Exchange Rate Difference Postings at Payment Time – Additional 6680 / 7680 Entry in Public Cloud

[AlvaroFernandezMorales]

Dear community,

I am working in an SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud environment and analyzing the exchange rate difference postings generated during the procurement and payment process. I have encountered a posting logic that I do not fully understand from a functional and accounting perspective.

I will describe the scenario in a simplified way:

• Purchase order for 1,000,000 in foreign currency.

• Goods Receipt posted with an exchange rate of 1.1566.

• Subsequently, the Supplier Invoice is posted for the same amount (1,000,000), but with an exchange rate of 1.1727.

Due to the exchange rate difference between the Goods Receipt and the Invoice, the system posts an adjustment to price/variance accounts, impacting purchase or consumption accounts (for example 6011 / 6111). This behavior is clear to me.

Later on, the payment to the vendor is executed using an exchange rate of 1.1634.

At payment time, the accounting document contains the following postings:

• Bank posting (as expected).

• Clearing of the vendor account 4000 (as expected).

• A negative exchange rate difference, posted to account 668 (exchange rate losses).

👉 My question arises here:

In addition to the above, the system generates an additional accounting entry with the same amount, where:

• A debit is posted to account 6680 (negative exchange rate difference), and

• A corresponding credit is posted to account 7680 (positive exchange rate difference).

In other words, an additional posting between 6680 and 7680 is created with no net impact on P&L. While the balances offset each other, I do not fully understand the functional purpose of this posting in the context of standard exchange rate difference handling.

Could someone please explain why SAP generates this additional “mirror” entry between negative and positive exchange rate difference accounts at payment time?

Is this related to the clearing or reversal of previously posted exchange rate differences, or is it part of the standard exchange rate difference logic in S/4HANA Public Cloud?

Many thanks in advance for your support

[Chris1973 · Accepted solution]

Good day @AlvaroFernandezMorales 

Thank you for your question

To summarise, the extra 6680 Dr and 7680 Cr you are seeing is typically a parallel currency balancing effect S/4HANA produces. In public cloud, the system calculates your realised exchange rate differences at payment time, not only for the transaction currency but also per local currency type you have maintained for your company code (for example company code currency, group currency and additional currencies). Because each currency type can use a different rate source or rate, it is possible that, one currency view results in a loss while another view results in a gain or a different amount.

In an effort to keep the journal entry balanced in every currency view, the system may reclassify the loss and gain accounts, in your case 6680 and 7680. This might look like net zero in one currency but it is usually not net zero when you look at the other currency columns. See the following references for more insights: https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_S4HANA_CLOUD/89d896ca9cd64318b1667df5ec00e4b2/32915c3a62f3430183ce2dc4... & https://learning.sap.com/courses/customizing-core-settings-in-financial-accounting-in-sap-s4hana/man...

From a functionally perspective:

• What you see is not the system creating a reversal of the GR or invoice FX difference
• It is aimed to ensure the document is correct across all currency views when your realised FX differences are calculated at payment time.

Best regards

Chris

[erickgoulardt · Accepted solution]

Hello Chris, I hope it's all right. I am accepting the response offered to our customers as there has not been an update in the last few weeks. Thank you for contributing to our community. 🙂 Best Regards, Erick Goulardt SAP Support

[AlvaroFernandezMorales · Accepted solution]

Hi @Chris1973;

[AlvaroFernandezMorales · Accepted solution]

Hi Chris, thank you very much for your detailed explanation.

I would like to clarify one point regarding my system setup, as I think this is where the misunderstanding may be. In my S/4HANA Public Cloud system, I only have:

• Company code currency: EUR

• Transaction currency: USD

I do not have group currency or any additional parallel currencies maintained. From a functional perspective, I therefore do not require any additional currency views beyond EUR (local currency) and USD (transaction currency). For this reason, I believe the issue I am seeing is not related to parallel currency balancing. To make the scenario clearer, below are the accounting entries generated by the system.

Goods Receipt:

Supplier Invoice:

Payment of the invoice:

What I observe is that, at payment time, the posting between the exchange rate loss account (group 6) and the exchange rate gain account (group 7) is created for exactly the same amount that was already posted as an exchange rate difference at invoice posting. This additional entry has no net impact on P&L in EUR and does not seem to be required for balancing purposes, given that only EUR and USD are involved. For this reason, I am still struggling to understand the functional purpose of this “mirror” posting between FX loss and FX gain accounts in my specific setup.

I hope this clarifies my question further, and I would really appreciate any additional insight or alternative explanation you might have regarding what could be triggering this behavior.

Kind regards,

Álvaro