First, the settlement program, which can be regularly scheduled in the background, creates the items for this invoice document and checks the accuracy of the invoice with regards to accounting.
Background processing uses the same logic as online invoice verification. Therefore, the system uses the settings in Customizing for automatic invoice reduction or automatic acceptance into the account.
The following are two examples for which background invoice verification is suitable:
Invoices with mass data, for which a verification at item level should not take place.
Invoices for which transactions such as goods receipt have not yet been entered in the system.
Background Invoice Verification Process
It makes sense to use a settlement run in the evening in the following cases:
- You receive an invoice at the same time as a delivery. The goods receipt (GR) is not entered immediately. Because the delivery has not yet been entered, you cannot check the invoice referencing the delivery note online. You expect the GR to be entered on the same day, by the evening at the latest.
- The invoices contain many items for the same material. To prevent system locks and avoid slowing down the system performance during the day, you want the system to post the invoice in the background during the night.
An Example of Invoice Verification in the Background
When the accounts payable clerk processes the invoice document, the invoice is manually rescheduled for processing in the background. This means that the document has the Defined for Background Verification status again.
When you next run the program, the system tries again to post the invoice. As shown in the figure, as another GR has been posted in the meantime, the expected invoice amount is now (100 pieces * 10) + (50 pieces * 12) = 1,600. Therefore, there is no difference between the expected and the actual invoice amounts. The invoice document is posted with the suggested quantities and values of the individual items. As shown in the figure, differences on item level can cancel each other out without being noted.
Whether the invoice document receives the Correct (Posted, Not Completed) or the Posted status after being posted in the background depends on the settings made in Customizing for Logistics Invoice Verification in Invoice Verification in Background → Define Automatic Status Change.
Processing Invoices Verified as with Errors
You have the following options when you process an invoice document manually:
- Reschedule the invoice document for background invoice verification without making any changes.
- Change the invoice document and post it online.
- Change the invoice document and reschedule it for invoice verification in the background.
The system creates an error log for an invoice document that contains errors; this error log indicates why the invoice document could not be posted. If you do not want the system to reprocess an invoice document that was verified as With Errors (for example, because it was inadvertently entered twice), you can delete this document.