Procedures for Posting with Clearing in SAP FICO

The following overview lists the clearing procedures in the standard system and the functions used to post them.

The system has to make clearing entries for each function apart from account clearing (see Account Clearing and Posting with Clearing). To do this, it requires posting keys that suit the corresponding clearing procedure.

The required posting keys are already defined for these procedures in the standard system. You will have to change the standard settings or make new settings if:

• You change the
posting keys delivered with the standard system, or you do not want to use the predefined posting keys. You will then have to enter the new posting keys for the clearing procedures.

• You want to change the
name of the procedure. In this case, simply enter a new name for the clearing procedure.

• You require
more procedures. You must define these procedures.

The following illustration shows the clearing procedures defined in the standard system (see 1) and the options for choosing one of the procedures in the general clearing function (see 2).

Posting Keys for Clearing Procedures

Each procedure contains the following debit and credit posting keys per account type:

• Customer and vendor accounts are assigned posting keys for the clearing entry, the residual item balance, and special G/L transactions.

• G/L accounts are assigned only a debit and credit posting key. No further distinction is made for the posting keys for G/L accounts.

When defining your own procedures, you should maintain all posting keys for each account type. The illustration below shows the posting keys that were maintained for the incoming payment procedure.

In posting incoming payments, the system requires a posting key to generate the offsetting entry for open items you select from the customer account. To generate this offsetting entry, it uses the customer credit posting key that is specified for the clearing entry. All the other posting keys are used for special situations that may occur when posting an incoming payment:

• The customer debit posting key specified for the clearing entry is required if an incoming payment is posted across different business areas. If you select, for example, an invoice and a credit memo from different business areas during the clearing procedure, the system has to make a debit posting to clear the credit memo as well as a credit posting to clear the invoice.

• Vendor posting keys are required so that offsetting entries can be made to the vendor account when open items are cleared between a customer and vendor.

• Posting keys are required for special G/L transactions (for example, down payments) if you want to clear, for example, an invoice and a down payment in a single clearing procedure.

The system can also deal with payment differences when you post and clear items, but requires a posting key to do this. You can process payment differences as follows:

• If you post a payment as a
partial payment, the original receivables remain on the account. The system does not mark the open items you selected as cleared. The partial payment is posted to the customer account with an invoice reference that allows you to track which invoice the partial payment was matched to. For partial payments, the system uses the posting keys you define for clearing open items. The posting key defined in the standard system for customer partial payments is posting key "15".

• If you post any outstanding receivable as a
residual item, t he original receivable is automatically cleared from the account. To post the residual item, the system uses the posting keys specified for the residual item balance.

The posting keys you specify for the Transfer posting with clearing procedure are used for the general clearing function and, if the system has to make internal transfer postings, for the account clearing function as well.

The payment program and the special functions for outgoing and incoming payments use the posting keys defined for the Incoming payment and Outgoing payment procedures.

You cannot delete these three procedures.

Posting keys for the invoice and credit memo fast entry function are defined separately in the system.