How can we Automate Collection Posting in SAP ?

Are you still posting collection entries in your SAP system manually ? This post will guide you how to Automate Collection Posting in SAP and Collection Bank Reconciliation Statement (BRS) .

It is always easy to automate collection posting for B2C company like Electricity or Telecom . In this case, customer is paying online using their platform to identify due amount however in case of B2B , it is difficult to provide access to outstanding bill in online portal (there is not technology issue but company may not want to publish only due to confidentiality issue ).

To resolve this issue our most banks in India provide Host to Host Banking solutions and I have worked with most of the known banks while implementing these types of projects .

Step by step guide to Automate Collection Posting in SAP and Auto BRS process:

1. Ideally there has to be a separate collection with your bank .
2. Provide a list of customers to your bank , they will provide a unique customer account number which is called a virtual account number. virtual Account number is typically combination of your customer code and account number identifier
3. You have to provide the same virtual account number to your customer.
4. Your customer will use this virtual account number instead of a normal bank account number while processing payment through RTGS/NEFT/CMS cheque deposit.
5. Since the customer is already registered with the bank , the bank will provide the customer name while sharing collection MIS with the company .
6. Companies have to do IP mapping from their SAP system to the Bank System. Bank will share files to the company server using the SFTP system/any other secured method.
7. Company is required to write ABAP programs to pick up files from predefined locations at fixed interval time and post accounting in SAP. Normally one hour is a sufficient gap between two files.
8. Based on customer code , SAP will post a collection entry in SAP .
9. Since transaction is initiated from bank collection file, it will have unique transaction reference
10. Next day morning , the MT940 bank statement will be auto posted in SAP from the bank server and it will auto knock off transactions which have similar transaction references.
11. Now Accountants are required to review only open items in BRS and take corrective actions .
12. Entire Collection posting and BRS process are automated.

Above process is provided for SAP however it will equally apply to other ERP system also with only condition that your ERP should talk with your bank server for moving the collection file and bank statement.

Hope you liked this post and get a clarity regarding how to automate collection posting and BRS in SAP.

Do read our post Are you ready with New TDS and TCS changes in your ERP from Jul- 2021? to get idea about updating necessary changes in SAP with reference to new TCS changes .