SAP CFIN Central Payment Deployment Strategies

[sarkhelakash]

Concept

Central Payment allows you to make payment centrally for all different source systems integrated to Central finance system. It marks all A/R & A/P open items as technically cleared (ALE_EXTERN) in source & replicate them as open items in central Finance where all open item related processes (Central Processes) can be executed i.e., Dunning, Foreign currency valuation, Collection & Dispute Management, Credit Management, Bank communication Management etc.

All A/R & AP open items in source will still have balances as payment/clearing executed in central finance system will not replicate to source. Central Finance system will be considered as single source of truth for all A/R & A/P.

It is still possible to perform Cancellation/Reversal & Document changes with A/R & A/P documents which are technical cleared in source. However, with CSPC (Cross System Process control) an additional component of central payment will only allow to perform cancellation/Reversal if the document is not cleared in Central Finance system.

 
Central Payment Pre- Requisites:

• Tax Consistency Check: It performs consistency check for all tax attributes between source & Target during document replication. Using SLT, all tax tables i.e., T001, T007A, T005, T007B, TTXD, T001WT etc. are replicated & stored in FINS_CFIN_T* tables in CFIN. Tax consistency check can be activated without central payment as well but with central payment its mandatory to enable the same.

• Cross System Process Control: CSPC is a validation which stops any cancellation & reversal in source if the same document is cleared/paid in central finance system.

• Clearing Transfer: With this, you can transfer clearing document from source to central finance. With activation of CPAY, all AR/AR will be managed by central payment, but GL open item will still come under clearing transfer wherein document with any open item GL will remain open in source & will be replicated to CFIN as open item only. Clearing will be executed in source & will be replicated to CFIN as well.

• Central Clearing Transfer: This enhanced feature of clearing transfer allows you to choose GL accounts which you want to clear from Central Finance. It means these Open item GL accounts will appear technically clear in Source & will appear open in central finance. This behavior would be similar to central payment, only difference is here you have flexibility to choose GL accounts which you want to clear centrally. Rest for all GL accounts clearing will be executed from source i.e. GR/IR clearing account.

Other Prerequisites:

• SAP Notes: All SAP notes must be implemented in Source & Target depending upon system release.

• RFC Connection: There must be active RFC connection between source & Target System.

• General Settings in Source: VCFIN_SOURCE_SET should have value maintained in source system.

• Mappings: Co Code Mapping between source & target should exist in central Finance system.

• Logical System: Source Logical system must be created in CFIN & Source System.

Central Payment Architecture

Let us understand the system behavior considering:

Scenario A:

Scenario	Outcome
Central Payment & Clearing Transfer are Not Active	All the open items will remain open in the source system and technically cleared in CFIN system. Once payment (Clearing) document is generated in source system, the same will be replicated to the CFIN system with ALE-EXTERN without any reference to open item.

Transactions to understand System behavior for Scenario A:

Source System behavior:

Transaction	Source System	Doc. Number	Clearing Doc. Number
Vendor Invoice	Expense Dr.	190001
	Vendor a/c Cr.	190001	140001
Vendor Payment	Vendor a/c Dr.	140001
	Outgoing Bank a/c Cr.	140001

Target System Behavior:

Transaction	Target System	Doc. Number	Clearing Doc. Number	Sender Doc. Number
Vendor Invoice	Expense Dr.	190015		190001
	Vendor a/c Cr.	190015	ALE-EXTERN	190001
Vendor Payment	Vendor a/c Dr.	140015	ALE-EXTERN	140001
	Outgoing Bank a/c Cr.	140015		140001

Scenario B:

Scenario	Outcome
Only Clearing Transfer is Active (AP, AR and GL applies to all)	The open items will remain open in both the source and the CFIN system. Once clearing is done in source system at the time of replication, it will clear the open item in the CFIN system as well and will update the clearing document number in open item.

