Clearing Open Items

SAP Clearing of Open Items
This tutorial is part of our SAP FI course and it talks about SAP Clearing and Open Items in Financial Accounting. You will learn
what are open items in SAP FI and why they need to be cleared. We will discuss different ways to perform clearing of open
items in SAP FIORI: SAP Automatic Clearing and SAP Manual Clearing. Our explanation will be illustrated by examples for
customer, vendor, and G/L accounts.
Open items in SAP are incomplete transactions (e.g., outstanding vendor payment or pending customer payment). SAP FI
documents containing open items are archived in the system after clearing. A transaction is considered cleared when an offset
value is posted to an item or group of items, so that the resulting balance of the items is 0. Clearing tiles always create SAP
clearing documents.
There are two types of open items clearing in SAP:
1.1. 1. POSTING WITH CLEARING
A/P A/R
Invoice posting against a Vendor

What generates the open item Invoice issued to a Customer
account
What will drive the close of the open

Payment made to the Vendor Payment received from the Customer
item
How the open item will be closed in Invoice is cleared with payment Invoice is cleared with payment
SAP resulting 0 balance; received resulting 0 balance;
Posting with clearing is applicable for General Ledger (G/L), Accounts Receivables (A/R) and Accounts Payable (A/P) open
items.
Example of posting with clearing for A/P and A/R:
Posting with clearing can be performed for several accounts and currencies simultaneously and using the automatic clearing
program.
MICKAEL QUESNOT🎯🇪🇺
Directeur BU SAP SCM & CONCUR
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1.2. 2. ACCOUNT CLEARING
Account clearing can be exemplified through manually clearing of an open invoice with a related credit memo and payment on
account.
1.3. SAP OPEN ITEMS
In SAP FIORI, the status of documents (cleared or not cleared) is distinguished by color marks. Not cleared documents (Open
Items) are marked with a red circle in the Status column as show below.
An Open Item (Not Cleared)

