Unit 4: Automated Processes in Invoice Verification

Lesson 1 · Executing Invoice Verification in the Background

Key concepts

In background verification the clerk captures only header data – invoice date, reference, gross amount, currency, tax and unplanned delivery costs – plus the allocation (one or more purchasing documents, or a supplier). No item list is created at entry. A scheduled settlement program (report RMBABG00, e.g. every 15 minutes or nightly) later builds the items from the allocation, using exactly the same logic as online verification (including automatic total-based reduction/acceptance from tolerance settings, and blocks such as date variance).

The program compares the sum of the proposed item amounts with gross amount − tax (± tolerance):

• Balance zero or within tolerance → invoice posted in the background. Item-level differences can offset each other unnoticed – only the total is checked.
• Otherwise → not posted; header and generated items are saved with status With errors and an error log, for manual processing.

Suitable for: mass-data invoices where item checks are not worthwhile; invoices that arrive together with the goods before the GR is entered (an evening run finds the GR posted later that day); invoices with many items for the same material, to avoid locks and load during the day.

Status flow

Example: allocation for a PO with material A (100 × 10) and B (50 × 12), invoice 1,600. At the first run only 10 pcs of B are received → expected 1,120 → status With errors. The clerk reschedules it. After the remaining GR, the second run expects 1,600 → posted.

Whether a successfully posted document gets status Correct (posted, not completed) – i.e. to be checked once more – or directly Posted is controlled in Customizing (Define Automatic Status Change).

Follow-up

1. Call MIR6 (Further Processing › Invoice Overview) and select background-entered documents by status.
2. For With errors, read the error log, then: reschedule unchanged, change and post online, or change and reschedule; delete documents that should never be posted (e.g. duplicates).
3. Check documents with status Correct and set them to Posted.

An erroneous document is not rechecked automatically – the clerk must reschedule it.

Lesson 2 · Performing Evaluated Receipt Settlement

Key concepts

With Evaluated Receipt Settlement (ERS, also called the credit memo procedure, "self-billing"), the supplier agrees not to send invoices. The buyer's system generates the invoice from the PO and GR data and sends the supplier a settlement message (which the supplier regards as a credit memo). Benefits: faster closure of orders, no entry errors, no price or quantity variances in LIV. It requires clear, consistently maintained PO conditions. If already-settled goods are returned, ERS generates a credit memo for the return (a debit memo from the supplier's perspective).

ERS calculates using: payment terms from the PO header, net price and tax code from the PO item, and the not-yet-invoiced GR quantities from the PO history.

Prerequisites

Planned delivery costs in ERS

Automatic settlement of planned delivery costs must be activated per company code, purchasing organization and freight vendor. The freight vendor may be the goods supplier; if it is a different vendor, that vendor must not carry the ERS indicator. The item's tax code is always used for the delivery costs.

System steps

1. Start MRRL (Automatic Settlement › Evaluated Receipt Settlement; Fiori: Create Evaluated Receipt Settlement).
2. Select by company code, plant, GR posting date, GR document/fiscal year, supplier, purchasing document/item. (Selection by GR data is not allowed if goods items and planned delivery costs are settled together.)
3. Choose document selection: per supplier, per PO, per PO item, or per delivery document/service entry sheet (per delivery not possible when materials and delivery costs are settled together, because planned delivery costs are not GR-based).
4. Run in test mode, check the log, then run for real. Background: report RMMR1MRS.
5. For delivery costs only use MRDC (selection by company code, freight vendor, purchasing document/item, bill of lading; document selection per bill of lading); background report RMMR1MDC.

Enhancements: customer exit MRMH0001, BAdIs MRM_ERS_HDAT_MODIFY and MRM_ERS_IDAT_MODIFY.

Lesson 3 · Performing Further Automatic Settlements

Vendor consignment

The supplier places goods in your warehouse free of charge; they remain the supplier's property and the delivery is not invoiced. A liability arises only when you withdraw the material from consignment stock (e.g. goods issue 201 K/261 K, or transfer to own stock 411 K). You then settle the withdrawals yourself at agreed intervals and notify the supplier – no supplier invoice is expected. Unlike ERS, settlement refers to the withdrawals, not to a PO.

Account movements (example)

The assignment field of the liability line is filled from the material document number in both postings, so the FI open items can be cleared against each other. BAdI MRM_MRKO_HDAT_MODIFY modifies the settlement header.

1. Start MRKO (Consignment and Pipeline Settlement; Fiori: Create Consignment and Pipeline Settlement).
2. Select by company code, supplier, plant, material, document/posting date, material document; choose consignment and/or pipeline withdrawals.
3. Display or settle unsettled withdrawals; already settled items can also be displayed by settlement document number.

Invoicing plan

An invoicing plan in a PO item schedules invoice creation on fixed dates independent of goods or service receipt; the system creates the invoices on the due dates and can send the supplier a message.

Prerequisites: invoicing plan Customizing in Purchasing; LIV message determination; ERS indicator in the supplier master; PO item with account assignment, non-valuated GR or no GR, and a tax code.

1. Create the PO item with account assignment and invoicing plan (ME21N, item details › Invoice tab › Invoicing plan).
2. Run MRIS (Invoicing Plan Settlement; Fiori: Process Invoicing Plan Settlement) – select by company code, plant, supplier, document/item; create invoices per supplier, PO or item.
3. Check the log of settled items and errors.

Unit summary & exam focus

T-codes in this unit

Self-check questions

1. What does the clerk enter for background invoice verification?
   Answer

   Header data (date, reference, amount, currency, tax, unplanned delivery costs) and the allocation – no items.
2. Is a document with status "With errors" retried automatically?
   Answer

   No. It must be rescheduled (or corrected/posted online) manually, e.g. from MIR6.
3. Name four ERS prerequisites in the PO item.
   Answer

   ERS indicator, GR-based IV indicator, tax code, and no estimated-price indicator (plus payment terms in the PO header).
4. Where does ERS take the payment terms from?
   Answer

   From the PO header.
5. What is posted when goods are withdrawn from vendor consignment stock?
   Answer

   Consumption (or own stock) debited at the consignment price against the consignment liabilities account (KON).
6. Difference between periodic and partial invoicing plans?
   Answer

   Periodic: the full value is due at each date (recurring); partial: the total value is split over the dates (stage payments, optional down payments).