FSCM User Manual

Disputes & Collections management

 Contents
What is SAP FSCM.......................................................................................................3

SAP Collections Management.......................................................................................3

Roles in Collections Management.................................................................................3

Collections Specialist:...............................................................................................4

Call up Work list:...................................................................................................4

Prepare customer contact:......................................................................................5

Contact Customer..................................................................................................6

Collections Supervisor:............................................................................................10

Define Collection Strategies:...............................................................................10

Process Collection groups;...................................................................................11

Edit Business Partner Master Record..................................................................12

Monitor Collection of Receivables......................................................................13

Change Assignment of Collection Group and Collection Specialist to Customer

..............................................................................................................................13

Process Receivables.....................................................................................................14

Invoices....................................................................................................................14

List of Open Credit Items....................................................................................14

Creating Promises to Pay.....................................................................................14

Payments..................................................................................................................15

Dispute Cases...........................................................................................................16

Customer Contacts...................................................................................................16

Resubmissions.........................................................................................................16

SAP DISPUTE MANAGEMENT...............................................................................17

Creating a dispute case............................................................................................19

Searching for a dispute case....................................................................................20

Updating a dispute case...........................................................................................21

Fields of a dispute case............................................................................................22

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 Attributes of a dispute case:.....................................................................................24

Linked Objects:....................................................................................................24

Notes....................................................................................................................25

Log.......................................................................................................................25

Closing a dispute case..............................................................................................26

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 What is SAP FSCM
SAP Financial Supply Chain Management optimizes the
financial and information flows within a company and
between business partners. Following components of SAP
Financial Supply Chain Management are implemented at
OLAM:
 SAP Collections Management: Application for proactive
receivables management

 SAP Dispute Management: Application for efficient

processing of receivables-related dispute cases

SAP Collections Management

The components of SAP Collections Management support
you in active receivables management. Using collections
strategies, you can valuate and prioritize customers from a
receivables management view. Customers that fulfill the
rules defined in a strategy are distributed to the worklists
of the collection specialists. The collection specialists then
contact the customers in their order of priority in order to
collect receivables.

You can display an overview of the current status of the

open invoices of a customer account as well as the last
payments, the customer contacts, and open resubmissions.
If a customer gives a promise to pay, you can enter this in
the system and follow its status. You can also define that a
customer is to reappear on the worklist on a certain date.
When you return to the worklist, you can documente the
complete customer contact in the system.

Roles in Collections Management

The functionalities in this module is designed for the
following roles:

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  Collections Specialist (Responsible for Collecting
receivables)

 Collections Supervisor/Manager (Responsible for

controlling the process of collecting receivables)

Collections Specialist:
The collection specialist performs this process. It covers
the following process steps:

 Call Up Worklist

 Prepare Customer Contact

 Contact Customer

Call up Work list:

A worklist is created automatically for each collection
specialist on a daily basis . The collection specialist logs on
to the Collections Management system and calls up the
worklist. The worklist contains all customers to be
contacted in order of priority. The prioritization of the

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 customers in the worklist (worklist items) is determined by
the collection strategy assigned to the customer.

Note: Transaction code for calling up the worklist

is UDM_SPECIALIST.

Prepare customer contact:

To prepare the customer contact, the collection specialist
needs information about why the contact is necessary.He
also needs to consider the customer’s account and
previous customer contacts.

He can see why the customer contact is necessary by

displaying the valuation of the customer according to the
collection strategy. Here he can see an overview of all
collection rules fulfilled by the customer. Example: There
was no successful customer contact in the last 40 days.

For a view of the current status of the customer account,

the collection specialist can look at the work list. This
contains key figures for the customer, such as outstanding
amounts, the amount to be collected, the amount of
broken promises to pay, or when and with whom the last
customer contact was carried out.

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 By navigating to the function Process Receivables ( ),
the collection specialist can display the detail view of the
customer. Here the open receivables of the customer are
listed with their respective status. At a glance the
collection specialist can see which part of the invoice is
open, whether anything has already been paid or credited
and how much, and promises to pay, dispute cases, and
dunning notices for the invoice. The collection specialist
can also view an overview of previous customer contacts
that informs him of the results of previous contacts with
specific contact persons at the customer. He can also see
promises to pay, dispute cases, and resubmissions that
arose from customer contacts.

Contact Customer
To make the contact, the collection specialist uses the
contact data of the contact person at the customer that is
displayed in the function Process Receivables. The
collection specialist enters the results of the customer
contact in the system.

