Bank Accounting Configuration in SAP FICO

Bank Accounting in SAP (FI-BL) – Introduction

Even more, you can define all the country-specific parameters for manual and electronic payment processing, payment forms, data media, settings for lockbox processing (USA operation specific) and more.

What is Bank Master Data?

The bank master data is made up of communication data and control data (including SWIFT code and IBAN) International Bank Account numbers of all the banks. It is stored centrally in the bank directory.

Automatic Creation of Bank Master Data

SAP Customizing => Implementation Guide => Cross-Application Components => Bank Directory => Bank Directory Data Transfer

1. For international bank transfer, select the activity Transfer Bank Directory Data through the program. Use RFBVBIC_0 to import bank master data from a file, which is in the BIC+IBAN directory format.
2. For country-specific data transfer, use the customising activity Transfer Bank Directory data – country-specific and import the bank data ( in ASCII format) through the program RFBVALL_0.

Manual Creation of Bank Master Data

Use the SAP Easy Access menu path:

Accounting => Financial Accounting => Banking => Master Data => Bank Master Record TCode FI01 => Create a bank master record manually in the system.

Related: Bank Account Management in SAP S/4HANA

What is a House Bank in SAP Bank Accounting?

The house banks are banks through which you can carry out the payment transactions. Typically you enter a house bank in the company code data in the master record of a business partner.

Noteworthy, you can design one or more banks in the bank directory as per your house banks.

• Each house bank has an identifier (maximum of five characters) known as House Bank and is associated with a country through the Bank country key.
• Further, each House Bank also has a unique identifier (not more than 15 characteristics long) known as a Bank key. This can be a SWIFT code for overseas banks.
• Likewise, each Bank has one or more bank accounts represented by an account ID. This account ID and House Bank ID are used to identify a bank account.
• In the same vein, each account ID also has a Bank Account Number ( length not exceeding 18 characters)
• You can use a control key is used to identify the nature of the Bank account
• Each account ID is mapped to G/L accounts.

Related: SAP FICO Interview Questions on Bank Accounting

The Lockbox in Bank Accounting in SAP

Using a lockbox clearing account, you post all the payments directly to the bank G/L account.

The Process

• Normally, you receive cheques from your customers at your company code.
• Then you prepare to check the deposit list and send it, along with cheques to the house bank. This you do for those cheques to be accounted for or collected into the bank accounts.
• Once this is done, the bank sends you a statement showing the checks collected or returned and you reconcile your books accordingly.
• The incoming checks from the customers (together with payment instructions) are collected at the bank where your customers send in the checks instead of sending them directly to you.
• Next, the bank records and sends ( daily or periodically) the information relating to the checks received and payments collected. Such as customer bank account number, cheque number, the amount paid, invoice etc.
• The information comes to you either in a lockbox statement form or in an electronic file. (An Electronic file is a bank-specific format that we can import directly into SAP’s main lockbox program. Its TCode is FLB2).

How does the Lockbox help?

The clearing account has a non-zero balance (until all the amounts are applied to customers’ outstanding receivables). However, the bank account shows the correct balance. You post the collected amounts to respective bank accounts in addition to clearing the appropriate A/R open items of the customers. Now here, if the payment is not sufficient to fully clear an open item, the lockbox processing creates payment advice that is post-processed.

Use TCode– FLB1 to create partial or residual items. Run a batch input to update master records.

Steps to Define a Lockbox in Bank Accounting in SAP

IMG => Financial Accounting (New) => Bank Accounting => Bank Accounts => Define Lockbox for House Banks. TCode- OB10.

What is a Bank Business Transaction?

The business transactions in bank accounting include transactions relating to check Deposits, bills of exchange, payments and cash journals. After master data creation now we can proceed to configure the system to carry out the various business transactions.

Bank Statements in Bank Accounting in SAP FICO

There are two types of bank statements in bank accounting in SAP FICO. These are Manual bank statements and Electronic bank statements. First I will explain the process and configuration of the manual bank statement.

Manual Bank Statement

Among other things, the manual bank statement functionality in SAP FICO enables you to vary the row formatting when entering line items, vary the account assignment variant for correct automatic account determination, transfer payment advice from the cash and liquidity management application and change the opening and closing balance entry. When you can create a maximum of two postings per line item a bank account posting and a sub-ledger posting.

The process of entering a bank statement manually has two steps:

1. Entering the line items in a bank account statement
2. Postings

Manual Bank Statement Configuration

1. Define Posting keys and posting rules for manual bank statement
2. Create and assign business transactions
3. Define variants for manual bank statement

The process to define Posting keys and posting Rules for Manual Bank Statement

SPRO => Financial Accounting => Bank Accounting => Business Transaction => Payment Transaction =>Manual Bank Statement =>Define Posting keys and Posting Rules

There are multiple sub-activities in this step:

1. Define account symbols instead of specific G/L accounts for easy maintenance. On the initial overview screen, define the required account symbols for the bank account, incoming check account, check clearing account, charges account etc.
2. Once the account symbols are in place, you need to assign appropriate G/L accounts to them. Double click assign accounts to accounts symbols in the left dialogue pane and maintain the details on the resulting screen.

3. With the account symbols and G/L accounts assigned, the next step is to define the posting rules that you may need for your bank statement entry. Denote each posting rule with a posting rule key. Example Z07 Bank charges for which you later define the posting rules for G/L and sub-ledger accounting.

4. The final step for each of the posting rule keys is to define the posting rules. These include the affected posting area (only G/L or both G/L and sub-ledger) posting keys (Debit and credit) compressing the line items before posting etc. Double click the Define posting rule in the left dialogue pane and enter the details.

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Variants for Manual Bank Statement

To start processing a manual bank statement, you require an account assignment variant, which you can configure using the menu path:

SPRO => Financial Accounting ( New ) => Bank Accounting => Business Transaction => Payment Transaction => Manual Bank statement => Define Variant for Manual Bank Statement TCode- OT43.

Electronic Bank Statement – Configuration

Along with all the settings for manual Bank statement configuration, add the following settings:

SPRO => Financial Accounting => Bank Accounting => Business Transaction => Payment Transaction => Electronic Bank Statement => Make Global Settings for Electronic Bank Statement (TCode – OT83).

1. Create a transaction type (example BAI2) to which you will be assigning all the external transactions.
2. Double click the Assign External Transaction Types to Posting Rules in the left dialogue structure and assign the external transactions along with the appropriate posting rules to the transaction type ( BAI2) already created in the previous step. Also, maintain the +/- sign. Inter preparation Algorithm, processing Type etc for each external transaction.
3. The Final step in global settings for electronic bank statements is assigning the bank accounts to transaction types. Double click Assign Bank Accounts to TRANSACTION TYPES in the left dialogue structure and on the resulting overview screen.

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