Configuration of SAP Special

G/L Transactions
Special G/L transactions are special transactions in accounts receivable and
accounts payable that are recorded in the General Ledger in alternative
reconciliation accounts instead of the normal Vendor/Customer reconciliation
accounts. We usually make use of Special G/L Transactions to take care of business
process requirements of down payments, retentions, guarantees etc. In this post we
will discuss the concept of Special G/L Transactions, the system settings for Special
G/L Transactions and some end user activities related to Special G/L Transactions.

Types of Special G/L Transactions

SAP has already made available various types of Special G/L transactions in the
standard system. You can also define your own special G/L transactions if your
business requirements make it necessary to do so.

The following special G/L transactions are available in the standard system:

a) Down payments (made and received) and down payment requests

b) Payment requests

c) Guarantees (given and received)

d) Bills of exchange receivable, bills of exchange payable and checks/bills of

exchange

e) Bank bills

f) Reserves for bad debt

g) Security deposits

The configuration steps of the various types of Special G/L Transactions listed above
are similar, as well as their treatment by the system. Therefore we will concentrate
only on a few of them. In this post we will discuss the down payments and down
payment requests. In the next post we will discuss other special G/L transactions like
payment requests, guarantees etc. These are the more commonly used special G/L
Transactions and also because we cannot talk about all of them in detail in just two
blog posts.

Configuration of Down Payments and Down payment Requests

A business requirement may dictate that a down payment is received (as in the case
of a sales transaction) or made (as in the case of a purchase transaction). A down
payment is a payment made or received before the physical exchange of goods or
services. Upon the receipt of goods or delivery of services the down payment is
cleared against the final invoice. A Down payment is normally preceded by a down
payment request, although this is not a required condition. We will go through the
configuration of down payments in two stages

1) Down Payments made

This is the down payment you made to a vendor. To configure down payments
made, we follow the menu path below:

IMG — Financial Accounting (New) — Accounts Receivable and Accounts

Payable — Business Transactions — Down Payment Made — Define
Alternative Reconciliation Account for Down Payments
Or use transaction OBYR. Alternatively we can use transaction FBKP to make all
relevant special G/L Transaction configurations from this single transaction code.

We will concentrate on the special G/L indicator “A” and “F”. However, whatever
applies to them applies to the others as well.
Click on create icon if you want to create a new special G/L Indicator. The
standard SAP provided Special G/L Indicators are more than enough for our
purpose.

Now double click on the special G/L indicator “F” (Down payment request).
Assign your alternative reconciliation G/L accounts alongside your normal vendor
reconciliation accounts. It is assumed that you have already created these
Alternative Reconciliation accounts, if not create them with FS00. The alternative
reconciliation GLs should have the following characteristics.

i. Special GL Account (alternative reconciliation account) for down payments made is

define as a reconciliation account for account type “k-vendor”.

ii. Special GL Account (alternative reconciliation account) for down payments made
is assigned the field status group G067.

iii. One special GL Account can be assigned to more than one normal vendor
reconciliation account.

Now click on Properties to configure the Special GL properties.

 Noted Items: If this Indicator is set it means that postings with this special G/L
indicator does not lead to an update in accounting. Therefore, there is no debit or
credit entry with noted item transactions. There is only a one line record on the
vendor for information purpose only, because you are just recording a request to pay
and nothing else. This is the case with down payment requests and bill of exchange
payment requests in the standard system. You can specify in configuration whether
a particular special G/L transaction will update accounting or not by flagging or not
flagging the noted item check box.

 Relevance for the credit limit check: If you have a customer credit limit
management process in your organization, setting this indicator means that special
g/l transactions are included in your credit limit calculation.

 Commitment Warning: If this indicator is set, the system gives an alert that a
down payment exists when you try to process a transaction on an affected vendor or
customer. For example you post a down payment on a vendor and then
subsequently you try to process an invoice on the same vendor, the system will
issue the warning that a down payment exists on this vendor. It is more relevant to
set this flag when configuring the down payment and not the down payment request.

