Customer evaluations provide a simple reporting structure to fit your users’ reporting requirements with drill-down functionality. I’ll show you the different types of reporting, the situations in which each would be appropriate, and then how to configure them in your SAP R/3 or SAP ERP system.

Customer evaluation reports are an often overlooked element of Accounts Receivable (AR) reporting. An evaluation looks at an evaluation type and a reporting parameter (e.g., accounting clerk). For example, one evaluation type is the due date analysis report. A due date is derived from a customer invoice. A customer invoice includes a payment term, say 30 days, from the date of the invoice. An invoice is deemed not due if you run the report less than 30 days after the invoice was created, and deemed due if you run the report more than 30 days after the invoice was created. Therefore, the report shows the cash collectors (the users who collect the cash) and the total amount outstanding (unpaid) for them to collect as a total or per customer. The report provides the ability to drill down into the customer account to view line item detail.

The evaluation process can calculate the days sales outstanding (DSO) figure and drill down by other key reporting figures such as accounting clerk, credit representative group, and reconciliation account. The system works out the DSO for you, removing the month-end task of calculating and publishing it. It also enables the users who collect the cash to analyze their largest customers with the highest DSO, so they can target those customers and help reduce the DSO month after month.

Which Evaluation Types Are Available?

You can see the options delivered by SAP for evaluation types in Figure 1. Within a single evaluation type you can use the standard evaluations or create your own. It is worth considering the ones that SAP has delivered. However, if you have specific requirements to run a report by a different field, then you can create your own unique reports.

Figure 1

Standard options for evaluation types

Now I’ll look at the configuration steps for three of the most common types shown in Figure 1. They show three key areas of the AR reporting process.

• Due date analysis
• DSO analysis
• Term offered/terms taken

Due Date Analysis Evaluation

To configure evaluations, use transaction code OBDF or follow IMG menu path Financial Accounting > Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable > Information Systems > Accounts Receivable > Standard Evaluations > Select Standard Evaluations (Figure 2). In my first example, I’ll use Due date analysis. The version is the actual report of the evaluation type by the evaluation, in this case company code (Due date structure by company code). For the evaluation to update the evaluation version, select the Create evaluatn check box.

Figure 2

Configure evaluations in transaction OBDF

The Data retrieval field contains the customer evaluation program that you can configure when you create a variant. Fill in the Selection variants field in the Data retrieval row with SAP_VARI and then the specific program RFDRRE01 in the Names field in the Selection row. You can create your own selection variant here or use the standard SAP one.

Figure 3 shows program RFDRRE01. I have changed the value in the Number of top customers field to 999 and changed the List sorted by days field to reflect how I wish to see the data displayed in the report.

Figure 3

Select SAP AR tables for your individual evaluation of the report (program RFDRRE01)

Lastly, I chose KNB1-BUKRS to be the evaluation. However, you can perform the evaluation on a number of master data fields from the tables highlighted in Figure 3. This selection would be beneficial for a company that has many company codes and wants to have the first level of drilling down at a company code level.

Figure 4 shows program RFDRRSEL. You can change the standard variant to run for a specific range of customers, company codes, or any other selection parameter.

Figure 4

Use selection criteria to narrow down your evaluations (program RFDRRSEL)

If you want to schedule the evaluations as daily, in the variant attributes, you set the Open item at key dates to a selection variable of Current Date (Figure 5). If you need to recalculate the data for a previous date, you can change this selection and the value in the selection parameter screen, making sure you save the variant with the same name. After you get the required data, remember to reset the variant, so that the next scheduled run uses the correct date.

Figure 5

Set the selection variable

You can see the high-level output of the due date analysis evaluation type with an evaluation of Company Code in Figure 6. It shows the customer number and the total amount per customer that is Due and Not due.

Figure 6

High-level output showing the customer name, amount due, amount not due, and total amount of open items per customer

Click on the due button to drill down into the data. The drill-down menu is by the List sorted by days field in Figure 3 with the corresponding variant in the configuration that you made in transaction OBDF. You can drill down into each customer to display the open items of that customer (Figure 7).

Figure 7

Due debt broken down by the days specified in the List sorted by days field in Figure 3

DSO Evaluation

You can configure the DSO report with program RFDRRE05 (Figure 8). The SAP standard variant has the Number of top customers field set to 50, but I would suggest you change this to 999. It is best to have as many customers shown as possible per evaluation. Where you have more customers, they are grouped as a single entry, so a detailed drill-down per customer is not available here. For example, say you select 999 and the evaluation is by accounting clerk, who has 1,200 active customers. The system shows the first 999 and you can drill down into them. However, the system groups the remaining 201 accounts as a single entry and you can’t drill down into the detail per customer.

Figure 8

Fill in the Use periods and DSO calculation type fields (program RFDRRE05)

The Use periods field is the number of periods your company uses to calculate its DSO. Some companies use a single period while others may use three. This is a business decision. If you have three periods, the report stops the rollercoaster view of the DSO that you may have if the sales volume varies greatly per period, created by peaks and declines in the total turnover per period. Certain months (periods) may always be quiet and others may always be busy. The DSO is distorted by this because the total overdue debt or average sales might rise or drop within these intervals.

The DSO Calculation type field has two possible values:

• If you enter a 1 then it works on the average sales for the last X periods where X is the value in the Use periods field
• If you enter a 2 then it works on the actual sales for the last period

Days Offered/Days Taken Evaluation

You can calculate the Days offered/days taken evaluation type in program RFDRRE06 (Figure 9). The SAP standard variant has the Number of top customers field set to 50. I suggesst you change this to 999. The value in the Use days field is the number of days that the system goes back to when analyzing the payments. I recommend that you amend this to 180 days, to represent the last six months. Your company may request that you adjust it to anywhere between 90 and 365 days based on business reasons. The greater the number of days used in this field, the more detailed the payment history analysis is and the more accurate the data becomes.

Figure 9

Program RFDRRE06 — Fill in Use days field

For example, a customer paid early once a few weeks back because it was over its credit limit and was clearing invoices that were not due. However, for the preceding six months, it had paid 20 days past the due dates of the invoices. If the value in the Use days field had shown 30, the customer would be seen as a good payer, and therefore the “cash collector” may not chase that customer right away. If the value was 180 days then all the late payments would be taken into consideration and the score would be worse, better reflecting the actual nature of the customer.

Now that I’ve shown you the customizing for those three evaluation types, I’ll move on to show how to schedule a job.

Schedule a Job

After you perform all your customizing, create all the evaluations you require, and amend the extraction programs to your company’s specifications, you need to schedule the job. Use transaction F.29 or follow menu path Accounting > Financial Accounting > Accounts Receivable > Information System > Tools > Configure > Create Evaluations. This transaction does most of the work for you and is very similar to transaction SM36 when you schedule a background job. The message in Figure 10 appears at the bottom of the screen.

Figure 10

Error message

You need to decide if you want to create a periodic job. If you do, click on the Start condition button (Figure 11). Then check the Periodic job check box.

Figure 11

Click on the Start condition button

Click on the Period Values button and select one of the choices for a period value shown in Figure 12. I recommend that you schedule this to run every day or just every day in your factory calendar. If you enter and allocate cash in the morning, then schedule the evaluation job to run after that, say 12:00 p.m. This process does not occur everywhere and so a quiet time on the system could also be a good idea, such as an evening job.

Figure 12

Prerequisites to creating a periodic job

In the Step option in Figure 11 the system fills in the program name in the Job name field. Select the variant SAP_VARI from the drop-down menu, as shown in Figure 13.

Figure 13

Select the variant