Transactions to understand system behavior for Scenario B:

Source System Behavior:

Transaction	Source System	Doc. Number	Clearing Doc. Number
Vendor Invoice	Expense Dr.	190001
	Vendor a/c Cr.	190001	140001
Vendor Payment	Vendor a/c Dr.	140001
	Outgoing Bank a/c Cr.	140001

Target System Behavior:

Transaction	Target System	Doc. Number	Clearing Doc. Number	Sending Doc. Number
Vendor Invoice	Expense Dr.	190015		190001
	Vendor a/c Cr.	190015	140015	190001
Vendor Payment	Vendor a/c Dr.	140015		140001
	Outgoing Bank a/c Cr.	140015		140001

 Scenario C:

Scenario

Outcome

Central Payment & Clearing Transfer are Active.

After activation of Central payment, all ongoing AP and AR open items posted in the source system will be technically cleared (ALE-EXTERN) and will be posted as an open item in the CFIN system. The payment of these open items will be made in the CFIN system. However, the GL open items for e.g., GR/IR clearing will remain open in both the systems and clearing done from the source system will be transferred to the CFIN system.

Transactions to understand System Behavior Scenario C:

Source System Behavior:

Transaction	Source System	Doc. Number	Clearing Doc. Number
Vendor Invoice	Expense Dr.	190001
	Vendor a/c Cr.	190001	ALE-EXTERN

Target System Behavior:

Transaction	Target System	Doc. Number	Clearing Doc. Number	Sender Doc. Number
Vendor Invoice	Expense Dr.	190015		190001
	Vendor a/c Cr.	190015	140015	190001
Vendor Payment	Vendor a/c Dr.	140015		NA
	Outgoing Bank a/c Cr.	140015		NA

Transactions to understand System Behavior for Scenario C:

Source System Behavior:

Transaction	Source System	Doc. Number	Clearing Doc. Number
Goods receipt	Raw material stock Dr.	190001
To GR/IR A/c Cr.	190001	190003
Transaction	Source System	Doc. Number	Clearing Doc. Number
Invoice receipt	GR/IR Dr	190002	190003
To Vendor	190002
Transaction	Source System	Doc. Number	Clearing Doc. Number
GR/IR clearing	GR/IR Dr	190003
GR/IR Cr	190003

Target System Behavior:

Transaction	Target System	Doc. Number	Clearing Doc. Number	Sender Doc. Number
Goods receipt	Raw material stock Dr.	190015		190001
To GR/IR A/c Cr.	190015	190017	190001
Invoice receipt	GR/IR Dr	190016	190017	190002
To Vendor	190016		190002
GR/IR clearing	GR/IR Dr	190017		190003
GR/IR Cr	190017		190003

Deployment Strategy Scenario 1

Note: Before Go-Live, Clear ongoing replication tables (CFIN_ACCHD & CFIN_ACCIT) in source via report RCFIN_DEL_MIG & RCFIN_DEL_MIG_CO

CPAY will be activated prior executing CFIN initial load & all historical Open items in source will be marked ‘Technically cleared’ via FINS_CFIN_TECH_CLR after successful migration.

Deployment Strategy Scenario 2

Note: Since CFIN is already implemented, there won’t be any live proofing test which means source production system will not be hooked up with S4 QA or Pre-Prod Environment. Central Payment & all central processes will be tested till UAT.

If Client have CFIN with Clearing Transfer & want to activate CPAY. After CPAY activation, all historical open items will be marked ‘Technically cleared’ via FINS_CFIN_TECH_CLR in Source system.

If Client have CFIN w/o clearing Transfer & want to activate CPAY with Clearing Transfer. After CPAY activation, all historical A/R & A/P Technically cleared documents in CFIN which are still open in source will be reopened via FINS_MIG_CJ3 & Same documents will be marked technically cleared in Source via FINS_CFIN_TECH_CLR.

CPAY activation will also require changes in SLT, which may require several SAP notes & redefine Predefined load objects to make some changes in structure.