Cleared Items are marked with a green square in the Status column as shown below.
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1.4. SAP OPEN ITEMS IN ACCOUNTS PAYABLE
To view open items for accounts payable, directly start the tile Manage Supplier Line items.
You can use this app for ad-hoc requests or recurring reports to easily find vendor line items using a wide range of search
criteria. For example, you can see all line items of a supplier account or all open supplier invoices for a company code that are
overdue at a key date.
To make your work more efficient, you can personalize the layout of the table, predefine recurring queries, and save your
settings as variants.
In addition to displaying data, you can also take various actions such as setting a payment block or creating a manual
payment. You can export the data to a file and send them to a colleague. The app also serves as a navigation target from
other apps, allowing users to drill down into the supplier line items.
Key Features
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• Find supplier line items using a wide range of search criteria
• Sort and group the selected data
• Export data to a spreadsheet
• Set or remove payment blocks
• Change line item attributes such as payment data, assignment, or line item text
• Create a manual payment
• Create predefined queries using selection variants
• Personalize the settings of the table using layout variants
• Send emails
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Enter Vendor account number and Company code. And then, select Open items to view open items. Input the key date for
open items view.
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The tile is displaying the Open Items marked with red in the Status column. There is no Clearing document for the moment,
because this document will be cleared as per the date from Net due date column when the invoice will be paid.
SAP Vendor Open Items (Example)
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1.5. SAP OPEN ITEMS IN ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLES
To view open items for accounts receivables, directly start the tile Manage Customer Line Items.
You can use this app for ad-hoc requests or recurring reports to easily find customer line items using a wide range of search
criteria. For example, you can see all line items of a specific customer account or all unallocated payments for a specific
company code at the end of a period.
To make your work more efficient, you can personalize the layout of the table, predefine recurring queries, and save your
settings as variants.
In addition to displaying data, you can also take various actions such as setting a payment. You can export the data to a file
and collaborate with colleagues. The app also serves as a navigation target from other apps, allowing users to drill down into
the customer line items.
Key Features
• Find customer line items using a wide range of search criteria
• Sort and group the selected data
• Export data to a spreadsheet
• Set or remove payment blocks
• Change line item attributes such as payment data, assignment, or line item text
• Create predefined queries using selection variants
• Personalize the settings of the table using layout variants
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Enter the Customer account number and Company code. Then, select Open items to view open items. Input the key date for
open items view.
The tile is displaying the Open Items marked with red in the Status column. There is no Clearing document for the moment
because this document will be cleared as per the date from Net due date column when the payment from the customer will
be received.
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1.6. SAP OPEN ITEMS IN GENERAL LEDGER
To view open items for General Ledger (G/L), directly start the tile Display Line Items in General Ledger.
With this app you can check general ledger (G/L) account line items in the general ledger view. You can use filters to display
open and cleared items for open-item-managed accounts, or all line items of a G/L account. You can select the line items
based on a key date or after the clearing date in conjunction with a key date. If you are selecting all items, you can also
choose a posting date range.
Note
Balances carried forward are not displayed in this app because they are technical items in the system and not typical line
items.
If you are navigating from an app that is displaying balances carried forward to the Display Line Items in General Ledger app
the presumed purpose is to show the corresponding line items which are decisive for this navigation scenario and not to
compare the balances.
Note
You can display the line items for one or more G/L accounts in the following ways:
• With this app (Display Line Items in General Ledger) in the general ledger view for line item display, you can display
the line items together with the general ledger account assignments (General Ledger Line Items) and G/L account
line items or journal entries.
• With the Display Line Item Entry app in the entry view for line item display, you can display the G/L account line
items (G/L Account Line Items).
You can select the line items based on numerous criteria for the posting date or time frame, such as today, the last or next x
days, quarters or months, and fiscal periods also, such as fiscal quarter or fiscal year. If you are selecting all items, you can
also choose a posting date range.
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In the results list, you can group, sort and filter the G/L account line items using characteristics, such as G/L account, segment
or profit center. You can show numerous additional characteristics, and swap the order of the columns in the list. If you need
to continue processing and analyzing the results list of G/L account line items, you can export it to Excel.
You can also choose to display the amounts of G/L account line items in a display currency. You may find it especially useful
when you want to report on several company codes and the journal entries in each of the company codes have been posted
in different currencies. Using the display currency, you can easily compare the totals amounts of the G/L account line items
of each company code in one display currency.
Enter the G/L Account number and Company code. And then, select Open items to view open items. Input the key date for
open items view.
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1.7. SAP AUTOMATIC CLEARING
It is possible to perform clearing in SAP FIORI automatically. Functions of SAP automatic clearing are:
1.7.1. 1. Group items per account together
The program groups items together from accounts that have the same:
• Reconciliation account number;
• Account number or a number interval;
• Five freely defined criteria from document header or items (e.g., allocation field, reference number, etc.)
The criteria can be specified for each account type based on a single account or an interval of accounts. You use these criteria
to restrict the number of items that are considered to be grouped together. This ensures that only those items that are related
to the same business transaction are cleared together.
1.7.2. 2. Clear Open Items
If balance in local currency of grouped open items is 0, then the SAP system automatically clears them and creates a clearing
document.
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1.7.3. Prerequisites for Clearing
• Accounts must be managed on the open item basis
• Accounts to be cleared must be defined
Items that are not cleared by SAP automatic clearing are:
• Noted items
• Statistical postings and certain special G/L transactions (down payments and bills of exchange)
• Items with tax withholding tax entries
1.8. CONFIGURATION OF SAP AUTOMATIC CLEARING
Let’s have a brief overview of how to configure automatic clearing in SAP. Go to SPRO transaction. The menu path in SPRO for
configuration of automatic clearing is:
Financial Accounting -> General Ledger Accounting -> Business Transactions -> Open item Clearing ->Prepare Automatic clearing
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– S_ALR_87004879 – Prepare automatic Clearing (OB74)
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First criteria: define the accounts type to be cleared automatically (Customers, Vendors and G/L accounts).
Second criteria: define the range numbers to be cleared automatically from each account type.
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Other criteria (max 5): choose from the list below. In the present example, the criteria used are assignment, trading partner:
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1.9. TRANSACTIONS FOR SAP AUTOMATIC CLEARING
SAP offers a tile for automatic clearing:
1. Clear Open Items Automatically– Automatic clearing
Let’s see how perform automatic clearing in SAP. This tile clears A/P, A/R and G/L open items based on the selection on the
initial screen.
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1.9.1. Vendor Automatic Clearing
You need to specify Company Code, Fiscal Year, tick Select vendors checkbox, enter vendor account numbers be cleared,
and Clearing date. Next, select Test run checkbox in order to have a preview of the proposed items to be cleared. After
checking that there is no mistakes, you will untick it for the final run.
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To run the transaction click Execute button.
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The SAP system will take you the next screen of the transaction and generate a list of the documents that are proposed by the
system to be cleared.
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Since there is no errors, we can run the automatic clearing in normal mode. For the final run go back to the initial screen,
remove Test run tick selection and click Execute button. The SAP system will perform clearing and show the confirmation of
the clearing posting with the generated clearing document number.
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1.9.2. G/L Automatic Clearing
You need to specify Company Code, Fiscal Year, tick Select G/L accounts checkbox to be cleared, enter G/L accounts numbers,
and Clearing date on the initial screen. Next, select Test run checkbox in order to have a preview of the proposed items to be
cleared. After checking that there is no mistakes, you will untick it for the final run.
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1.9.3. Customer Automatic Clearing
You need to specify Company Code, Fiscal Year, tick Select customers checkbox to be cleared, enter customers accounts
numbers, and Clearing date on the initial screen. Next, select Test run checkbox in order to have a preview of the proposed
items to be cleared. After checking that there is no mistakes, you will untick it for the final run.
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1.9.4. SAP Automatic Clearing with Specification of Currency
For automatic clearing based on a certain currency, open Clear Open Items Automatically - With Currency.
The difference between this Clear Open Items Automatically - With Currency tile and the regular Clear Open Items - Automatic
Clearing. tile is on the initial screen where a specific currency for the documents to be cleared can be entered as shown below.
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1.10. SAP MANUAL CLEARING
Now, let’s discuss how to perform clearing manually.
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1.10.1. G/L Manual Clearing
For manual clearing of G/L open items, go to the tile Clear G/L Accounts - Manual Clearing
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After entering selection criteria on the initial screen (Account, Company Code, Clearing Date, and Additional Selection criteria
if needed), execute the tile by using Clear button.
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Next step is to assign the documents to be cleared by clicking on Clear. We can go further to process the clearing only if the
field Not assigned shows that the items assigned to be cleared are balanced to 0.
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Before to save the results of clearing, we can simulate the clearing results using this button Simulate .
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Next, click on Post button and the confirmation of the document posting resulting from the clearing action will appear at the
bottom of the screen.
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G/L Clearing Document was Posted
1.10.2. Customer Manual Clearing
You use this app to clear a receivable payment manually, such as an open incoming payment for a customer
invoice. The system usually clears these payments automatically. However, sometimes customer information
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is missing and the system cannot find appropriate open items that match the payment. In this case, you have
to clarify this payment, match it to the correct open invoices and credit memos as aligned with your customer,
and clear the payment manually.
For manual clearing of customer open items, go to Clear Incoming Payments tile :
The first step is to enter the selection criteria (Account, Company Code, Clearing Date, and Period), mention if the clearing will
refer to special G/L transactions (e.g., down payments), and if it will include standard open items accounts.
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In this example, the documents to be cleared are shown below in Manage Customer Line Items tile (customer line items):
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To proceed with the clearing process, click Clear payment button.
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On the next screen, select the open items to be cleared by clicking on the lines and check that the Not assigned field is balanced
to 0.
Next, click on Post button to perform clearing.
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The system will confirm the posting by providing the clearing document number.
Customer Clearing Document was Posted
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Run again the Manage Customer Line Items tile for the cleared items to check that the clearing document was indeed
generated:
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1.10.3. Vendor Manual Clearing
For manual clearing of vendor open items, go to Clear Outgoing Payments - Manual Clearing tile
The first step is to enter the selection criteria (Account, Company Code, Clearing Date, and Period), mention if the clearing will
refer to special G/L transactions (e.g., down payments), and if it will include standard open items accounts.
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To proceed with the clearing process, click Clear payment button.
On the next screen, select the open items to be cleared by clicking on clear and check that the Not assigned field is balanced
to 0.
Next, click on Post button to perform clearing. The system confirms the posting by providing the document number.
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Clearing Open Items

