Lesson Overview
You can define ranges or rules that are used to check if there is any need for clarification during the invoicing process. For example, the invoicing amount is out of range, or an error has occurred. Clarification in invoicing supports these processes.
Business Example
At Print Service Corporation, 99.8% of the billing documents have amounts ranging between EUR 1 and EUR 1,000. Print Service Corporation wants to use clarification processing in convergent invoicing if the billing document amount is less than EUR 1 or greater than EUR 1,000.
Clarification in Invoicing
Process Information: Source/Invoicing Document Plausibility Check
| Topic | Description |
|---|---|
| Process | Plausibility Check |
| Invoicing Function | VALIDAT_SRC Source Document Check VALIDAT_INV Invoicing Plausibility Check |
| Business Example | At Print Service Corporation, 99.8% of the billing documents have an amount between EUR 1 and EUR 1,000. Print Service Corporation wants to use clarification processing in Convergent Invoicing if the billing document amount is less than EUR 1 or greater than EUR 1,000. For invoicing documents, clarification should be started if the invoicing amount is beyond the range of EUR 10 to EUR 10,000. |
| Precondition | Customizing for Clarification Workbench. The Order Management system delivers deferred revenues |
| Customizing | Activate Invoicing Function |
When creating invoices and processing billing documents, situations can occur that demand the termination of automatic processing, and that post processing be performed manually in dialog by the agent. Clarification in invoicing in contract accounts receivable and payable helps you to recognize these exception situations and to process them successfully.
Invoicing clarification covers the following processes and functions:
Recognize defined situations in invoicing processes in contract accounts receivable and payable.
Create clarification cases automatically or manually.
Specify a clarification process that supports the asynchronous, manual postprocessing of the clarification case using an agent.
Clarify clarification cases automatically.
Validation covers the system-side analysis and recognition of a clarification situation when processing source documents or invoice documents, and decides whether a clarification is needed or not in automated mass processing.
Clarification in invoicing consists of the following process steps:
Define source document checks:
After you have created a billing document, you can design a source document check as a quality check for input in the invoicing process. For example, you could perform an amount check on the total billing amount.
If the check result is false, a clarification case for the billing document is created and the invoicing process can only be started after clarification of the clarification case.
Start the invoicing process with the invoicing function:
The invoicing process is interrupted if the validation check is false.
A clarification case is created and the invoicing process can only be continued if the clarification is okay.
Clarification work on clarification cases:
The clarification worklist is a tool for working on clarification cases. The following functions are possible in the clarification worklist:
Check document
Clarify, set validation on true
Put clarification on hold
Deny invoicing
Run invoicing process manually
If the invoicing process continues, an invoicing document is created with a clarification history.
Clarification Process Steps are:
- 1. Validation
- System-side analysis and recognition of a clarification situation.
- Possible checks during:
- The invoicing process (automatically).
- Transfer of billing documents (automatically).
- Analysis of invoicing orders (manually).
- Displaying of billing documents.
- Validation refers to source or invoicing documents, contract accounts, and error messages.
- 2. Creating the Clarification Case
- If there is a situation to be clarified then a clarification case is created.
- 3. Clarification Processing
The clarification cases can be clarified either automatically or manually by the agent.
Invoicing processes
Source Document Plausibility Checks (VALIDAT_SRC)
Create clarification cases for the source document during invoicing
Depending on the results of the checks, clarification cases with clarification case category 01 are created
In customizing, choose Financial Accounting (New) → Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable → Convergent Invoicing → Clarification Processing → Define and Assign Checks for Source Document.
Invoicing Document Plausibility Checks (VALIDAT_INV)
Create clarification cases for the invoicing document during invoicing
Enable you to specify plausibility checks for an invoicing document and then execute these checks
Depending on the results of the checks, clarification cases with clarification case category 03 are created
In customizing, choose Financial Accounting (New) → Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable → Convergent Invoicing → Clarification Processing → Define and Assign Checks for Invoicing Document.
Clarification processing in invoicing is an application of the Clarification Framework Controller (CFC). You can call it from the SAP Easy Access menu with transaction FKKINV_CFC.
