Rule Creation

Use the Manage Bank Statement Reprocessing Rules app to create and manage bank statement reprocessing rules to perform G/L and AP/AR account postings.
Often, bank statement items of the same kind cannot be automatically processed. For similar bank statement items, you can create a reprocessing rule. Reprocessing rules determine how similar bank statement items are to be processed. If a reprocessing rule applies to the conditions of the bank statement items, the items will be posted and cleared according to the actions defined in the rule.
This app provides the following key features:
Create and edit reprocessing rules, define the conditions in which the reprocessing rules should be applied, and define the actions that the reprocessing rules should perform with the bank statement items.
Share manually applicable reprocessing rules so your colleagues can use them too.
Deprecate reprocessing rules that have become useless or outdated for your work.
Automate reprocessing rules so they run in the background and automatically reprocess bank statement items.
To use this feature, you need to purchase and activate Advanced Bank Statement Automation (scope item 4X8).
- Manage templates for reprocessing rules

To create a new reprocessing rule, open the Manage Bank Statement Reprocessing Rules app. Select the Create button. You can see additional tabs on the right.
Fill in the fields on the Reprocessing Rule tab:
Fill in the fields on the Conditions tab. In this tab, you can define the conditions for which this rule is applicable:
In the Attribute field, select a value from the dropdown list.
The reprocessing rule checks uncompleted bank statement items that meet the condition. Reprocessing rules can check bank statement items for the following attributes:
- Amount
- Company Code
- External Transaction
- House Bank
- House Bank Account
- External Transaction
- Manual Transaction
- Memo Line
- Partner Bank Account
- Partner Bank Code
- Partner IBAN
- Partner Name
- Payment Transaction Type
Please be aware that each bank statement item will be checked only for the exact combination of the character string you type into the From field. For example, if you select Memo Line in the Attribute field, Contains in the Option field, and Interests in the From field, the system will not consider the reprocessing rule as applicable for a bank statement item that contains Interest in its memo line, as the last character ("s") is missing.
In the Options field, select a value from the dropdown menu.
Reprocessing rules can check bank statement items for the following options:
- Between
- Equal To
- Greater Than
- Greater Than or Equal To
- Less Than
- Less Than or Equal To
In the From field, enter a value.
You can only fill in the To field if you used the value Between in the Options field.
NoteTo add a new field, choose the Create button. You can create multiple conditions for one reprocessing rule. If there are two or more conditions with the same value in the Attribute and Options fields, but different values in the From and/or To fields, the reprocessing rule will combine the conditions with an OR connector. This means that the rule will check whether one of the conditions is applicable to the bank statement item.
If there is more than one condition, and if they contain different values in the Attribute field, the reprocessing rule will combine the conditions with an AND connector. This means that the rule will check that all these conditions are applicable to the bank statement item.

A configuration expert can edit and create payment clearing groups in the Manage Your Solution app, under Configure Your Solution → Finance → Bank Accounting → Electronic Bank Statement → Define Payment Clearing Groups. You can then assign the IDs of the payment clearing groups to the respective business partners in your business partners' master data. For example, in the Manage Business Partner Master Data, Manage Customer Master Data, or Manage Supplier Master Data apps). In this way, you determine which business partners belong to which payment clearing groups.
A payment clearing group is an attribute with which you can categorize your suppliers and customers into groups. In the Manage Bank Statement Reprocessing Rules app, you can use the attribute as a condition of the reprocessing rule. This means that with the Payment Clearing Group attribute, you have another option to actively influence the processing of your bank statement items. The advantage of this attribute is that you can refer to certain business partners in one condition by using the correct payment clearing group.
Choose New Entry to create new payment clearing groups. Define a unique identifier for each payment clearing group and give them a descriptive name that allows you to recognize the payment clearing group when used in the following tasks:
- In your business partners' master data (in the BP transaction) when you assign the payment clearing groups to your business partners to group them
- In the Manage Bank Statement Reprocessing Rules app when you select the payment clearing groups in the reprocessing rules' conditions.