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 If a customer promises to pay open invoices, the collection
specialist creates promises to pay for the invoices
specified. The system automatically monitors whether this
promise to pay is kept. If the collection strategy is
configured accordingly, when promises to pay are broken
the customer appears on the worklist again.

If the customer objects to an invoice, the collection

specialist can create a dispute case for the invoice. The
department responsible can process the dispute case

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 immediately. If the result of the dispute case processing is
such that the objections of the customer are unjustified,
the corresponding status of the dispute case leads to the
customer appearing on the worklist again. The invoice is
relevant for receivables management again.

If the collection specialist cannot reach the contact person,

or the contact person requests that the collection specialist
calls back, the specialist can create a resubmission. On the
date specified the customer appears on the worklist again.

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 After the customer contact has been carried out, the
contact is summarized and documented. The system
creates a standard note and adds all promises to pay,
dispute cases, and resubmissions created to the customer
contact. The collection specialist then enters a Contact
Result and returns to the worklist. There he prepares the
next customer contact.

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 If the Collection specialist chooses a Contact Result which
indicates that the customer was successfully contacted,
the Business partner is automatically disappears from the
worklist & is transferred to the Completed items list. These
Businss partners can be accessed by clicking on the
Display completed items icon. ( )

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 Collections Supervisor:
The collection manager performs this process. He is
responsible for ensuring that the receivables are collected
according to the financial targets of the company. The
process covers the following process steps:

 Define Collection Strategies

 Process Collection Groups

 Edit Business partner master record

 Change Assignment of Collection Group and

Collection Specialist to Customer

 Monitor Collection of Receivables

Note: The transaction code for accessing the work

list for a Collections Supervisor/Manager is
UDM_SUPERVISOR.

Define Collection Strategies:

The collection manager defines the criteria (collection
rules) to be used for analyzing customers and prioritizing
them for receivables management. To do this he defines
collection strategies and enters them in the system. He can
create different strategies depending on the customer
group, region, or company situation. In a collection

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 strategy, all collection rules that are relevant for collecting
receivables are listed and prioritized.

All customers are analyzed and valuated according to the

strategy assigned to them and, dependent on the
valuation, included in the worklist. The more rules that
apply to a customer, the higher this customer is prioritized
in the worklist. Collection strategies are therefore the basis
for the automatic creation of worklists.

Note: The transaction code for creating or editing

Collection Strategy is UDM_STRATEGY.

Process Collection groups;

Collection groups cover all collection specialists that collect
receivables using the same collection strategy. The
collection manager is responsible for assigning his
employees to collection groups. He can also define a
substitute for each collection specialist in a collection
group for times when the specialist is absent. The work list
items for the absent colleague are then assigned to this
substitute automatically.

The collection manager also determines the collection

strategy that a collection group uses to collect receivables.

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 Note: The transaction code for Collection groups in
UDM_GROUP.

Edit Business Partner Master Record

In SAP Collections Management, every customer has a
business partner master record. In this master record, the
collection group and (optional) collection specialist
responsible for the customer are defined. The collection
strategy relevant for valuating the customer is derived
from the collection group. The collection groups and
collection specialists are assigned automatically (see the
process Data Synchronization and Creation of Worklists).

If necessary, the collection manager can assign a different

collection specialist to the customer. This may be
necessary, for example, to improve the distribution of the
workload in his team and to react to changes in personnel.
He can also assign a different collection group to the
customer temporarily and, if required, an alternative
collection specialist.

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 Note: The transaction code for editing a Business
partner master record is UDM_BP.

Monitor Collection of Receivables

The collection manager is responsible for the successful
collection of receivables. To monitor this process, he can
display the worklist items for all collection groups assigned
to him.

He can display statistics that help him to evaluate how

many worklist items have been completed, how many are
still open, and how many successful or unsuccessful
customer contacts have already been carried out.

He can also redistribute worklist items between collection

specialists for a more even distribution of the workload and
to ensure that high priority items are processed quickly.

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 Change Assignment of Collection Group and
Collection Specialist to Customer
The collection supervisor can reassign Business partners
from one group to other and he can also reassign the
specialists for a group of business partners as well.

Note: The transaction code for the above function

is UDM_BP_GRP.

Process Receivables
After opening a business partner, the user will be
presented with this screen. The specialist can perform
various functions in this screen which were briefly
discussed in the above sections. Detailed explanation of
each of these tabs is presented here:

 Invoices

 Payments

 Promises to Pay

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  Dispute Cases

 Customer Contacts

 Resubmissions

Invoices
This function provides you with an overview of all open
invoices for a customer in the company codes of the
current collection segment. You can display additional
information for each invoice, and create promises to pay
and dispute cases. The tab page Invoices is part of the
function Process Receivables.

