FI / FICOintermediate

FICO Accounts Receivable Part 3: Incoming Payments and Automatic Clearing

Key takeaway

Post and clear customer payments efficiently: manual incoming payments, electronic bank statement with interpretation algorithms and search strings, partial vs residual payments, payment differences and tolerances, reason codes, and automatic clearing.

Explanation

📌 KEY POINTS
✅ Incoming payments can be posted manually (F-28) or from electronic bank statements (FF_5) with automatic matching.
✅ Interpretation algorithms and search strings find the invoice reference in payment notes.
✅ Partial payment keeps the invoice open; residual payment clears it and creates a new residual item.
✅ Small differences within tolerance are written off automatically; larger ones need a reason code.
⚠️ Unmatched bank items must be processed daily (e.g. FEBAN) or unapplied cash grows.

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▶ WHERE WE ARE
Part 2 covered invoices. Now payments.

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▶ 1. MANUAL PAYMENT

F-28: select open items, handle differences.

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▶ 2. ELECTRONIC BANK STATEMENT

Import, interpretation algorithms, search strings, posting rules.

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▶ 3. PARTIAL VS RESIDUAL

Partial: both items open; residual: invoice cleared, new item.

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▶ 4. DIFFERENCES

Tolerances, reason codes, write-off accounts.

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▶ 5. AUTOMATIC CLEARING

F.13 for items with matching criteria (e.g. reference).

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▶ STEP BY STEP

Import a bank statement in a sandbox.
Check matched and unmatched items.
Post a residual payment manually.

✅ CHECKPOINT: every bank line is either cleared or has an owner and reason.

Code example

ABAP Code

===== CONFIG MAP =====Electronic bank statement: posting rules, account symbols, transaction types (SPRO > Bank Accounting)Search strings: OTPM / assign to transaction typesTolerances: OBA3 (customer/supplier groups) | Reason codes: OBBE ===== PROCESS =====FF_5 import → auto-match → FEBAN post-process unmatched → F.13 automatic clearingF-28 manual: partial payment (both open) vs residual (new item)

Real project scenario

A mid-size distributor had 40% of bank lines unmatched because customers wrote invoice numbers with prefixes. Search strings stripping the prefixes raised automatic matching above 85%.

Common mistakes

No search strings.
Payments on account.
Write-offs without reasons.
Residual items unmanaged.
Delayed post-processing.

Best practices

Tune matching rules.
Process unmatched daily.
Use reason codes.
Monitor residual items.
Measure match rate.

Interview angle

Questions: "Partial vs residual payment?", "How does electronic bank statement matching work?", "How are payment differences handled?"
Strong answer: manual vs EBS, algorithms/search strings, partial/residual, tolerances/reason codes, automatic clearing.

Practice this lesson

Quick check

1. The automatic clearing program clears open items on a customer account based primarily on which mechanism?

2. A customer pays only part of an open invoice amount. The accountant posts this using the partial payment function (as opposed to residual payment) during incoming payment processing. What is the result in the customer account?

3. What is a necessary prerequisite for the system to automatically calculate interest on overdue customer open items?

Interview questions

1. Only 40% of bank statement lines clear automatically. How do you improve incoming payment processing?

Answer it in your own words first, then compare.

2. A customer down payment is posted using Special GL indicator F (request) then A (received), and later applied against the final invoice via F-39/clearing. The special GL account clears correctly in FI, but the corresponding house bank sub-account never shows the offsetting bank statement clearing, leaving an open item in the bank clearing account. How would you troubleshoot this integration issue?