Summarising Customer Payments (1S0)

SAP S/4HANA Cloud for customer payments enables you to match payments with invoices, manage payment advices, create and manage payments, view your account statement, manage the master data of your account, and manage account assignments.

The product includes the following business benefits for you:

• Secure payments
• Simplified and secure processing of electronic payments with better control over the time of payment and management of the cash flow
• Fewer accounting and settlement errors with immediate access to invoice copies
• No need to wait for the accounts receivable department of your supplier to go into business hours
• Management of master data

The product includes the following business benefits for the accounts receivable team of your supplier:

• Improved billing processes
• Lower cost of billing by eliminating printing and postal charges
• Faster payment processing
• Efficient processing of payments and deductions
• More precise cash management and improved liquidity planning
• Native data integration
• Data integration with accounts receivable and cash management

You can avoid accounting and settlement errors and delays thanks to immediate access to invoice copies.

The following features are available:

• View, download, and fully or partially clear invoices with payments.
• Download attachments for invoices.
• View note to payee.
• Create, view, and void dispute cases on invoices and upload and download attachments for disputed invoices.
• Leave comments on invoices.
• Create and manage payment advices.

You can better control the time of payment and manage cash flow thanks to simplified and secure processing of electronic payments.

The following features are available:

• Make full or partials payments using credits, direct debits, credit cards, PayPal, or custom payment methods.
• Create and manage payments.

You can view your monthly account balance with document details. If all the documents are of the same currency, you can also view the yearly account balance.

You can manage the master data of your accounts, which includes address, contact, bank, and credit card information.

The payment card process with SAP digital payments add-on is split up into several steps. The process is descibed on the basis of the SAP Cloud for customer payments in combination with SAP digital payments add-on.

A customer orders goods or services from the enterprise and the corresponding open item is posted towards his account.

The customer is using the electronic bill presentment and payment functionality of the SAP Cloud Platform to assign credit card information to the open item.

The SAP S/4HANA on-premise or SAP S/4HANA Cloud system receives this transaction information from one of the SAP Cloud for customer payments. On a regular basis the Accounts Receivable Accountant would start the payment run in SAP S/4HANA on-premise or SAP S/4HANA Cloud system to collect outstanding funds. This way the customer open item is cleared and posted against the AR Credit Card Clearing Account.

Further processing is initiated by the app Schedule Accounts Receivable jobs. This job transfers funds from the AR Credit Card Clearing Account to the Cash Credit Card Clearing Account. Once the payment advice from the Payment Service Provider is received the items are split into the Cash Credit Card Transfer Account and Charges.

Finally the Bank Statement received clears the Credit Card Transfer account and posts the incoming funds on the main bank account.

All these steps are outlined in more detail below.

In the following the procedure how authorized credit card payments will be handled in Finance is demonstrated.

As a first step transactions are transferred to Financials Accounts Receivables by different channels, e.g.

• Customer Portal
• Online shop
• Point of Sale via Sales / Distribution

In the Accounts Receivable department the accountant is running the payment run for credit card items. The corresponding item on the Customer Account is automatically cleared against this. These counter transactions are represented as open item on Account Receivables Credit Card Clearing Accounts (G/L Accounts). The payments contain credit card token and authorization data.

In order to settle authorized credit card payments you can use the app Schedule Accounts Receivable Jobs. Pick the standard Credit Card Settlement option from the list and set your recurrence pattern or values for company code and G/L Account.

This settlement report creates batches and sends them to the Payment Service Provider (via SAP Digital payments add-on). Thereby items on the AR credit card clearing account will cleared and posted to a cash clearing account for credit cards.

Data provided in Digital Payment advice is used for the automatic reconciliation in Financials. Please note: Advice processing is not supported by all PSPs. More information on SAP Help.

Advice information will be requested using the Digital Payments Advice report from the Schedule Accounts Receivables Jobs in SAP S/4HANA Cloud. When the report is executed the advice is requested via SAP digital payments add-on from the PSP and the data will be processed into Accounts Receivables.

Items on the cash credit card clearing account will cleared and posted to a cash transfer for credit cards account (considering charges). The cash credit card clearing account is cleared automatically by a periodic G/L automatic clearing report.