You can see all open invoices for the selected customer
and those where there are open residual items. The
amountPromised (Residual) results from the amount
promised minus the amount paid for the promise to pay.
The amount paid for the promise to pay results from
the Process Integration with Accounts Receivable.

List of Open Credit Items

If the account contains open credit items with no invoice
reference, these are totaled by currency, displayed in rows
highlighted with different colors, and have the
entry Credit in the column Document Number. Double-click
on these rows to display a list of items that have been
totaled on the lower part of the screen.

Creating Promises to Pay

Select one or more invoices for which you want to create a
promise to pay and choose Promise to pay with the quick
info text Create Promise to Pay.

The screen area Create Promise to Pay appears under the

list of invoices. In the field Promised, the total of the open
items is proposed automatically.

If you select invoices that already have a promise to pay

with the system status Open, this is confirmed and the new
promise to pay contains a level increased by one.

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 If you enter a promise to pay for several invoices, the
system automatically creates individual promises to pay for
each invoice when you save so that you can process and
follow promises to pay at invoice level.

1. Enter the data required for the promise to pay.

In the field Reference, you can enter data such as a
check number that the customer gave you. You can also
enter notes in a text field.
2. If you have only selected one invoice, or if the amount
promised for several invoices agrees with the total open
amount, you can save the promise(s) to pay. Otherwise,
you have to specify how the amount promised is
distributed between the invoices selected.
a. Choose with the quick info text Distribution.
The screen area Distribute Amount appears.
b. Assign the amount that was promised to each
invoice in the list of invoices for which a promise was
submitted. The following automatic distribution
functions are available for this distribution:
 § Equally: Each invoice receives a part of the total
amount promised, depending on the open
amount.
 § According to due date: The invoice with the
earliest due date receives a part of the amount
promised first. If the total promised amount was
not assigned, the invoice with the next due date
receives a part and so on.
If you distribute the amount manually, choose
with the quick info text Check Distribution to ensure
that the total amount distributed matches the total
amount promised. If this is not the case, but you
want to retain the amounts you distributed, the
system automatically changes the total amount
promised to the new total of the amounts you
entered.
3. Save your entries.

Payments
This function provides you with an overview of the
payments of a customer. The tab page Payments is part of
the function Process Receivables.

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 For the customer selected, you see the incoming payments
of the last 30 days that have been posted in the company
codes of the current collection segment. You can change
this period if necessary.

For an exact where used list for the payment, choose

History. Based on the incoming payment, all invoices paid
or partially paid by this payment are listed in a tree
structure. The detailed information for each respective
invoice is structured as described under Invoices, whereby
the payment selected is highlighted with a color.

Dispute Cases
This function provides you with an overview of all dispute
cases of the customer that contain at least one item
asDisputed Object. The tab page Dispute Cases is part of
the function Process Receivables.

If you select a dispute case from the list and choose

Dispute Case with the quick info text Display Dispute
Case, the system displays the dispute case with all header
data, notes, log, and the case record with the linked
objects.

Customer Contacts
This function provides you with an overview of
the contacts with a customer in a collection segment. For
each customer contact you can display additional
information in the lower screen area.

Resubmissions
This function provides you with an overview of
all resubmissions for a customer in the current segment
that have notbeen completed. You can create, change or
display individual resubmissions. You can also complete
one or more resubmissions.

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 SAP DISPUTE MANAGEMENT
This component contains functions for processing
receivables-related dispute cases. It supplements the
logistics process chain Purchase Order – Delivery – Invoice
– Payment in the stage between invoice and payment if
there are discrepancies with the customer.

Disputes arise if customers deduct an amount from the

invoice OR not make a payment at all due to

 Pricing issues

 Late delivery

 Incorrect delivered quantity

 Damaged goods

High volume of such disputed items can lead to

 High DSO

 Difficulty in predicting cash flow

 High cost of solving the dispute cases

When a customer disputes an invoice, ideally we would to

like to track it by recording various aspects related to this
dispute, like the reason why the customer is disputing an
invoice, the criticality of the issue, the amount of the
dispute and any notes and proof or attachments provided
by the customer in this regard.

