Background
Large corporations typically raise a bulk (monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, or annual) Purchase Order (PO) on their vendor(s) or business partner(s) based on the business sales plan. Multiple deliveries and invoices may be received from the supplier.
Payments are performed against a Purchase Order as a corporate procedure rather than on specific delivery.
When a customer receives an invoice that makes reference to a purchase order, the remittance advice will only make that reference.
Use Case
Financial analyst Anna is in charge of process collection. Her day begins with a massive influx of emails that include payment guidance as an attachment. In order to process the customer collection, Anna needs to scan all the attachments and gather the necessary data. A few customers have sent remittance advice with an invoice reference and a deduction made from the customer’s paid invoices. Anna’s problem is with remittance advise that refers to a customer payment rather than an invoice and does not include an invoice reference. Anna must thoroughly examine the payment order, check the quantity delivered and invoiced, and match the amount with the information on the customer’s payment advice.
Anna spends around half of each day obtaining information on Purchase orders that have been paid for by clients via remittance advice. She informs her boss Rohan about the difficulty.
Rohan was aware of the difficulties Anna faced and the work she put in every day. In order to offer a solution, Rohan contacts an IT consultant. IT consultant Zubin recognised Anna’s difficulty and suggested an RPA (Robotic Process Automation) to Rohan.
Business need
When a customer receives an invoice that makes reference to a purchase order, the remittance advice will only make that reference. The payment matching formula is
- Number of the Purchase Order
- Number of clients
- Amount
Only a small percentage of customers include the invoice reference number on payment references issued to banks.
Payments made in connection to an invoice or purchase order should be processed automatically without human intervention.
Utilizing SAP
Purchase order numbers to be changed at the Sales Order header level was the solution suggested by Zubin IT architecture. Purchase order number is copied into the header reference field of the financial document when a billing document is posted with reference to the sales order (Customer open item). The system should be reviewed, and customer open items should be cleared based on the header reference field, when payment is received from the customer against the reference of the purchase order.
Remedy Steps
- Revise the purchase order in the “VBKD” customer reference field of the sales order.
- When a billing document is sent into financial accounting, a copy function that updates the header reference (XBLNR) is available.
- The field name Reference in the Accounting document (RV document type from SD module) for the Purchase Order (modified in Sales Order) will be updated (XBLNR)
- The field payment reference for SD invoices has been modified (KIDNO)
When payments are received in the bank statement and Automation Cash is applied, there are two suggested alternatives.
- Cash application utilising an MT940 BAI-formatted invoice as a reference
- Cash application utilising an MT940 BTC Purchase Order reference
Option 1 for a solution: – Payments from customers based on a purchase order
With reference to Sales Order (20167) and Purchase Order-4500009000
Option 2 for a solution: – Customer payments based on the MT949 invoice number
How can we automate the processes mentioned above?
- The SAP interpretation method “026: Ref doc no – search with preceding zeros” is used in the customization of the OT83 setting and Customization of assignment of external transaction types. The system looks for the reference document number for cleaning when we employ this approach.
- SAP has an interpretation algorithm referred to as “001: standard algorithm” for customisation in the OT83 configuration under Customization of assignment of external transaction types. When we employ this procedure, the system looks for the clearing payment reference document number.
- Copying a purchase order into a billing document using the copy function (please check with SD module consultants)
Disclaimer
- With the help of the copy function in the Sales & Distribution module, purchase order updates can be automatically. Consult the Sales & Distribution module to confirm.
- While customers are making payments, please check with the bank to see if the payment note to the payee has been filled out.
Conclusion
It is possible to automate the entire process of receiving consumer payments on a bank statement. Open items of customers can be automatically detected and applied against cash received on the bank statement based on the purchase order / invoice reference sent on the note to payee and copy features of the Sales & distribution module.