To use the payment clearing group, maintain the necessary settings in the business partner master data. Use the Customer (Fin. Accounting) role and switch to the company code data. On the Customer: Payment Transactions tab, the Payment Clearing Group field can be populated with the values set in the configuration.
NoteFor each company code, the business partner can belong to only one payment clearing group. This means that if you have a business partner in more than one company code, you can assign different payment clearing groups to the business partner for the different company codes.

Furthermore, the payment clearing group can be used in the Manage Bank Statement Reprocessing Rules app. When creating a new reprocessing rule, the group can be defined as one of the rule conditions. In line with the master data set up in the business partners, only this specified group will be processed by the rule.

- If you have selected G/L Posting as the value of the Action Type field, fill in the fields on the Post to G/L Account tab.
- If you have selected AP/AR Posting as the value of the Action Type field, fill in the fields on the Post to AP/AR Account tab.
- If you have selected Clear in Sequence as the value of the Action Type field, fill in the field on the Clear in Sequence tab.

Allocation algorithms compare the data in the bank statement and in the bank statement items with matching open items, and sort the open items accordingly.
You can use allocation algorithms in your reprocessing rules to find matching open items, and collect them for posting and clearing. Unlike interpretation algorithms that use references in the memo line to find matching open items, allocation algorithms use the amount of the bank statement items and the open items, and the business partner information. The system identifies the business partner either by the bank details or by the business partner's name or ID. The following two allocation algorithms are predelivered by SAP:
First In First Out - Clear Oldest Open Items First
One of the predelivered allocation algorithms is First In First Out - Clear Oldest Open Items First (FIFO). This allocation algorithm uses the date type parameter and selects bank statement items based on their posting date. The algorithm looks for open items that match the bank statement items, and selects the oldest matching open items that exist in your system to be cleared. This algorithm only works if the amount of the matching open items equals exactly the amount of the bank statement items. This means that the FIFO allocation algorithm does not support the identification, posting, and clearing of partial payments. Furthermore, it cannot skip open items. It proceeds to select the open items that match the amount of the bank statement item in a chronological order, from oldest to latest items. If the sum of the amounts of open items in a sequence does not match the amount of the bank statement item, the system does not apply the FIFO allocation algorithm.
One Exact Match - Clear Matching Open Item
One of the predelivered allocation algorithms is One Exact Match - Clear Matching Open Item. To clear a bank statement item, the One Exact Match allocation algorithm looks through your open items, and selects only one open item for clearing that has the same, exactly matching amount as the bank statement item. If the One Exact Match allocation algorithm finds more than just one matching open item, it selects the one with the oldest posting date.
Restriction
Currently, the FIFO and One Exact Match allocation algorithms work only if the following three conditions are fulfilled:
- It processes only incoming payments - not outgoing payments.
- It considers only open items for processing that belong to a customer account.
- It processes only debit items - not credit items.

So far, if the processing instructions defined in your reprocessing rules did not manage to successfully process a bank statement item, the uncompleted bank statement item appeared in the Reprocess Bank Statement Items app, with a posting status of Not Completed, waiting for you to manually process it. However, in the Manage Bank Statement Reprocessing Rules app, there is the Enable On-Account Posting button in the Clear in Sequence action type of your reprocessing rules. By setting the Enable On-Account Posting button to YES, you can define that an on-account posting should occur if the processing instructions do not manage to successfully clear the bank statement items. You can find the bank statement items that the system automatically posted in the Reprocess Bank Statement Items app. These bank statement items have the Auto-Posted on Account posting status. If the system did not manage to identify the ID of the customer account or supplier account, the system cannot post the bank statement items on account, and therefore the bank statement items appear in the Reprocess Bank Statement Items app and have the Not Completed posting status. In the Reprocess Bank Statement Items app, you can then process them manually.