Finally the transfer of the collected money to a bank account is triggered via standard bank statement functionality. When importing external bank statements the corresponding bank statement items will be posted against cash credit card transfer account.

The clearing of the cash credit card transfer account is typically done manually depending on the reference information.

The external payment process with SAP digital payments add-on is split up into several steps. The process is described on the basis of the SAP Cloud for customer payments in combination with External Digital Payments and SAP digital payments add-on.

A customer orders goods or services from the enterprise and the corresponding open item is posted towards his account.

The customer is using the electronic bill presentment and payment functionality of the SAP Cloud Platform to assign an external payment method, e.g. PayPal, to the open item.

The SAP S/4HANA on-premise or SAP S/4HANA Cloud system receives this transaction information from one of the SAP Cloud for customer payments. On a regular basis the Accounts Receivable Accountant would start the payment run in SAP S/4HANA on-premise or SAP S/4HANA Cloud system to collect outstanding funds. This way the customer open item is cleared and posted against the AR External Payment Method Clearing Account.

In case the external Payment Service Provider supports direct capture there is no need to schedule the Accounts Receivable job. If the payment is to be authorized the same job like with the credit card payments is used.

This job transfers funds from the AR External Payment Method Clearing Account to the Cash External Payment Method Clearing Account. Once the payment advice from the Payment Service Provider is received the items are split into the Cash External Payment Method Transfer Account and Charges.

Finally the Bank Statement received clears the Credit Card Transfer account and posts the incoming funds on the main bank account.

All these steps are outlined in more detail below.

In the following the procedure how authorized external payments method items will be handled in Finance is demonstrated.

As a first step transactions are transferred to Financials Accounts Receivables by different channels, e.g.

• Customer Portal
• Online shop
• Point of Sale via Sales / Distribution

In the Accounts Receivable department the accountant is running the payment run for external payment method items. The corresponding item on the Customer Account is automatically cleared against this. These counter transactions are represented as open item on Account Receivables Ext. Paym. Clearing Accounts (G/L Accounts).

In order to settle authorized external payment method items you can use the app Schedule Accounts Receivable Jobs. Pick the standard Credit Card Settlement option from the list and set your parameters for the scheduling or selections for company code and G/L Account.

This settlement report creates batches and sends them to the Payment Service Provider (via SAP Digital payments add-on). Thereby items on the AR Ext. Paym. clearing account will cleared and posted to a cash clearing account for external payment methods.

In case of direct capture this step is not needed.

Data provided in Digital Payment advice is used for the automatic reconciliation in Financials. Please note: Advice processing not supported by all PSPs. More information on SAP Help.

Advice information will be requested using the Digital Payments Advice report from the Schedule Accounts Receivables Jobs in SAP S/4HANA Cloud. When the report is executed the advice is requested via Digital Payments from PSP and the data will be processed into Accounts Receivables.

Items on the Cash Ext. Paym. clearing account will cleared and posted to a cash transfer for Ext. Paym. account (considering charges). The cash Ext. Paym. clearing account is cleared automatically by a periodic G/L automatic clearing report.

Finally the transfer of the collected money to a bank account is triggered via standard bank statement functionality. When importing external bank statements the corresponding bank statement items will be posted against Cash Ext. Paym. transfer account.

The clearing of the Cash Ext. Paym. transfer account is typically done manually depending on the reference information.

• Within SAP we are not only talking about Integration of Financials and Controlling but also with Logistical Processes. The processes shown on the slide should not be understood as SAP specific models, but rather common flows of activities. Thus the arrows can also be understood as a flow of information (how it would ideally look like). However for customers with fragmented systems there is no way to realize such timely flow of information. With SAP you have a real time integration of all these aspects.
• Incoming Orders cause a credit check in SAP Credit Management.
• If the incoming order is confirmed it triggers an Incoming Order forecast in Controlling and a Cash/Liquidity Forecast in Treasury. The Incoming Order forecast in CO can be selectively shown in CO reporting in addition to the billing data to gain a picture of expected revenues.
• Goods issue is reflected as cost in CO. Inventory and Cost are posted in General Ledger. Optionally the goods issue posting can be made depending on an additional credit check
• The invoice creates an open item of the customer record and an update of the receivables item in the General Ledger. The contra item for the revenue is found automatically via customizing. The invoice updates CO-PA and Treasury.
• The activities around collection and dispute management are automated by our SAP Receivables Management engines.
• SAP S/4HANA Cloud for customer payments plays an important role in making these flows visible to your end customers