Special features of the data model include the following:
Every clarification case is uniquely assigned to one contract account.
A clarification case is classified by a clarification case category.
Clarification cases with clarification case category 01 or 02 relate to a source document.
Clarification cases with clarification case type 03, 04, 05, or 06 do not refer to a source document.
A source document can have a maximum of one clarification case with clarification case category 01.
It is not possible to assign a clarification case to an invoicing document. An invoicing document can be checked at runtime. If it is found to be implausible, then a clarification case can be created with clarification case type 03. Invoicing is then ended early. The invoicing document is not created.
Business example for clarification case category 01:
At Print Service Corporation, 99.8 % of the billing documents have amounts ranging between EUR 1 and EUR 1,000. Print Service Corporation wants to use clarification processing in convergent invoicing if the billing document amount is less than EUR 1 or greater than EUR 1,000.
If the source document plausibility check fails, because the billing document amount is out of the range of EUR 1 to EUR 1,000, a clarification with clarification category 01 is created in an automatic process. This prevents the billing document with the invalid amount from being processed in invoicing process. A clarification case is created relating to the billing document. Only when the clarification case status is set to complete can the invoicing process for the billing document be completed.
With online processing, you have the choice of excepting the document or excepting it with clarification.
Business example for clarification case category 03:
For invoicing documents, clarification should be started if the total invoicing amount is beyond the range of EUR 10 to EUR 10,000.
If the validation check is not okay, the creation of the invoice document is stopped. Instead of creating an invoice document, a control document is created. It documents the exception situation that led to the creation of the clarification case in invoicing. Most importantly, it provides the user processing the clarification case with information about the composition of the invoicing unit.
A control document is marked as simulated in the invoicing document header. After clarification, the control document is no longer needed. After the clarification case has been deleted, the document can be deleted together with other simulated documents.
Clarification processing in dialog
The process of clarification processing supports the agent in completing clarification cases in dialog.
Clarification processing:
Delivers the clarification worklist
Supports the individual clarification case choice
Displays the clarification case data in detail and data for invoicing environment
Supports the agent with individual clarification case processing by making a corresponding choice of functions on status change available.
Role definition
With the help of role definition (similar to SAP Workflow) in customizing, you can assign individual clarification cases in the clarification worklists to agents. Thus, accounting agents receive only those clarification items within their worklist for which they are responsible within the organizational structure linked to the role.
With clarification, the clarification status is changed:
- 01 clarify
- 02 in process
- 03 completed
You cannot clarify completed clarification cases. The following attributes for the clarification case are generally displayed during clarification:
Clarification case number, clarification case category, creation date.
Master data: business partner, contract account, contract reference, sub-application.
Status information.
Notes
The clarification case is blocked by the user during clarification so that you can also add your own notes here. The system enables you to navigate to the display of various master data. In addition, you can also display the account balance of the business partner or of the contract account, as well as the invoicing orders of the contract account. You can start invoicing in simulation mode or invoice a contract account.
You can find the customizing for processing the clarification worklist under Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable → Technical Settings → Prepare Processing of Clarification Worklist.
In customizing, choose Integration → Invoicing in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable → Clarification Processing → Maintain Clarification Reasons.
Business example for clarification case category 01:
Print Service Corporation, 99.8 % of the billing documents have amounts ranging between EUR 1 and EUR 1,000. Print Service Corporation wants to use clarification processing in convergent invoicing if the billing document amount is less than EUR 1 or greater than EUR 1,000.
The same applies for manual billing process with clarification category 02.
Business example for clarification case category 03:
For invoicing documents, clarification should be started if the total invoicing amount is beyond the range of EUR 10 to EUR 10,000.
In customizing, choose Integration → Invoicing in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable → Clarification Processing → Maintain Clarification Reasons.
In customizing, choose Integration → Invoicing in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable → Clarification Processing → Assign Checks for Source Documents.
In this customizing step, you define which source documents should be checked with source check AMB.
In customizing, choose Integration → Invoicing in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable → Clarification Processing → Define Checks for Source Documents.
To define source document checks in customizing, choose Financial Accounting (New) → Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable → Convergent Invoicing → Clarification Processing → Define Checks for Source Documents.
