How to understand the FI postings made in SD down payment scenario?

[alex_zheng]

In the SD down payment process, you may feel a little bit confused about the way that down payment being made through SD to FI, and the handling of received down payment amount in the subsequent customer billing documents. Also you may want to know how does the received down payment get cleared in FI through SD down payment settlement (clearing) item, how does the system handle the amount to be paid in the subsequent billing document considering the down payment amount to be cleared, etc.

Here I’d like to show you a concrete example for the SD down payment process based on milestone billing plan, which might help you to find out the answers for the queries you have.

 

Sample

This is a standard item level milestone billing plan with down payment being involved. 1^st billing plan item is a down payment billing plan item with billing rule 4:



Here’s the complete document flow after I completed the test for this sales order item:



 

Create SD down payment request -> FI down payment request

Normally, the SD down payment process starts with the 1^st billing creation by reference to the down payment billing plan item. In standard, the system uses billing type FAZ to generate SD down payment request:



In the item conditions tab, you can see the down payment condition type AZWR which contributes in the net value of this SD down payment request:



After release the above SD down payment request into FI, a FI accounting document gets created, so-called FI down payment request. While it looks a bit different from the accounting document generated from normal billing, with special G/L indicator ‘F’ being set in the accounting line item:



Note the line gets posted into G/L account 196000 for customer 1000, although a different reconciliation account 140000 being set for customer 1000 in customer master:

XD03 -> Company code data -> Account Management tab



What does this accounting line mean? Where’s account 196000 coming from?

Taking a look at the accounting configuration for special G/L could help you find the answer.

T-code: FBKP, choose “Special G/L”:



Double click on the line for Acct Type ‘D’, SGL Ind. ‘F’:



You can see the special G/L account 196000 gets determined from here:



Click on “Properties”, you’ll be able to see the meaning of special G/L indicator ‘F’:



Therefore, this FI down payment request is only a noted item, which ensures the posting is statistical in FI. It’s being posted into a different account 196000 other than reconciliation account 140000, which makes it’s possible to differentiate down payment request from other receivables.

 

Incoming payment of down payment

Next step is to post an incoming payment for the down payment. This is done with T-code: F-29 in standard. The down payment is assigned to the down payment request through this posting, and the received down payment amount is also assigned to the corresponding sales order item.

Down payment gets assigned to the FI down payment request 1400000005:



Sales document (BSEG-VBEL2) & Sales document item (BSEG-POSN2) get filled in the customer line in down payment posting done by F-29 (accounting document 1400000006):





The accounting line to customer account has special G/L indicator ‘A’.

Based on setting from FBKP, it means the down payment posting, and it gets posted into a special G/L account 170000:



After the incoming payment posting of down payment, you’ll find the FI down payment request gets status ‘Cleared’ from SD document flow:



 

Down payment settlement/clearing

After the incoming payment of down payment is done in FI, in the next milestone billing creation (e.g. create billing reference to the 2^nd billing plan item) or final invoice creation, besides normal billing item 10, system would automatically propose an additional item 20 in the billing as “Down payment settlement” item.



The maximum amount for clearing is the amount received as a down payment, minus down payments that were already cleared. The amount to be cleared can be changed manually on condition level (standard: condition AZWR).



In this specific case, I’ve adjusted condition value of AZWR manually from 30 EUR to 10 EUR, which makes this down payment settlement item to be a proportional settlement.

Check the subsequent accounting document, try to understand what’s happening in FI with this down payment settlement posting:

• For the open items on the customer account 1000, this means: Two posting lines are created; one in debit with the special G/L indicator 'A', and one in credit without a special G/L indicator.


• For the general ledger, this means: A reduction is made on the special G/L account 170000 for down payments received and at the same time, a credit posting of the corresponding receivables account (reconciliation account) 140000 is carried out; that is, the total of the receivables is reduced:

Special G/L account 170000 with special G/L indicator A
Down payment to be settled 11,90 EUR	Down payment made 35,70 EUR

 

Receivable account (Reconciliation account) 140000
Partial invoice value 142.80 EUR	Down payment to be settled 11,90 EUR

To simplify the explanation, let’s take tax amount out.

From FI point of view, in this accounting document:

• For special G/L account 170000:
  Down payment received gets partially cleared by the down payment settlement item: 10 EUR of the received down payment (30 EUR) gets cleared.


• For receivable account 140000:
  Total receivables of customer 1000 = 120 EUR (net value from the normal billing item 10) – 10 EUR(down payment clearing value without tax) = 110 EUR.


• For revenue account:
  It posts revenue with billing amount 120 EUR (see above accounting line item 2 from the accounting document 1400000007).

From SD billing's business perspective:

• Amount to be paid by customer for this billing is not the billing value, but billing value – down payment clearing value.


• While this billing document contains the value as it shows in the system (billing net value), which is going to be transferred into FI as revenue.

You may doubt now how could the end customer know that they only need to pay 110 EUR for an invoice with 120 EUR(without considering tax amount), although the net value shows as 120 EUR for this billing document in the system. How does this reflect in SD?

To find out the answer, you may check the billing output result. The down payment amount due for clearing gets displayed and can be deducted from the receivables when the billing document is being printed. In other words, you’ll be able to see the correct amount to be paid by customer in the invoice printing:



After this 2nd billing, you can continue with the next billing creation and post to FI accounting similarly. During final invoice, all uncleared down payments will be taken into account.

 

Besides the above explanation about the SD down payment posting and clearing, as additional info, I’d also like to add several important SAP consulting notes regarding SD down payment processing. These notes explain the necessary customizing settings and provide very useful information / hints for the down payment processing analysis from both SD & FI side:

213526 - Customizing of down payment processing SD/FI
213567 - Analysis of the down payments in SD 
213852 - Analysis of down payment processing with FI

Hope this could help you understand better about what’s happening with the down payment posting and down payment clearing in both SD & FI side in the SD down payment scenario.