Electronic Bank Statement

The electronic bank statement (EBS) helps performing the bank reconciliation process, as it takes charge of the bank statement postings, which would have to be posted manually other way.

In order to do so, the EBS needs to receive and import the files that contain the bank statement data, usually one file per account daily.

There are different file formats to receive the bank statement account data. An option to get started with the bank statement data is to go over the manual bank statment.

MT940 is a standard international format used in many countries such as Germany, UK, China, France, and Switzerland. However, there are other formats more used in other countries. For instance, we have the BAI2 format, which is used in USA, Canada and Australia. In this document we’ll use the CSB format, specific to Spain and called “Norma 43” in Spanish.

In the following video we’ll have a look to an EBS file example with the CSB format.

More details about the “Norma 43” format can be found in this document, and online tools can be used to check file contents, such as the one available in norma43.net.

In the following video we’ll have a quick view to an EBS file example with MT940 format:

In the general settings you have to define:

• Account symbols: They can represent different G/L accounts.
• Posting rules: They represent the 2 items that will be posted, each one pointing to an account symbol.
• Transaction type: The transaction type is a list of different business transaction codes received in the bank statement and called ‘external transaction types‘.
  Each one is associated to a posting rule and optionally to an interpretation algorithm. There are different algorithms to choose.
  The standard algorithm interprets the text received in the note to payee fields of the bank statement in order to infer the original document number or reference, and thus find an open item to clear it while posting (if the posting rule allows clearing).
  To reduce the maintenance effort, reduce the number of transaction types. You may create one for each bank institution, or perhaps for group of banks if they use the same codes for the same business transactions.
• The bank accounts that will receive electronic bank statements, and which transaction type will be applied for each one.

See the following video for further details:

SAP recomends using processing rules instead of posting rules in S/4 HANA. They offer improved features.

Different approaches could be considered to import bank statements.

Although bank statement files could be uploaded manuaIly in SAP, that’s not the case in in production environments. There are third party add-ons that are used among organizations to smooth the import process to SAP and achieve full automation.

You can use the “Manage Bank Accounts” app to upload a bank statement file. See the following video for further details.

Another option is using an SAP transaction FF_5 to import a specific file. Notice that if no screen appears when running the FF_5, you might have to enable it in customizing (V_T020R). To do so you will create a record in SM30 that links that transaction to the RFEBKA00 program.

The program related to the FF_5 transaction is RFEBKA00. Some organizations that receive the EBS files in a specific folder could use the approach of creating a custom report that reads the folder files, calls the SAP program RFEBKA00 for each file, and then move the file to a backup folder. That custom report is usually run in a daily job.

Instead of using a custom program to take care of the EBS files and call the standard RFEBKA00, a cleaner core could be achieved by using FEB_FILE_HANDLING for the automatic import and posting of the EBS files.

For this approach you need to follow the standard Customizing. However, the related program cannot handle all available formats. For instance, it’s not an option for the Spanish Norma 43 format, but it can be used for the MT940 format.

The following video shows the required steps to handle, import and post automatically EBS files with MT940 format.

SAP offers solutions for achieving integration of the landscape systems. One is SAP PO (Process Orchestration), which is offered on premise. For cloud, there is the SAP IS (Integration Suite).

Both solutions could be used for receiving the bank statement files, and sending its contents to the SAP FI system as a standard FINSTA Idoc, or as a SOAP API request.

Using FINSTA Idocs is a good option to consider when you don’t want SAP FI system to handle the bank files directly. SAP just receives Idocs, and each FINSTA Idoc creates a bank statement. In addition, this creation event can be linked to a process that takes charge of post-processing the statement items.

Whether you have imported and posted the EBS file or just imported it, you can run the FEBAN or FEBA_BANK_STATEMENT transaction. It provides the functionality to check the items and post those that might still be pending.

Further deatils for this transaction can be found in the post-processing documentation.

Once we have posted the payment and the bank statement, both in the G/L bank clearing account, we’ll have to clear them so that we can consider the payment fully reconciled with the bank statement. For this matter we can use the F.13 transaction.

In the following video you can see more details:

At this point we present different videos to cover the aspects that have been mention so far in this topic. They will help you to gain a better insight into the EBS processing.

See the example video of the EBS file processing using SAP GUI transactions mostly.

See the example video of the EBS file processing using SAP Fiori apps.

When no standard algorithm is suitable, the “000 – No interpretation’ algorithm should be chosen. This means that you must use other ways to clear the G/L clearing account posted for the EBS item. One approach could be using ‘Search Strings’.

Search string can help the EBS process to find and interpret useful information for the clearing. Sometimes the bank sends characters that may trick the standard algorithms in finding the right reference. The ‘search sting’ approach can be used to avoid such characters, to improve the interpretation of the note to payee.

See the following video to gain an insight into the ‘Search String’ approach:

When posting rules of customizing or ‘Search Strings” are not enough to meet the company requirments, then a user exit should be used to apply custom code. Additionally, The ‘000 – No interpretation’ algorithm should be chosen in the posting rules.

Using your own code you can change the values of the EBS items and choose which posting rule should be applied according to certain conditions or situations required by the company.

See the following video to gain an insight into the ‘User Exit’ approach:

The previous video examples have cover different details of EBS using mainly the ‘Norma 43 format’. For that reason, In the following video will explain the steps of handling, importing and posting the EBS file with MT940 format.