 Target special G/L indicator: Just enter here the special G/L indicators permitted
for noted items during document entry (F-47).

 Special G/L transaction Types: For each special G/L transaction you are
defining, you have to decide which type of special G/L transaction it will be (bill of
exchange, a down payment or another transaction).
 Posting Keys: Posting keys determine how a particular special G/L transaction
will be posted in the G/L either as a noted item or real update postings (if not a noted
item). With a standard Special G/L item the posting keys appear as a default. If for
any reason you want to define your own posting keys you can do so.

Now repeat the same process by double clicking on the special G/L indicator
“A” (Down payment) and go through the same process.

Assign your alternative reconciliation G/L accounts alongside your normal vendor
reconciliation accounts, just like in the preceding steps above.
The same explanation as in the case of the down payment request (see above)
applies. The only important difference is that commitment warning is flagged here,
and what means (as explained above) is that, the system will issue the warning that
a down payment exists on this vendor if you want to process anything on it. Another
difference is that we have not set the noted item flag here because a down payment
updates the accounting books unlike a payment request.

2) Down Payments Received

This is on the opposite side of the coin from the down payment made. Here we are
referring to down payments received from customers through sales activities as
opposed to purchasing or procurement activities.

To configure down payments received, we follow the menu path below:

IMG — Financial Accounting (New) — Accounts Receivable and Accounts

Payable — Business Transactions — Down Payment Received — Define
Reconciliation Accounts for Customer Down Payments
Or use transaction OBXR. Alternatively (as in the case of down payments made) we
can use transaction FBKP.

Notice that the account type here is “D” meaning we are dealing with Customer here.
If you compare this with a similar screen shot for down payments made, the account
type there is “K” meaning Vendor.

Now double click on the special G/L indicator “F” (Down payment request).
Assign your alternative reconciliation G/L accounts alongside your normal Customer
reconciliation accounts. The characteristics of the Special G/L accounts (alternative
reconciliation accounts) are similar to the case as in down payment made, except
that the alternative reconciliation account in the case is of type “D- Customer” and
the field status group is G031.

To continue, click on Properties to configure the Special GL properties.

The fields here have the same explanation as in the case of the vendor down
payment request (see above). The major difference is in the posting key. We use
here “09” and “19” posting keys for debit and credit postings respectively.
We repeat the same steps as above for the special G/L Indicator “A” (down
payments), by double clicking on it and maintaining the properties.

3) Other settings relevant to Down Payment Request

In SAP a down payment process starts with a down payment request, although this
is not a required condition.
A down payment request (down payment made) can be created in FI (F-47) either
with reference to Purchase Order in MM (WRTPO) or independently, without
reference to PO. If you are going to be creating down payment requests with
reference to PO, then additional configuration settings have to be maintained in MM.

 Activate the business function LOG_MMFI_P2P: (MM Integration of Materials

Management and Financial Accounting).

Usually this activity should be carried out by your basis team. Use
transaction SFW5 to activate this business function.
The activation of this function module, has the impact of adding an additional tab
(Payment Processing) in the ME21N transaction (creation of a purchase order) and
also an additional field (Down Payment Category).

With this setting you can process down payment from MM.

 Activation of the PO field in the F-47 screen

Additionally, the PO Field should be activated for your F-47 screen, to be able to
reference the PO that the down payment request relates to.

Use transaction OBC4 or follow the menu path:

IMG — Financial Accounting (New) — Financial Accounting Global Settings
(New) – Ledgers – Fields — Define Field Status Variants
Highlight your Field Status Variant and double click on Field Status Group

Double click on the field status group (G067) assigned to your alternative
reconciliation account.
Double click on Material Management Group.
Set the purchase order field to optional entry.

