Managing payments presents an enormous problem to companies that are either present in multiple countries or have to do business with organizations in different countries face an enormous challenge. Payment formats are not only different from country to country, but are also subject to change over time. Although your SAP system delivers many payment formats, the creation and maintenance of these formats via the classic payment medium programs can be quite cumbersome ¾ especially if you need to adapt these programs to local characteristics.

The Payment Medium Workbench (PMW) reduces the complexity of configuring and creating payment media sent by your organization to your house banks. The PMW gradually phases out the classic payment medium programs (RFFO*, where * represents a country suffix). That means that SAP will create new payment formats only with this application. Here are some of the benefits of the PMW:

• Superior control and verification of your payment procedures. The PMW improves the monitoring of the payment process by allowing cash managers to better check that all payments have been sent to the bank and that no payment has been sent twice.
• Better performance for companies with mass payments
• Better sort functions with your payment advice notes. The PMW allows you to create payment advice notes independent of organizational units such as company codes or house banks.
• Easier maintenance, configuration, and enhancement options for your payment formats. The PMW separates generic functions from format-specific mapping and allows you to apply legal changes to payment medium formats faster or implement customer- and bank-specific formats more cheaply.
• Reduction of complexity: You only need to use one tool and don’t have to work with different payment medium programs that are often hard to maintain and extend
• Reduction of development overhead

The PMW is practical but rarely do SAP users draw on it because many are unaware of it, lack the skills to configure the PMW, or simply had no pressure to replace the classic payment medium programs. The existing documentation also does not cover all the complex configuration details. In this two-article series, I’ll explain the process flow, functionality, and configuration of the PMW, and then describe the Data Medium Exchange Engine’s (DMEE) functionality and its integration with the PMW.

Classic Payment Medium Program Process Flows and the PMW

To better understand the differences between the classic payment medium programs and the PMW, let’s take a closer look at the different process flows. With the classic payment medium programs, one dedicated payment medium program exists for each payment method. This program prints the payment forms or creates the data media on disk (Figure 1).

Figure 1

Classic payment medium programs

When you execute a payment run with the SAP payment program (transaction F110 or F111), you can specify the different payment medium programs for the respective payment methods. You do this in the payment parameters under the Printout/data medium tab (Figure 2). You can enter one or more variants for every payment medium program used to print the payment data for a payment method. You can also specify variants for creating the payment proposal list (RFZALI00) and exception list (RFZALI10) on this screen.

Figure 2

Maintenance of payment parameters

After you execute the payment run, you can use several programs to create the payments. The payment program creates the payment documents and prepares the data for printing the forms or creating the electronic data file to be transferred to the bank. Various payment medium programs use the data that the program prepares to create forms or files for the data media. Examples for data media for payments are the Automated Clearing House (ACH) format for the US or the Bankers’ Automated Clearing Services (BACS) format for the UK. You can carry out a payment run for different company codes, payment methods, and business partners, although different forms are printed or data files created. The classic payment medium programs (RFFO*) also create the payment advices together with the payment files, sorted by company code, house bank, and potentially user-defined sort fields.

To distinguish among the different types of forms and media, you need to use variants in the payment medium programs. You define these variants when you configure the payment program by following menu path Financial Accounting > Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable > Business Transactions > Outgoing Payments > Automatic Outgoing Payments > Payment Media > Make Settings for Payment Medium Formats from Payment Medium Workbench > Create/Assign Selection Variants (Figure 3). Variants contain a series of selection criteria that separate the payment dataset. Each variant that is called up in a payment medium program triggers a separate print request in the output controller or creates a separate data file in the DMEE that you can send to the bank. You can define as many variants as you want for each payment medium program, but you must define at least one.