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Clearing Open Items

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SAP Clearing of Open Items

There are two types of open items clearing in SAP:

1.1. 1. POSTING WITH CLEARING

Invoice posting against a Vendor

What will drive the close of the open

Example of posting with clearing for A/P and A/R:

1.3. SAP OPEN ITEMS

An Open Item (Not Cleared)

• Sort and group the selected data

• Export data to a spreadsheet

• Set or remove payment blocks

• Create a manual payment

• Create predefined queries using selection variants

• Personalize the settings of the table using layout variants

SAP Vendor Open Items (Example)

• Find customer line items using a wide range of search criteria

• Sort and group the selected data

• Export data to a spreadsheet

• Set or remove payment blocks

• Create predefined queries using selection variants

• Personalize the settings of the table using layout variants

1.7.1. 1. Group items per account together

• Reconciliation account number;

• Account number or a number interval;

1.7.2. 2. Clear Open Items

• Accounts must be managed on the open item basis

• Accounts to be cleared must be defined

Items that are not cleared by SAP automatic clearing are:

• Items with tax withholding tax entries

1.8. CONFIGURATION OF SAP AUTOMATIC CLEARING

SAP offers a tile for automatic clearing:

1. Clear Open Items Automatically– Automatic clearing

1.9.3. Customer Automatic Clearing

Now, let’s discuss how to perform clearing manually.

1.10.2. Customer Manual Clearing

Next, click on Post button to perform clearing.

Customer Clearing Document was Posted

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