SAP S/4HANA Finance with Fiori User Interface Delivers Efficiencies to Accounts Receivable

A New Day for Accounts Receivable

If you followed our previous post about how SAP S/4HANA Finance is transforming the accounts payable (AP) function, it’s easy to draw parallels to the accounts receivable (AR) function. Let’s continue building from that knowledge here.On any given day, the AR clerk’s responsibility is to review customer line items, post and process lockbox or other automatic cash applications, post and clear incoming payments, review and adjust promises to pay, manage correspondence and disputes, display credit limit utilization, and show overdue receivables. If you’re coming from an SAP ERP Central Component (ECC) environment, you’re aware of the exhaustive back and forth that it can take for you to accomplish even the most basic daily tasks.

Fortunately, SAP S/4HANA—an entirely new generation of SAP Business Suite characterized by simplifications, increased efficiency, and new features—has transformed the ease of accessing and working with the AR information you need through a superior user interface: SAP Fiori.

Accounts Receivable Transformed

Here, we’ve listed a selection of relevant accounts receivable apps in SAP Fiori:

Recall that the SAP S/4HANA reporting structure is organized around “views”, not tables (as was its predecessor). So, if you have complex billing arrangements coming from orders, deliveries, and invoices, you now have a comprehensive view without dealing with the constant back and forth. You can simply see the document flow, and by scrolling down, you will notice the general ledger (GL) interpretation; that is, the cost of goods sold for delivery or billing documents for invoicing customers.

Post Incoming Payments app

Turning our attention to the Post Incoming Payments app, it’s incredibly intuitive and neatly organized on the screen. You can find the invoice with ease, and if there are no issues (i.e., if it’s not a short payment and if you don’t want to create any residual or partial payment), you can simply post it for it to be done here. Alternatively, you can either post it to an account or to a GL account depending on your viewing preferences.

You can also add attachments to the payment. Attachments are typically hot topics in discussions surrounding SAP, as they were not readily available in the past. However, now you can see the attachment button or tab almost anywhere you enter invoices, payments, or journal entries.

Manage Dispute Cases app

Let's talk about the Manage Dispute Cases app for a moment.

Managing disputes is a function that was not maintained particularly well in ECC, the classic SAP environment. Either you conducted customer relationship management (CRM), or you had to utilize another tool that was somehow connected to SAP. SAP S/4HANA has brought the CRM function into SAP Financial Supply Chain Management (FIN-FSCM). Each of these functions are now available in the core, which greatly influences and facilitates customer communications. Customers and suppliers in SAP S/4HANA are maintained under the umbrella of “business partners,” which is a new concept for SAP. Based on the roles, you can define each business partner as a customer, a vendor, or both.

Collections

For collections, you can use various tabs on the processing receivables screen to view all invoices or cleared items, as well as disputes or promises to pay. As the processor for a particular customer, you have all of these items on a single screen. For instance, you can have a note on the customer level and, if you see a PDF button, you can quickly identify the type of invoice it was without having to navigate to a file or binder elsewhere. You can immediately determine if a dispute has been erased, what the reason was, or if a promise to pay was created for the customer. If you want to create a dispute or promise, you can do that, too. You can even add an attachment such as a relevant e-mail communication.

Based on the collections strategy, SAP S/4HANA can generate the dispute automatically. For instance, let’s say that you want to describe a particular collections strategy for all customers that have open items due in over 30 days and over $50,000. You can generate such a list automatically, perhaps daily or weekly, and these disputes will be pending for processing and communicating with a client. As you can imagine, communications between the AR clerk and the customer are naturally enhanced by this functionality.

This is just a quick look at some of the user-friendly Fiori apps that are transforming the AR function in SAP enterprises. From managing the list of customers to posting incoming payments to managing receivables, the out-of-the box and customizable Fiori apps render SAP S/4HANA a versatile tool and time-saver for accounts receivable.

Explore the SAP S/4HANA Finance functionality with Illumiti’s interactive tool at: https://illumiti.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-sap-user/finance-user/