Today, customers are seeking support in process automation for customer credit evaluation, cash collections, and dispute resolution. In addition, they also want to provide transparency to their end-customers with easy-to-use self-services in order to reduce the workload and pressure from the back office teams. In summary, SAP Receivables Management provides:  ​

• Centralizes, automates, and simplifies the process of customer receivables management across global enterprises​
• Supports automated processes for customer credit evaluation, cash collections, and dispute resolution while providing transparency to customers with easy-to-use self-services​
• Faster resolution of dispute resolution and improved customer service​
• Helps reduce bad debt write-offs and improve days sales outstanding and working capital management​
• Leveraging several SAP Cloud Platform solutions, companies can bring in even more external expertise and automation into the overall invoice to cash processes.  ​

With the help of S/4HANA Cloud for credit integration, companies can integrate external credit agency information at a click of a button. The agency provides credit risk scores and monitoring services, so that for example if a credit rating changes, this information could be automatically pushed into customers credit management system and trigger a credit risk assessment of the customer. ​

The S/4HANA Cloud for customer payments provides a self-service offering where companies can deploy electronic bill presentment and payment processes for the bill recipient as part of your digital business strategy to improve customer collaboration and reduce repetitive calls into the back office - all this with global access 24x7. ​

SAP digital payments add-on is a public cloud offering that allows companies to process incoming credit card and other real-time payment methods such in a secure and efficient way. It works for all companies running various variants of SAP order /sale to cash processes such as B2B, B2C, online shops, etc. 

The SAP digital payments add-on is a Cloud service that allows companies to process incoming credit card and other real-time payment methods in a secure and efficient way significantly reducing cash reconciliation effort​:

• For all companies running any variant of SAP order/sale-to-cash processes (B2B, B2C, POS, web shops, etc)​
• For all companies who need to offer their customers flexibility and access to multiple digital payment methods​
• Unlike other services that have non-standard integration points, or open the ERP system up to PCI-compliance audits because they store sensitive data in the ERP system.​

Benefits:​

• Stable and harmonized interfaces for all SAP solutions ​
• Central operation, maintenance and support in one place​
• Easy onboarding of new PSPs - immediate availability to all SAP products and processes​
• PCI-Compliant processing​
• Keeps the business process data chain in tact, to allow your Finance team to automatically reconcile payments  because of continual process oversight

SAP S/4HANA Cloud for customer payments can be integrated with SAP Cash Application. The leveraged machine learning capabilities help you to complete the matching tasks more efficiently when you use the Match Payments with Invoices app. If machine learning is enabled, when you select a payment document, the app shows a predictive matching percentage rate for each invoice. Invoices with a higher rate are shown at the top.

Payment documents have already been processed by the Receivables Line-Item Matching machine learning service of SAP Cash Application.

Integration with SAP Cash Application* delivers proposals for efficient matching of payments with invoices​​.

The bill recipients can download invoices (PDF/XML) and upload them into a their SAP Accounts Payables system. The documents are automatically archived and attached to the posted document​, thereby reducing accounting error and scanning of invoices for the accounting team.

The SAP Cloud for customer payments solution is also integrated with SAP Cash Management. In case customers are updating, e.g. payment date in the Customer Portal, the Cash Position and the Liquidity Forecast for released or paid bills is updated automatically in your SAP S/4HANA on-premise or SAP S/4HANA Cloud system.

The functionality and integration thereby helps to have the latest information available for your Cash Management Team to build sound actions from that

The integration of SAP Cloud for customer payments and SAP Dispute Management comes with a number of benefits for the involved Accounts Receivable Team:

• Creation of dispute cases triggered by the invoice recipient ​
• Indication of reason, responsible person and supporting comment possible ​
• Existing disputes are visible and linked to invoices with current status ​
• Dispute case details be displayed, after creation it is possible to add comments and attachments ​
• Backend updates are instantly visible 

In SAP S/4HANA Cloud you can also automatically void & clear dispute case and partial payments documents in case of cancelled partial payments.

