Document Changes

When you want to know the changes performed in a Finance Document you have a specific transaction for it, FB04.

Using transaction FB04 and entering the proper document you will have information about the changes entered in the document between the data ranges you choose. You can double click in a particular change to obtain additional details. Very useful!

Banks in SAP

In a financial system, Banks always are important.

Banks in SAP are used by the company codes for several purposes (payments, etc).

Companies have the House Banks, identified in the system as a unique Bank Id. The house banks have bank accounts, in this case identified with a Bank Account ID.

Taking into account theses concepts, the bank master data will contain the house bank id, the account numbers ids and the corresponding banks GL (and other information).

To Define House Banks, SAP provides transaction FI12 or following this path:

IMG->Financial Accounting (new)->Bank Accounting->Bank Accounts->Define House Banks

The definition of the rest of the banks (banks of customers or vendors) is done in SAP menu, using transaction FI01 or following the path:

SAP Menu->Accounting->Financial Accounting->Banks->Master Data->Bank Master Data->FI01 – Create

Withholding tax

What is Withholding tax?

Withholding tax also is called retention tax. Sometimes the payer has to deduct tax from the payment and pay that tax to the government. That is the withholding tax.

For example, the payer deducts from the employment income the tax and then he pay to the government that retained tax.

The withholding tax applies to several business transactions and SAP gives the possibility of configure them.

Also you have the possibility in SAP of using EWT (Extended Withholding tax) instead of classic withholding tax. It is recommended using EWT.

Configuration of withholding tax. 

To configure the withholding tax you have to navigate to following path:

IMG->Financial Accounting (New)->Financial Accounting Global Settings (New)->Withholding tax->Extended Withholding task->Basic Settings

• Check Withholding tax countries: It’s defined a key for each country.
• Define Withholding tax keys: To identify the different withholding tax types and names.
• Define reasons for exemption: In this point of customizing the reasons for possible exemptions are defined. Later in master data of Vendor or Countries, those reasons are used in the corresponding information about Withholding tax.
• Check Recipient types.
• Check Income types.

In Vendor Master Data (Transaction FK01) is where you have to enter the Withholding tax information for a specific vendor.

After that, if you create a Vendor Invoice for that vendor using SAP transaction FB60 and select checkbox “calculate tax”, the system automatically will calculate the withholding tax amount of the invoice. In the simulation of the posting you'll have all the details.

Calculation of the withholding tax. 

The calculation is configured in following path:

IMG->Financial Accounting (New)->Financial Accounting Global Settings (New)->Withholding tax->Extended Withholding tax->Calculation 

In this point of customizing is configured the withholding tax type, withholding tax code (where rates are defined), max/min amounts for withholding tax are defined, etc.

Activation of the withholding tax. 

Following the below path, extended withholding tax is activated:

IMG->Financial Accounting (New)->Financial Accounting Global Settings (New)->Withholding tax->Extended Withholding tax->Company Code->Activate extended withholding tax 

Account determination. 

In the below path is configured the account determination of withholding tax. The account determination is done at tax type level.

Automatic Payments

SAP provides a standard program to run automatic payments to vendors.

Having in the system vendor invoices to be paid, you can pay them with the payment program generating checks, transfers, bill of exchange or other payment methods.

Usually the payment method is defined in the invoice or vendor. In order to print those payment forms, there are standard programs for that purpose (they are specified for each payment method in the configuration).

It is important to have configured in the system our house banks, accounts, payment methods and payment forms.

House bank (bank id) is the bank where the company code has accounts. Note that each banks account is associated to a GL account in the system (it is defined in customizing, transaction FI12).

This first block explained in the post is related to the configuration. Transaction to configure the payment program is FBZP. The configuration is done at several levels:

•  Button “All Company Codes” (paying company code, cash discount, etc).

• Button “Paying Company Codes” (specifying how the payment is done). 

• Button “Pmnt methods in country” (configuring payment method at country level). Double clicking on a specific one, you can set all the parameters, included the Payment medium program. 

• Button “Pmnt method in company code”. Double clicking on a specific one, you can set all the parameters. 

• Button “Bank determination”. The payment program will determinate the house bank to perform the payment based on this configuration. The algorithm to determinate it is the following ( if any problem found during the sequence it is shown in the log of the payment run): 
• Selection of the house bank (bank id) based on payment method and currency.
• If not found, selection of the house banks based on payment method (without currency). 
• Selection of the account id based on bank id, payment method and currency. 
• Selection of the available amount based on bank id and account id. 

This second block of the post is related to the payment run. Once the automatic payment program is correctly configured, it’s time to run the process with SAP transaction F110. You have to follow these steps:

• Parameters. In the tab “Parameters” you enter the payment parameters. You use these parameters to define what you want to pay. If you go to the main tab “Status”, you will see in green the status “Parameters have been entered”. 

• Creation of the Proposal. Once you have saved the parameters, you have to click on button “Proposal”. In the tab “Status” you'll see the status “Payment Proposal has been created”.

• Visualization of the Proposal. Clicking on button “Display Proposal” you will see the payments to be done according to the parameters entered. You can modify the proposal, but if the selection doesn't meet your expectations and you need to delete it, from tab “status”, go to menu “Edit->Proposal->Delete”. After that, if you go to menu “Edit->Parameters->Maintain Parameters” and you could start the process entering again the parameters. 

• Payments run. Once the proposal of payment is ok for you, you will run the payment clicking on button “Payment run”. This process will create payment documents and prepare the data for printing. If everything is ok, the status will be as you see in image below. Note that paying Bank account is determined by the configuration step for Bank determination. To see the payment documents created go to Edit->Payment->Payment list. 

• Printout. After creating the payments, the payment medium is created (checks, banks transfer file, etc). It’s important to know that a Variant has to be created for the payment medium (using the transaction SE38) and assigned in the tab “Printout/data medium”. Also note that the payment media printout could be generate automatically during the payment run, or clicking on the proper button.

Display Vendor Line Items

For Vendors is available in SAP a transaction to display open and/or cleared items, the transaction is FBL1N.

Also you can follow the path:

SAP Menu-> Accounting->Financial Accounting->Accounts Payable->Account->FBL1N Display/Change Line items 

Double clicking on displayed documents you obtain the details, including if the invoice is blocked for payment.

If you want to know the related material document, you could navigate to Environment->Document Environment->Original Document

Copy Cost Center Plan

Yesterday I had the needed of coping the cost center plan data from one version to another. For this purpose I used SAP Transaction KP97.

The first execution of the transaction should be done in test mode (there is a checkbox for this purpose) selecting proper version, periods and year to be copied.

Is important to know that we have the possibility of overwriting target data selecting the check box “Reset and overwrite” in the selection screen.

After review the output log in test run, we are ready to execute the transaction in real mode coping data from a specific plan version to another.

Note that errors listed in the output log can be reviewed in detail clicking on button “Messages”.

Park FI Document

Don’t you have permissions to post a FI document? It’s usual in a company the existing of employees not authorized to enter FI documents without previously the document is revised by a proper reviewer.

In those occasions, you can enter the FI document using the transaction to park a document, F-65. You will enter all the information in the document and later, when a supervisor reviews the document, will post it.

The path to follow is the following:

SAP menu->Accounting->Financial Accounting->General Ledger->Posting->F-65 General Document Parking

Later, as approver, if you like to post the parked document you should use transaction FBV0.