Figure 3

Maintenance of selection variants

In the SAP system, the names of the payment medium programs for the individual countries are always called RFFO<Country indicator>_<Payment method>. The ABAP report RFFOUS_T, for example, generates bank transfers in the ACH format for the United States. You can find the names of the payment medium programs in the country-specific payment method data by following menu path Financial Accounting > Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable > Business Transactions > Outgoing Payments > Automatic Outgoing Payments > Payment Media > Make Settings for Classic Payment Medium Programs > Assign Payment Medium Program for Payment Method in Country (Figure 4).

Figure 4

Assignment of payment programs to payment methods

The process flow of the PMW is fundamentally different from the classic payment medium programs (Figure 5). When you execute the payment program via transaction F110 or F111 and create the payment medium media with a PMW payment method, the SAP system first launches program SAPFPAYM_SCHEDULE. This scheduler ensures that all payments are sent to the bank and carries out a pre-service. The pre-service processes the data that the payment run supplies specifically for the PMW and prepares the creation of both payment media and advices by updating special fields of the payment data (table REGUH). This pre-service includes the following steps:

• The system sorts the payments according to the respective PMW format and other format-specific fields, such as the currency or the value date of the payments
• The system creates the payment groups based on the level of granularity (one payment medium file is usually created later for each payment group). This granularity defines how the system combines payments in a file. For example, the PMW can create a separate payment file for each company code, house bank, or payment method that was used in the payment run. You determine the granularity among other parameters in the configuration settings, which I’ll discuss in more detail later.
• The system creates the note to payee, which describes the payment’s purpose
• The system checks whether it has to create a payment advice. The payment advice note program RFFOAVIS_FPAYM only selects those payments in which advices have to be printed, but it creates advices for all payments of the payment run. The sorting of payment advices is independent from the payment medium creation, which means there are no dependencies on organizational units. You can also define variants for the payment advice program. If you want to enable the parallel execution of the payment medium program and the advice program, you have to build the note to payee information in the pre-service. I will discuss the configuration of the note to payee later during the configuration section.

Figure 5

Processes in the PMW

The system creates the actual payment media, the accompanying sheets for the payment media, an error log, and the payment summary with a single payment medium program called SAPFPAYM. Because the system creates only one payment medium (file) per group, you have to create report variants and schedule the generic payment medium program for each group. For each payment group, the payment medium program is started with the variant that you have defined before in the configuration.

In contrast to the classic payment medium programs, these selection variants are configured centrally and you don’t have to assign them as a parameter in every payment run. I’ll take a closer look at this configuration later. The payment medium program selects the payments belonging to each group and creates the payment medium using format-specific event modules or mapping rules that you have assigned before to the payment format. You start the program SAPFPAYM with all the variants that you have defined for the relevant payment groups in the system configuration.

Because of this generic payment program, you can execute the payment program without entering any payment medium programs under the Printout/data medium tab. You only need a variant in the payment run parameters for the payment advice note print program of the PMW. The remaining process is not different from the classic payment medium programs. You can display the log of the payment medium creation in the payment programs by following menu path Environment > Payment Mediums > Display Logs or using transaction FDTA. From there, you can display the payment medium attributes, such as the creation date or time, download data, display documents, and create payment advices (Figure 6).

Figure 6

Display of data medium contents with the DME administration

Attributes of Payment Medium Formats

Before I delve further into the PMW’s configuration, I want to familiarize you with the different attributes that are delivered with the standard payment medium formats. These attributes are very important for both the PMW and DMEE because they’re relevant for structuring the payment file. You can maintain these attributes with transaction OBPM1 or by following menu path Financial Accounting > Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable > Business Transactions > Outgoing Payments > Automatic Outgoing Payments > Payment Media > Make Settings for Classic Payment Medium Programs > Create Payment Medium Formats (Figure 7).

