Performing Clearing Control

A business partner makes a payment of EUR600.00 on 03.02 to a contract account without specifying the payment use in more detail.

The contract account has three open items with the following due dates:

• EUR00.00 due 01.01
• EUR600.00 due 01.02
• EUR1000.00 due 01.03

The payment must be assigned automatically according to a strategy set up in the system.

The system checks an item's due date and whether the paid amount corresponds exactly to a receivable. Only then can the payment be assigned.

The item with the same amount of EUR600.00 must be cleared against the incoming payment, although there is another open item with an older due date. Every open item (that is, every open receivable or payable) must be cleared at some point. There are different procedures that enable you to clear an item. The most frequent are:

1. Externally Initiated Payment

The customer clears their receivables by paying.

2. Clearing

Receivables and credit for a contract account or business partner are cleared against each other in account maintenance.

Clearing control is a tool used to configure a company's clearing strategy and contains rules for an automatic clearing proposal or payment assignment. It allows you to configure clearing scenarios flexibly by splitting the clearing algorithm into several steps and combining some rules. Let’s look at an overview of clearing control.

The clearing process in the SAP Financial Contract Accounting (FI-CA) process begins when a payment is received and recorded in the system, either automatically through integration with banking interfaces or manually entered by users.

Once payments are recorded, the system attempts to clear these amounts against open items based on predefined criteria, such as invoice numbers, customer IDs, and contract accounts. This automated matching process is designed to minimize manual intervention and reduce errors, ensuring efficient handling of large volumes of transactions.

Clearing in SAP FI-CA can handle various scenarios, including full payments, partial payments, and overpayments. In the case of full payments, the entire outstanding balance is cleared, while partial payments clear a portion of the receivable, leaving a remaining balance. Overpayments are typically handled by either creating a credit balance or automatically applying the excess amount to other outstanding items.

Unmatched or residual items are flagged for manual review, allowing users to manually allocate payments or make necessary adjustments. This ensures that discrepancies are promptly addressed and resolved. The clearing process also supports more complex scenarios, such as installment payments or payment plans, providing flexibility in managing customer accounts.

Clearing variants contain several steps. The individual steps control the selection, grouping, sorting, and amount-dependent assignment of the open items for clearing. The steps are executed in number sequence, although you can also call them up directly according to each clearing rule.

Clearing variants are determined based on the clearing type of the business transaction and on the clearing category of the contract account in which clearing is to take place. Clearing types represent the business transaction in which items are allocated or grouped for clearing postings (01 Manual Posting, 03 Manual Account Maintenance, 05 Payment Lot).

Clearing types are structured according to their usage area (payment, account maintenance).

Clearing categories define the method and criteria for reconciling payments against open items (Full clearing, Partial clearing, Residual clearing). Clearing categories are defined in the contract account. As a result, you can use the clearing category to allocate individual clearing rules to different customer groups, such as private or industrial customers.