Through the app Match Payments with Invoices on the SAP Cloud Platform, you select the payments and the invoices that you want to match and create a payment advice, which is sent to the responsible accounts receivable (A/R) accountant of your supplier for processing. You can view the created payment advice in the Manage My Payment Advices app.

Key features include:

• Viewing general information such as posting date, due date, and, if any, cash discount amount.
• Viewing goods information such as product number, quantity, unit, price, and currency.
• Download, if any, attachments for the invoice.
• Check whether an invoice is overdue.
• Add a comment for a payment or invoice in the Comment column.

To start processing open the Match Payments with Invoices app and choose an account.

If multiple accounts are assigned to you, the app shows an account list, which shows the system IDs, the company names, the customer names, the number of open payments, and the number of open invoices. You can search for an account by company name or customer name. If only one account is assigned to you, the account is by default chosen and the Select Account dialog box does not appear.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud for customer payments then retrieves the open payments and open invoices of the account from your backend system. Open invoices include A/R invoices and, if any, sales and distribution (SD) bills.

Select the payments and the invoices that you want to match.

The app then shows the total number of payments (or invoices) that you have selected in the information bar. The app also shows the allocated balance in the top-left corner. If the balance amount for a payment advice is zero, the amount is displayed in green; otherwise, it is displayed in red.

You can view which payments and which invoices have been matched in the payment advice. If you choose not to view the payment advice immediately, you can view it later in the Manage My Payment Advices app.

The app creates a payment advice, which is stored in the SAP backend system, and sends a notification email to the A/R accountant of your supplier

If your supplier uses SAP S/4HANA Cloud as its backend system, the accountant proceeds as follows to process the payment advice information:

• Open the Assign Open Items SAP Fiori app.
• Search for the account with the assignment. They can filter by customer or company code.
• Open the corresponding account.
• In the Assignments section, choose the corresponding assignment.
• In the Assigned Items section, choose Confirm and Clear.

After the accountant clears the payment advice, it no longer exists in the Manage My Payment Advices app.

One of the key pillars of the EBPP solution SAP Cloud for customer payments is the possibility for the customer to check their invoices and assign a payment method accordingly.

This process is facilitated by the Pay My Bills app on the SAP Cloud Platform.

You select the open bills that you want to pay and the credit items that you want to use for payment in the SAP Cloud Platform app Pay My Bills. The payment is sent to the responsible accounts receivable (A/R) accountant of your supplier for collection. You can leave a note for underpayments. You can view the created payments in the Manage My Payments app.

Key features of the Pay My Bills app include the following:

• Choose an invoice number to go to the Invoice Details screen
• Check whether an invoice is overdue
• Create a dispute case for an invoice
• Download all invoices and attachments

After you create a dispute case, in the Pay My Bills app and the Display My Account Statement app, you can view the dispute case status for the invoice. You can choose the status to view detailed information on the Invoice Details screen.

The procedure to handle items in the Pay My Bills app is as follows:

Open the Pay My Bills app and choose an account.

• If multiple accounts are assigned to you, the app shows an account list. Choose an account from the list, or search for one by company name or customer name.
• If only one account is assigned to you, the account is chosen by default and the Select Account dialog box does not appear.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud for customer payments then retrieves the open bills and credit items, including incoming payments and credit memo, of the account from the SAP backend system. Open bills include A/R invoices and, if applicable, sales and distribution (SD) bills.

Select the open bills that you want to pay. The app then shows the total number of open bills (or credit items) that you have selected in the information bar under the title of the Open Bills (or the Credit Items) table.

The app also shows the amount to pay in the top-left corner.

Once the items are selected and the payment is carried out, there are two processing options, as follows:

• If you select Bank Account or Credit Card as the payment method and then select an entry, choose the Pay button in the bottom-right corner to proceed. You can also register a new entry by choosing the plus (+) icon on the right.
• If you select External Payment as the payment method and then choose PayPal, a new window appears. Log on to PayPal and then make the payment.

The app makes the payment. You can find the payment by searching for it in the Manage My Payments app.

The A/R accountant of your supplier collects the payment. If your supplier uses an on-premise system as their SAP backend system, the accountant logs on to the system and runs transaction F110 - Parameters for Automatic Payment to collect money from the bank. If your supplier uses SAP S/4HANA Cloud as its backend system, the accountant uses the Manage Automatic Payments SAP Fiori app to process the payment.

