the whole process and the posting of multiple revenue amounts into the general ledger must be avoided.
You have the necessary Customizing settings under Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable Business Transactions Collaborative Liability.
Collaborative liability is a Web Dynpro application. You have made the settings required in the SAP NetWeaver Business Client for the following user roles:
- SAP_FICA_COLI_CLERK Display and execute the collaborative liability application
- SAP_FICA_COLI_CUST Display and execute the customizing of the collaborative liability functionality
A distinction is made in collaborative liability between the main debtor and co-debtors. A main debtor (Business partner A) is usually derived from the original receivable that was posted to the corresponding account.
When the original item is distributed, statistical document items are posted to the accounts for the co-debtors (Business partners B and C). These statistical receivables can be used for additional co-debtor relationships, such as a third-party liability.
You can create a Collaborative Liability object and then enter the debtors involved in the collaborative liability.
You can also directly create a Collaborative Liability Data Record and the Collaborative Liability object is created in the background.
Process Steps:
- Choose an open receivable and assign it to a collaborative liability data record item
- The receivable is displayed as an item with the description Original Item under Data Record Item
- Distribute the open receivable between the other co-debtors, by selecting the original item and perform the distribution (of all items or the selected items) under Distribute Item
- To complete the postings in PSCD, select the items under Select Item for Posting.
- The initial items selected are assigned the status Item for Posting.
- Save the collaborative liability data record
- The items posted in PSCD are assigned the status Distributed Item.
The Debtor status provides the follow information:
- Active - Automatic Assignment: The debtor is automatically assigned to data records that were created in this collaborative liability.
- Active - Manual Assignment: The debtor has to be manually assigned to data records that were created in this collaborative liability.
- Inactive: You can select this status if the debtor was used in past collaborative liabilities but must not be used in future collaborative liabilities.
If a co-debtor in a collaborative liability cannot make payment for their liabilities, and as a result a third-party debtor is used (such as the employer as part of a wage garnishment), you can represent the new debtor group in an additional collaborative liability.
In this case, the new collaborative liability performs the function of a third-party liability.
The clearing strategies provided by SAP are twofold:
- Clear Full Amount
- Clear on a Percentage Basis (according to the distribution value)
In the Clear Full Amount strategy, the distribution percentage rate is 100% (step 1), in combination with a clearing of the full amount. Both payments (steps 2 and 3) are also cleared in full for the other debtors.
In the Clear on a Percentage Basis strategy, the postings show a distribution percentage rate of 60% and 40% in the example (step 1), in combination with a clearing on a percentage basis.
This means that the same percentage rates are used as those for distribution for incoming payments.
This strategy also specifies that payments made by the main debtor trigger a clearing in the accounts for the co-debtors (step 2 BP2, BP3), but payments made by co-debtors only clear the original document for the main debtor (step 3 BP1).
The status object type COL is available for the status sequence of the collaborative liability.
The status object type CLR is available for the status sequence of the collaborative liability data record.
Correspondence for Collaborative Liabilities
SAP provides the correspondence type COL1 for the collaborative liability to generate co-liability invoices.
You can use this correspondence to inform all debtors in a collaborative liability about the current status of their open items.
Co-liability invoices can, for example, be executed as a mass run or can also be generated manually for individual co-debtors in the respective co-liability data record.
Correspondence for the collaborative liability is completely supported by the correspondence tool in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable.
- Correspondence type: COL1 to generate co-liability invoices
- Form class: FI_CA_COLI_INVOICE
- Mass run Generate Co-Debtor Invoices (transaction code FKK_COL_CORR_COL1)
Events
- 0890 Printing Co-Liability Invoice (Print correspondence for co-liability invoices)
- 0891 Creating Co-Liability Invoice (Correspondence request for co-liability invoices)
- 0892 Mass Process for Creating Co-Liability Invoice