Using Fiori Apps for GR/IR Reconciliation

In SAP S/4HANA there are new possibilities to run the GR/IR reconciliation more efficiently. There are in total three apps for which a brief overview of the functions will be given in this lesson.

The new apps provide functionalities for reducing the manual effort for GR/IR processing. Breaks between departments are reduced and reconciliation efforts between multiple applications are decreased. By using machine learning offerings, the system can even provide you proposals and manual action is reduced. The use of the analytical possibilities offers you more transparency and potentials for optimizing your processes.

For the reconciliation of the GR/IR account, the following apps are available to help in executing the manual work.

• Reconcile GR/IR Accounts (App ID F3302)

• Monitor GR/IR Account Reconciliation (App ID F3303)

• GR/IR Process Insights (App ID F5796)

The apps are part of the role SAP_BR_GL_ACCOUNTANT and are part of the finance scope item 2V7.

For more information about the apps, see the SAP S/4HANA documentation at Enterprise Business Applications → Finance → Accounting and Financial Close → General Ledger Accounting (FI-GL) → Apps for General Ledger Accounting → Closing Operations.

Clarifying and reconciling differences on GR/IR clearing accounts is part of period-end closing and can be a tedious task. You can use this app to reconcile your GR/IR (Goods Receipt/Invoice Receipt) accounts. The app supports you in reducing open items and thus increasing the accuracy of your financial statement and enables you to spot issues early on, for example issues with suppliers.

This app provides the following key features:

• Compile a work list with open items that need clarification

  The app supports you with creating a worklist of purchase order items with differing amounts and/or quantities in goods receipts and invoice receipts that need your urgent attention at first. The open items to be clarified and processed are displayed in a results table. To get a worklist, you can select by company code, supplier, purchasing document, posting date of latest open item or smart fact, and additional filter criteria.

• Display items to be processed as charts using different chart types or as a results list in table format or both

• Smart facts

  Smart facts describe the business situation for the items to be clarified. This facilitates your work as you do not have to analyze the figures and conclude the business situation yourself. You can select the worklist for the items to be clarified by smart facts, such as look for items where no goods receipt or invoice has been posted yet, or for items where the amounts or quantities differ in goods and invoice receipts. The smart facts are also displayed for each purchase order item with open items in Financial Accounting (FI) that needs clarification.

• Display the following details of the purchasing document to be processed:

  • Overview that shows smart facts, the quantity of received goods and the invoiced quantity, and amounts of ordered and invoiced goods

  • Financial Accounting open items that show the journal entries (goods receipt and invoice)

  • Purchasing document history

  • Processing log where processors can create notes that document the progress in clarifying any outstanding issues

• Use filters to create a worklist and save it as a variant

• Display information from purchasing and financial accounting at the same time

• Reduce purchasing document items with FI open items continuously

  You can select one or several purchasing documents and assign a status (such as Check Goods Movement or Request Completion of Delivery or Request Correction of Invoice), a priority, a processor or processing department and a root cause (such as Differing Quantity in Invoice or Missing Goods Receipt). You can also enter comments.

  If you want to write-off an open item, you can select the respective purchasing document item and choose Perform Write-Off. Note that the Perform Write-Off button is only active for purchasing document items with the status values Perform Write-Off, Perform Write-Off of Goods, or Perform Write-Off of Delivery Costs.

The Reconcile GR/IR Accounts app supports you with reducing open items with differing values in invoice receipts and goods receipts, but it takes time to investigate, clarify, and classify each item. To make GR/IR account reconciliation even more intelligent and to save time you can use it with Machine Learning. The ML service learns from decisions made in the past, applies the learned knowledge to the new business situation, and proposes the next meaningful steps, the priority and root cause for each item.

With this app you can get an overview of the status of open items on your GR/IR accounts that need clarification. You can analyze the goods and invoice receipts reconciliation by several KPIs. After you have detected where you would like to dive deeper, you can also navigate from this app to the Reconcile GR/IR Accounts app where you can investigate the details or even start to further clarify purchasing document items where amounts or quantities in goods receipts and invoice receipts do not match.

The overview provided by the app is based on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for purchasing document items and open FI items. The following cards are available for the individual KPIs, which you can show and hide on a user-specific basis using the Manage Cards function from the User Action Menu:

1. Cards for purchasing document items with regard to the amounts of goods receipts and invoice receipts:

   These KPIs can be grouped by the dimensions company code, supplier, purchasing organization, purchasing group, material group, or plant.

   • Invoice Receipt (IR) Amount Surplus

   • Goods Receipt (GR) Amount Surplus

   • GR Amount Equals IR Amount

2. Cards for purchasing document items with regard to the GR/IR reconciliation processing:

   Depending on the card, different dimensions are available for grouping, for example processor, proposed priority, or various predefined time intervals.

   • GR/IR Reconciliation Processing

   • GR/IR Reconciliation Processing - Machine Learning Proposals

     If you do not use machine learning, you can hide this card.

   • GR/IR Reconciliation Processing - Latest Processing Change

     This card gives an overview about the time frame in which the purchasing document items have last been processed with the Reconcile GR/IR Accounts app.

3. Cards for open FI items with the regard to the absolute amount, debit amount, or credit amount

   These KPIs can be grouped by the dimensions company code, supplier, purchasing organization, purchasing group, material group, controlling area, profit center, or plant.

   • Absolute Amount of Open FI Items

   • Open FI Items Overview (Debit & Credit Amount)

   • Open FI Items by Company Code

   • Open FI Items by Supplier

4. Cards for open FI items with the regard to the count of open FI items

   • Open FI Items Overview

   • Open FI Items by Posting Date

With this app, you can gain insights into the GR/IR (goods receipt/invoice receipt) account reconciliation process which you perform using the Process Items function in the Reconcile GR/IR Accounts app. You can visualize the activities of the reconciliation process and thereby identify opportunities for process improvements, such as by discovering bottlenecks, duplicate work, or root causes for delays. You can also retrospectively review all activities on the level of a purchasing document item together with all relevant documents from the purchasing document history. Thus, this app enables you as a process owner to analyze the process efficiency of the GR/IR account reconciliation process and to define improvement activities.