Select the play button to watch see the video on how to pay bills in the Customer Portal of the SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition.

The app Display My Account Statement is only available on the SAP Cloud Platform for SAP Cloud for customer payments.

The app retrieves its information from the associated SAP S/4HANA on-premise or SAP S/4HANA Cloud system. Customers are able to verify their account information through the electronic bill presentment and payment portal on the SAP Cloud Platform. 

With the app Display My Account Statement, you can view your monthly account balance with document details. If all the documents are of the same currency, you can also view the yearly account balance.

From the filter bar you can select the items to be shown. Filter e.g. on the status, posting date or type. The app includes all invoices, credit memos and incoming payments. Furthermore it does also integrate the dispute status of items into the list.

If an invoice is overdue, its due date in the Due Date column is displayed in red; otherwise, it is displayed in black. Invoices include accounts receivable (A/R) invoices and, if applicable, sales and distribution (SD) bills.

If the Status filter is set to Open in the previous step, a Switch to Aging View button appears in the top-right corner of the Items table in the search results. Choose this button to have the entries in the table grouped by the number of days they are overdue or will be due.

The open items can be classified into the following groups:

• Overdue by More Than 120 Days
• Overdue by 61 to 120 Days
• Overdue by 1 to 60 Days
• Due in 0 to 60 Days
• Due in 61 to 120 Days
• Due in More Than 120 Days

For the app Display My Account Statement detailed screens are available for each invoice, credit memo, or payment.

Header and Item information of the line items is available including posting date, company codes, reference information or clearing dates, and currencies.

Furthermore, there is a collaboration functionality included in order to share information across several team members.

You manage the master data of your account, which includes address, contact, bank, and credit card information on the SAP Cloud Platform using the Manage My Account Master Data app.

Through the self-service functionality on the SAP Cloud Platform, customers can view and edit their master data to keep it accurate.

On the Information tab, general data like the name, address, and contract information is stored.

The Bank tab holds the information on bank accounts assigned to the company and if a automatic debit authorization is provided.

Credit cards can be maintained through the respective tab. This is only possible if the SAP digital payments add-on is also configured in the landscape.

Note

You cannot delete the standard credit card, which is the first one that was added. If you still want to delete it or want to assign another card as the standard one, please contact your administrator.

If you are adding a bank account to your Account Master, remember to check the settings for the Automatic Debit Authorization.

Depending on the settings made in the Configure Customer Payments app on the SAP Cloud Platform, you are empowered to use certain bank accounts in the Pay My Bills app or not.

If the setting in the configuration is set to Use Only Bank Accounts with Automatic Debit Authorization for the Pay My Bills app, you must set the according indicator in the Manage My Account Master Data app.

Otherwise the bank account is not available for payments with this app.

Select the play button to watch see the video about Account Master Data in the Customer Portal of the SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition.

If a customer has adjusted information on the SAP Cloud for customer payments portal, the SAP S/4HANA on-premise or SAP S/4HANA Cloud system receives this transaction information instantly.

The customer, for example, has updated the payment method for a couple of his open items. He might have assigned a credit card or other external payment method to these items.

In the SAP S/4HANA on-premise or SAP S/4HANA Cloud backend system, these open items will now contain the newly assigned payment method. Let's say C for credit card.

The accounts receivable accountant of the supplier would start the payment run in SAP S/4HANA on-premise or SAP S/4HANA Cloud system to collect outstanding funds. One of the parameters he sets in the payment run is the payment method C to pick up all items where customers opted to pay this way.

Further processing is initiated by the app Schedule Accounts Receivable jobs. The job template Credit Card Settlement is processing all information on a regular basis. Payment advice information is also handled this way through the job template SAP Digital Payments: Advice Processing.

Once the payment method e.g. credit card is assigned to the open item on the SAP Cloud Platform with the help of the app Pay My Bills this information is also updated on the SAP S/4HANA on-premise or SAP S/4HANA Cloud backend.

The accounts receivable accountant of the selling party is running the app Manage Automatic Payments and sets the e.g. credit card payment method as a parameter for the run.

In case the proposal is returning a positive result the payment run is scheduled to update accounts in Financial Accounting.