Figure 7

Maintenance of payment medium formats

These attributes are:

• Level of detail: Payments of a payment run are grouped according to the receiver of the payment media. The level of these groups’ detail depends on the format (e.g., on the fields in the header record of the payment file). For example, if the format requires only a bank number in the file header and on the accompanying sheet, the level of detail is House Bank. If the format requires a bank number and the tax number of the originator, the granularity is House Bank and Company Code.
• Parameters: Parameters are additional format-specific conditions that should not be part of the payment and house bank customizing (e.g., a flag to create a specific payment header). You only need to define format-specific parameters that you cannot maintain in the configuration of the house bank, of the company code, or as a Data Dictionary (DDIC) structure. You enter the parameters in the selection variant of the payment medium program.
• Format supplements: You use these if a payment medium format supports different payment methods, such as direct debit or credit transfer, or different kinds of payment, such as payroll, treasury, or vendor payments. The format supplement is a key (i.e., a code that banks or payment processors use) that is either printed or used to populate the respective field within the payment file. One example is the ACH format in the US with the supplements cash concentration and disbursement (CCD), corporate trade exchange (CTX), and pre-arranged payment and deposit entry (PPD). You can use these format supplements as the external code of the payment method if this code only depends on the internal SAP payment method.
• Creation events: Determine function modules to create the payment medium in the selected format. There are, for example, events for the header, the transaction, and the trailer record creation of a file. The function modules contain the mapping (MOVE statements) of the internal payment data to the external fields in the payment medium (the file records). The DMEE mapping tree replaces these MOVE statements with a graphical mapping tool that allows users without programming skills to define payment medium formats.
• Reference fields: You use these to create the note to payee. The reference fields determine whether format reference fields are sufficient or a payment advice is necessary. If you define the payment formats and determine these reference fields, you need to define their types, numbers, and field lengths.

PMW Configuration

Now that you’re familiar with the basic processes and standard parameters of the PMW, I will explain the configuration settings. You can find the relevant activities by following menu path Financial Accounting > Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable > Business Transactions > Outgoing Payments > Automatic Outgoing Payments > Payment Media > Make Settings for Payment Medium Formats from Payment Medium Workbench. The entire PMW is embedded in a development environment. You can access all ABAP workbench objects with a simple double-click. These workbench objects include program objects, DDIC objects, and mapping tool objects such as the DMEE format trees, which I’ll discuss in part two of this article series.

The PMW configuration consists of five basic steps:

• Step 1. Create PMW formats
• Step 2. Check the existing payment medium formats and make any necessary changes
• Step 3. Configure the note to payee
• Step 4. Maintain the selection variants as a prerequisite for the automatic scheduling of payment media by the payment program
• Step 5. Assign the PMW format and the note to payee to the respective payment method of the country

I won’t describe the first two steps and assume that you use one of the PMW formats that are already delivered in the standard system by SAP. One of the constraints you need to be aware of is that SAP currently hasn’t implemented all the classic payment medium programs (RFFO*) with the PMW. You can display a complete list of available payment medium formats when you select the format definition or select transaction OBPM1.

Step 3. Configure the note to payee. You have two options to design the layout of the note to payee. You either choose symbols (known as SAPscript) or, in more complicated cases, function modules. If you create the note to payee with symbols, you can display the complete list with the F4 function. As an example, the SAPscript symbol &FPAYH-EIKTO& is an expression for the payer’s account number at the payee. You can use a language-independent definition of the note to payee layout if only symbols are used for the default language (e.g., English). You can also use a language-dependent definition to translate the default language to all other languages supported. After you implement a note to payee, you can test it with the preview function to see whether you can use the note to payee with specific payment medium formats (Figure 8).

