Processing Automatic Payments

The majority of invoices of Bike Company are paid using the automatic payment functionality of S/4HANA. Hence, it is capital for Jennifer to understand how to process automatic payments, starting with a proposal that could be amended by the users before posting the related payment journal entries and generating the payment files. Finally, she should be able to browse the system to relate the suppliers' payments to their invoices and analyze their impact on the open items.

The following section describes the meaning of the individual parameters for the automatic payment program:

Run Date: Specifies when the payment program is executed.

Identification: Identifies the payment program, which is always uniquely identifiable in the system.

Posting Date: Specifies the item on which a payment item was posted to the account in posting-date-based perspective.

Docs. Entered Up To: Specifies the date up to which documents are included in a payment proposal. The date here refers to the document entry date, not the posting date.

Customer Items Due By: The date by which an open customer item must be due in order to be included in the payment run.

Exchange Rate Type: Translates payment amounts from foreign currency to local currency.

Additional Log: Specifies whether an additional log is to be created for the jobs running in the background.

Company Code: Specifies which company codes are to be included in the payment program.

Next Payment Date: Specifies the posting date of the next payment run.

Payment Method: Specifies which payment methods, such as SEPA bank transfer or check, are to be included in the payment program.

Supplier: Specifies an alphanumeric key that uniquely identifies the supplier.

Customer: Specifies an alphanumeric key that uniquely identifies the customer.

Free Selection: Specifies the value for the field for additional selection conditions.

Select the play button of the video to learn how to create a new payment run by setting it's parameters in SAP S/4HANA.

Now that we’ve covered the theoretical part of the parameters of SAP Automatic Payment Run, we believe that practical application makes the theory clearer. So, to cement your understanding and to give you a more detailed, hands-on perspective, we will now transition into our screencast video. This video will walk you through the process in real time, showing you exactly what actions to take within the system. By seeing the automatic payment run parameters in action, you'll be better equipped to apply the theoretical knowledge you've learned. Now, without further ado, let's dive into the application part of SAP Automatic Payment Run parameters.

Select the play button of the video to learn how to schedule a payment proposal and how to process the payment proposal using the Revise Payment Proposals app in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition.

We hope you found our theoretical explanation of the SAP Automatic Payment Run proposal with exception handling insightful and illuminating. However, we understand that the theory forms the basis and its true essence comes to life when put into practice. With that in mind, we will now transition into our screencast video, where we'll demonstrate the actual workings of this process along with handling exceptions you may encounter. This will give you a hands-on, detailed perspective, allowing you to gain real world awareness beyond theory. Please pay close attention to this next section, as it's crucial to being able to efficiently handle SAP Automatic Payment Run proposals with exception handling within the SAP environment. Let's proceed to the practical part!

Run the Payment Proposal

In this exercise, you will learn about the payment proposal process steps in the Manage Automatic Payments app.

Schedule Payment Run

The theories and concepts surrounding the SAP Automatic Payment Run, its logs, and payment files, can at first seem complex and abstract. We will explain the most important elements of the process in this video. So, let's dive into it.

We're now transitioning to a screencast video, which will break down these process steps into a practical, step-by-step guide. You'll be able to see directly how to execute an Automatic Payment Run, review and interpret the logs, and manage the payment files. By seeing these actions performed in a live SAP environment, you'll be able to more deeply understand and more easily remember the material.

Select the play button of the video to learn how to schedule the payment run, open the automatic payment logs using the Display Automatic Payment Logs app, download the payment media using the Manage Payment Media app, and analyze the cleared supplier item after the payment run in the Manage Supplier Line Items app in SAP S/4HANA.

Execute the Payment Run

In this exercise, you will learn how to schedule a payment in the Manage Automatic Payments app, or how to download a payment medium file from the app.

Automatic Payments App

With the Manage Automatic Payments app you can schedule payment proposals or schedule payments directly and get an overview of the proposal or payment status. It identifies overdue invoices and checks whether all the required payment information is complete.

Select the play button of the video to learn the different functionalities of the Manage Automatic Payments App.

Manage Payment Blocks App

Use the Manage Payment Blocks app to block or unblock your suppliers for payment, or it is also possible to block or unblock any items/invoices of the suppliers.

Select the play button of the video to learn how to use the Manage Payment Blocks app to set and remove payment blocks on invoices or supplier accounts. Explore various search and sorting functions, filter options, and exporting capabilities.

Automatic Payment Run Outcomes

• Payment Log: To check the payment run, read the payment log, and check the payment list before you print the forms. These logs can be found in the Display Automatic Payment Logs app. All steps of the payment run can be analyzed here and if error messages occur, the exact problem can be dealt.
• Payment Media: With the Manage Payment Media app, you can transfer the data required for electronic payment transactions to banks using via a data medium. A payment medium is created with each successful payment run. Different settings generate different payment media. These settings are called granularity. By defining the granularity, the payment medium format specifies the definition of the payment medium and determines how the payment media will be output separately in payment groups. A payment group usually corresponds to one payment file. For example, if the Company Code and the House Bank are selected as the level of granularity, the system creates a payment group for each company code and house bank combination.
• Payment Document: The payment method settings for each country define the document type used for payment documents. For cross-company-code payments, you are required to use another document type for the clearing postings and define both document types using internal number assignment. Documents from the payment run contain the date and identification number (for example, YYYYXXXX-MMMM) of the run in the document header text. The system calculates the value of the clearing document by adding the number of days until the value date to the posting date. If no entry is made, the system uses the posting date as the value date. The number of days until the value date depends on the payment method, bank account, currency, and account limit. The payment documents can be found in the Manage Journal Entries (Entry-View) app.
• Payment Advice: The revenues to be distributed to the final recipient are created in the form of total postings, from which the payment program generates a corresponding bank transfer. From this transfer, it is not clear for the final recipient which business partners have paid for which open items. To enable the final recipient to see which paid items make up the transferred payment amount, you can create a payment advice note during data medium creation. During data medium creation, you can explain the revenues from which the totals posted to the final recipient consists. The Payment Advice can be found in the Manage Payment Advice app. Additional Info for the Payment Advice can be found in the next section

A payment advice note contains the incoming payment details required to allocate and clear the relevant open item. Payment advice headers contain the payment amount, the payment date, and other information about the payment. The payment advice items contain information about the paid items, the amount, and reason codes. They also contain information that is used for identification, such as: document number, reference number, billing document number, customer reference number, and so on. Payment advice note can be created in several ways in the SAP System:

• You can enter handwritten advice notes manually with the Manage Payment Advice app.
• When you are processing bank statements, check deposit lists, or lockbox data, you can have the system create a payment advice note with the detail information automatically. This may be necessary if the program cannot clear open items immediately due to differences.
• When manually processing open items for incoming payments, you can create an advice note to record the current processing status of the items.
• Payment advice notes can be imported into the system using EDI.

Payment advices are used during payment clearing to automatically search for and allocate open items. Instead of entering selection criteria and then processing the open items, you only need to specify the payment advice number. The system uses the payment advice to propose items for clearing, including required difference postings and payments on account.

Manage Automatic Payment Plans

This Manage Automatic Payment Plans app enables you to manage all kinds of regular payment runs in one place. You can manage things such as payments to your suppliers and expense payments. You no longer have to create payment runs manually and repetitively.

Select the play button of the video to learn how to manage payment plans in one place and automate regular payment runs with the Manage Payment Plans app. Easily create, activate, and export payment plans with various filter options.