Items on the customer accounts are thereby automatically cleared. The counter transactions are represented as open item on Account Receivables Credit Card Clearing Accounts (G/L Accounts). The payments contain credit card token and authorization data.

In order to settle authorized credit card payments, you use the app Schedule Accounts Receivable Jobs. Select the Credit Card Settlement option as the Job Template and set your parameters for the scheduling like the company code, journal entry type, and the recurrence pattern.

This settlement report creates batches and sends them to the Payment Service Provider (via SAP Digital payments add-on). Thereby items on the AR credit card clearing account will cleared and posted to a cash clearing account for credit cards.

Data provided in Digital Payment advice is used for the automatic reconciliation in Financials.

Advice information will be requested using the Digital Payments Advice report from the Schedule Accounts Receivables Jobs in, for example, SAP S/4HANA Cloud. When the report is executed the advice is requested via SAP digital payments add-on from the PSP and the data will be further processed in Accounts Receivables.

Note

Advice processing is not supported by all PSPs. More information on SAP Help.

For the SAP Cloud for customer payments in combination with SAP digital payments add-on process the final step to reconcile accounts is the import of electronic bank statements received from the companies house bank.

The payment service provider is informing the house bank about received funds and payment is made to the companies accounts. This in turn triggers the creation of a new bank statement (the other day).

SAP is importing the bank statements with standard functionality in order to clear the Cash Credit Card Transfer account and the Bank Account Clearing accounts.

Finally the payment is accounted for on the main bank account.

If the SAP system is connected to SAP Multi-Bank Connectivity (MBC), the electronic bank statement file provided by bank is stored in an SFTP folder, MBC retrieves the electronic bank statement file from SFTP, and then does validation and mapping. This process integrates with the scope item Bank Integration with SAP Multi-Bank Connectivity (16R).

For banks with a Multi-Bank Connectivity (MBC) connection, bank statements are handled by MBC. MBC maps from the local bank statement format to an ISO CAMT.053 format, and SAP S/4HANA Cloud pulls the ISO CAMT.053 bank statement from MBC and then imports it automatically. The e.g. SAP S/4HANA Cloud system schedules a background job every 10 minutes to retrieve the bank statement file from MBC, and the file is automatically imported into the SAP S/4HANA Cloud system.

After the CAMT.053 bank statement is pulled from Multi-Bank Connectivity (MBC), the postings in bank accounting and subledger accounting are be performed. Since MBC maps the local bank statement formats to a CAMT.053 format, there is only one set of posting rules for the electronic bank statement.

There are basically two apps which help you to manage and monitor the bank statements for the end-of-day process. It is the Manage Bank Statements which lists all the uploaded statements to the system with it's line item details.

There is also the app Monitor Bank Statements which gives are broader view of the current bank statements in e.g. the SAP S/4HANA Cloud system.

Next to these two apps there is also the app called Bank Statement Monitor - Intraday. This is specifically designed to monitor the import status of intraday bank statements for the bank accounts that have been selected. The Intraday statement processing is nevertheless only available with the scope item J78 - Advanced Cash Operations.

You can use the app Manage Bank Statements to manage manual and electronic bank statements. The app provides an overview of all bank statements for all house bank accounts. You can also view detailed information for each bank statement.

Set the filter value to electronic bank statement items to see all the automatically imported statement items. Search for bank statements using search criteria, such as house bank account, bank statement date, bank statement status, and bank statement number. From the app you will also see the details of a bank statement such as line items, dates and processing status.

You can use the app Bank Statement Monitor to monitor the import status of end-of-day bank statements for all the bank accounts that have been selected for monitoring. This app provides you with an overall status of the monitored bank accounts and also allows you to identify bank accounts with statement import errors. Then, you can communicate the issue to the responsible person using emails directly from this app.

There are plenty of options in the Bank Statement Monitor how to display and sort the information available. The color coding gives a crisp idea of the import status for the bank statements. This information can be grouped in several different ways, e.g. by Bank and Company, by Country etc.

Toggle between the chart view and a table view for a different perspective on the numbers.

The Bank Statement Monitor also acts as a hub for further processing on bank statement items. From the app you can navigate e.g. to the Cash Flow Analyzer or the Manage Bank Statements app.

This features ensures efficient processing of bank statements throughout the value chain.