This requirement of all the information related to a dispute

is illustrated in the following diagram:

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 When you create dispute cases, the attributes (for
example, processor, reason, priority, external
reference, contact person) and notes that you enter in the
dialog box are included in the dispute case. The system
also adds the line items concerned as disputed objects and
uses the environment to determine other objects that
could be helpful in processing the dispute case (customer,
invoice for a residual item, billing document, from SAP R/3
Enterprise 4.70, also account statement items); the system
adds these other objects to the dispute case. The system
determines the disputed amount from the disputed line
items and saves it in the dispute case as an attribute.

Following aspects of dispute management is discussed in

the following sections.

 Creating a Dispute case

 Searching for a Dispute case

 Updating a Dispute case

 Fields of a Dispute case

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  Attributes of a Dispute case

 Closing a Dispute case

Creating a dispute case

The easiest way to create a dispute case is through the
transaction FBL5N (Display open items). Dispute cases can
also be created through various other transactions. E.g.
while displaying a line item through FB02 or in clearing
transactions like F-28 and F-32.

To create a dispute case, simply select the line item & click
on the Create Dispute case button.

In the next window enter all the relevant information and

save the dispute case.

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 Searching for a dispute case
Almost all of the functionalities related to this module can
be accessed through the transaction UDM_DISPUTE.

If you know the Dispute case id, you can simply enter the
number and find the case. Even if you don’t know the
number, you can still find the dispute case by entering
various other search criteria like the invoice number of
user id or creation date range.

1. Call up dispute case processing.

2. Expand the Cases folder.

3. Choose Dispute Case - Search. The dispute case search

appears on the right side of the screen.

4. Enter values for the attributes that you want to use to

search for the dispute case. If you do not enter an attribute
value, the system selects all existing cases.

5. Choose Execute Search.

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 6. The system displays the list of selected dispute cases,
where you can double click on individual cases to select
them.

Find dispute cases in which you are entered as processor,

coordinator, or person responsible

7. Choose My Dispute Cases. A list of the dispute cases

where you are entered as processor appears on the right
side of the screen. If you want to see the dispute cases in
which you are entered as person responsible or
coordinator, select the required role view by choosing
Processor.

8. The system displays the list of selected dispute cases,

and you can double click on individual cases to select
them.

Updating a dispute case

A dispute case can be updated by a user using the
transaction code UDM_DISPUTE. Mass updates can also be
performed using this transaction.

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 Fields of a dispute case

There are various fields available in a dispute case:

Original Disputed Amount

When you create a dispute case, the system enters the
value of the disputed line items in the field Original
Disputed Amount. The currency of these items determines
the currency of the dispute case.

Disputed amount
The Disputed Amount is the remaining open amount of a
dispute case. When you create the dispute case, the
disputed amount is the same as the original disputed
amount. At any time, it contains the current total of the
disputed items.

Amount credited
Credits that you clear during a clearing transaction
increase the amount credited

Amount paid
The amount paid is the total of the payments posted for a
dispute case.

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 The system calculates the amount paid for each line item
using the following logic:

 The posting of partial payments for a disputed

receivable increases the amount paid.

 Payments on account that are cleared during clearing

are distributed to the items in the same way as the
credit memos (see Amount Credited).

Amount cleared manually

The amount cleared manually is the resolved portion of
the original disputed amount that was neither credited nor
paid. This includes:

 Residual items whose reason code controls that the

difference is written off to a separate general ledger
account.

 Cash discount deductions (including tax adjustment)

when residual items are created.

 Bank charges and unauthorized deductions when

residual items are created.

 Other clearing transactions that were not posted with

the standard transaction for incoming payments.

Amount written off automatically

If you want to write off the items of overdue dispute cases
automatically, the system enters the disputed amount in
the field for the amount written off automatically.

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 Attributes of a dispute case:
In addition to the fields displayed above, other attributes of
a dispute case can be accessed by clicking on the
Attributes button.

Once you are in the Attributes section, you will see

following sub objects in here:

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  Linked objects

 Notes

 Log

Linked Objects:
All the linked objects, like, the invoice related to the
disputed item, the billing document, the business partner,
any resolved objects, can be seen & accessed here. By
simply double clicking on an object, you will be directed to
the display mode of that object.

Notes
Any notes related to the dispute can be entered here.

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 Log
All the activity and history for a dispute can be seen here:

Closing a dispute case

If a dispute case has been completely resolved, the
processor can close it. From SAP R/3 Enterprise 4.70, you
can choose whether the system is to close the dispute
cases automatically when the last disputed object for the
case is cleared, or whether the processor is to close the

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 dispute cases manually. OLAM’s Dispute management is
configured to close a case automatically when the dispute
amount is zero.

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