Figure 8

Maintenance of note to payee

You can define the text that is sent to the payee with six different line types:

• Type 1 contains the text sent to the payee for each invoice, such as the invoice number or amount. One example is the field &FPAYP-XBLNR& (document number) and the amount field &FPAYP-WRBTR&.
• Type 2 includes internal reference information, such as the document number of the SAP payment document (the field &FPAYH-DOC1R&). You use this field in the case of refusals sent back by the bank to the payer. This field is not available in every format.
• Type 3 contains a short reference for the payee in addition to the text of type 1. This field does not refer to invoice information. For example, you can use it to pass on the account number of the originator in the payee’s system (field &FPAYH-EIKTO&) or vice versa.
• Type 4 replaces type 1 if there are not enough lines available for the complete invoice information. An example entry is “See payment advice from &FPAYH-ZALDT&.”
• Type 5 applies in the case of an alternative payee and enhances the text of type 1 by adding additional sender information such as “Invoices from &FPAYP-NAME1&” with the name of the invoice sender.
• Type 6 enhances the text of type 1 to add information if, for example, the invoice recipient is different from the payer. One example is the text “Invoices sent to &FPAYP-BNAME&,” which includes the invoice recipient.

Step 4. Maintain the selection variants as a prerequisite for the automatic scheduling of payment media by the payment program. After you have designed your note to payee, you need to allocate it to the payment method with the same transaction that you used to assign the payment medium format. The note to payee is determined on the payment method level. If you specify no origin, you can use one note to payee for every SAP component or select different notes for specific SAP components. For example, you could assign invoice information for accounts receivable and accounts payable and simple item text for HR payments.

As I have described before, the payment data of the payment run is separated into groups depending on the level of detail (granularity) of the payment format, which implies that every group results in one single payment medium. You have to assign a report variant of the payment medium program to each group to ensure that each payment is contained in one payment medium. Use transaction FBPM to create the variants for the PMW generic payment medium program (SAPFPAYM).

Step 5. Assign the PMW format and the note to payee to the respective payment method of the country. If you want to use a PMW format, you need to assign this format instead of the classic payment medium programs in the assignment of payment methods to a country. To do this, follow menu path Financial Accounting > Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable > Business Transactions > Outgoing Payments > Automatic Outgoing Payments > Payment Media > Make Settings for Payment Medium Formats from Payment Medium Workbench > Assign Payment Medium Format and Note to Payee to Payment Method in Country. You can also use transaction FBZP, select the Payment Methods in Country view, and double-click the appropriate combination. On the bottom of the screen, you need to select the Use payment medium workbench radio button (Figure 9). If the format also defines format supplements, you can maintain the corresponding field as well, which replaces the code line key of the classic payment medium programs.

Figure 9

Configuration of the PMW in payment methods

Enhancement of PMW Formats

If you need to enhance or adjust PMW formats, you can define your own DDIC structures. This allows you to add parameters or selection screens and replace or add function modules. The PMW automatically generates the necessary user dynpro screens for default value maintenance and for the selection screen of the generic payment medium program.

You can also enhance or adapt the contents of payment media with customer events. These customer events are predefined ABAP coding points in which a program in the SAP system calls one or multiple function modules. Each of these events has its own number and interface. SAP delivers a number of customer events that you can use (Figure 10):

• The 00 and 25 customer events allow you to manipulate the sort order of the payments in the file and to create new physical or logical files. Both customer events replace the standard events. For example, the standard format creates logical files per currency or execution date. If you want to create logical files per currency, but physical files per execution date, you need to check the sorting in event 00 (first execution date, then currency) and change event 25.
• The 20, 30, and 40 events build the header, transaction, and trailer of the payment medium file. With the 21, 31, and 41 events, you can modify all the standard file fields.
• The 06 event allows you to enhance SAP standard events to select payment data or additional data during the creation of payment media.

Figure 10

Customer events in the PMW

You can use the sample modules FI_PAYMEDIUM_SAMPLE_nn (nn is the number of the event) to define the interface of the function modules by the sample modules with transaction OBPM3.

Juergen Weiss

Juergen Weiss works in the functional area of SAP Financial Supply Chain Management. As part of SAP’s product management team, he was globally responsible for the Financial Supply Chain Management applications, including Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment, Dispute Management, Collections Management, Credit Management, Treasury and Risk Management, Bank Relationship Management, and In-House Cash as well as Accounts Payable and Receivable.

You may contact the author at juergen.weiss@sepa-now.de.

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