With this setting, the Purchase order field in your F-47 screen will be active, which
should enable you to create a down payment request with reference to purchase
order (WRTPO). You populate in this field with the purchase order number of the PO
that relates to your down payment request.

 Additional Down payment request settings in Sales and Distribution

On the receivables side of the equation, a prerequisite for down payment and down
payment request processing is that the following S&D and FI Integration settings are
maintained:
a) Define Reconciliation Accounts for Customer Down Payments using OBXR. This
has already been discussed in paragraph 2 above.
b) Configure Automatic posting procedures
In this step, you define an output tax clearing account. This account is needed if you
display down payments gross in the customer account.
Use transaction OBXB or follow the menu path:
IMG — Financial Accounting (New) — Accounts Receivable and Accounts
Payable — Business Transactions — Down Payment Received — Define
Account for Tax Clearing
Maintain the posting key and also assign your output tax clearing account in
transaction MVA.

c) Activate of the Sales Order field for the customer down payment request
screen (F-37)

Under this activity you activate of the Sales Order field for the customer down
payment request screen in your field status group of your alternative reconciliation
account and the posting key 19.

To activate the sales order field for the filed status group of your alternative
reconciliation account, follow the menu path:

IMG — Financial Accounting (New) — Financial Accounting Global Settings

(New) — Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable — Business
Transactions — Down Payment Received — Make and Check Document
Settings — Define Field Status Variants

Or use transaction OB14

Double click on the field status group G031.

Double click on Additional Account Assignments.

Set the sales order field to Optional Entry.

Now use transaction OB41 to activate the sales order field in the posting key

Double click on posting key “19” (Special G/L Credit).

Click on Maintain Field Status.
Double click on Additional Account Assignments.
Set the sales order field to Optional Entry.

d) Paying the down payment with the payment program (F110)

To be able to execute a down payment through the automatically payment

program (F110), (instead of manually through F-48), maintain the following settings:

IMG — Financial Accounting (New) —- Accounts Receivable and Accounts

Payable—- Business Transactions— Outgoing Payments— Automatic
Outgoing Payments—- Payment Method/Bank Selection for Payment
Program— Set Up All Company Codes for Payment Transactions
Or use transaction FBZP

Double click on your company code.

Indicate here the special G/L transactions (relating to both customers and Vendors)
you intend to pay with the payment program, and save.

Special G/L indicator “F” means Down Payment Requests

Special G/L indicator “P” means Payment request (to be discussed in a future post)
Special G/L indicator “A” means Down Payment

4) Down Payment Request, Down payment and Down Payment Clearing (End
User Activity)

I will not discuss this in detail here, for the simple reason that the blog post will be
unnecessarily long and also for the fact that I have written about this in another blog
post.
I will only list the processes involved and the transaction codes or menu path to the
transaction.
Please refer to the blog post I wrote on this, which was published in
eursap.com.

http://sapgurus.com/including-a-debit-item-on-a-vendor-during-automatic-
payment-program-execution/
a) Create a down payment request using transaction F-47 (Vendor) or F-37
(Customer). This can be done in FI with reference to the PO or Sales Order or
without reference to these.

b) Execute the down payment through the payment program using transaction F110
or manually through transaction F-48 (Vendor) or F-29 (Customer).

c) Post a vendor invoice (FB60, FV60) or customer invoice (FB70), if the down
payment request is created without reference to PO or SO, alternatively process the
invoice from MM or SD as the case may be.

d) Execute the down payment Clearing using transaction F-54 (Vendor) or F-39
(Customer). Alternatively directly clear the down payment through the payment
program. After the down payment is cleared the balance on the Special G/L
(alternative reconciliation) account is removed.

5) Reversing a Down Payment Request

A down payment request is automatically reversed when a down payment
referencing that request is paid. This is regardless of whether you executed the
down payment through the payment program or processed it manually.

We stop the discussion on the Special G/L Transactions (down payments made and
received) here, for now. We would love to hear your comments and suggestions.