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sanilbhandari
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert


Dispute Management is an integral part of the Financial Supply Chain Management Solution. The dispute management solution integrates with the AR Application to effectively track AR Items which are in dispute for collection from the customers. The AR Items which are in conflict are marked as dispute and an object is created against the item. This object is called as Dispute Case. The dispute case can be created in many ways:

 

1. A dispute case can be created in a specific financial transaction

 

2. The dispute case can also be created through the customer line item display

 

3. The dispute case creation can also be automated for scenarios like Under Payment or if the Open Item has reached a certain Dunning Level

 

A dispute case is a detailed document to record the reason for disputed item, the information of the person following up on the same and the various stages of communication on the same. When the dispute is resolved, the case is closed with an appropriate action. Many of the attributes on the dispute case can be filled in automatically . A dispute case can also record all the transaction history for all the assigned disputed item. A email notification facility can also be set up for a dispute case.

 

There are three major roles which are involved in dispute management:

 

(a) Coordinator

 

(b) Processor

 

(c) Person Responsible

 

The below figure lists out the responsibilities of various roles:

 



 

 

A dispute case object has the below basic components:

 

1. Header Data - The header lists all the attributes of a case

 

2. Linked Objects - This refers to the disputed cases like Billing invoices, Debit Notes to Customers etc

 

3. Notes - The updates made to the case.

 

4. Log - This records the activities performed on a dispute case.

 

Once the roles have been decided, we will now look at the various ways in which the dispute case can be created:

 

 



 

A dispute case can be created for a customer if an open item exists on the customer account. The customer item may or may not be due. There are several ways in which a dispute case can be created such as under payment, dunning or using the customer line item display. One Dispute case can be assigned to more than one customer open item. There are certain key attributed like planned closed date, processor  and processing dates which can be populated automatically. There is an inbuilt formula based on which the closing dates etc can be populated. The various amounts denotations which come across in a dispute case are as under:

 

1. Original Disputed Amount - This is the sum of all the open items which has been assigned to a dispute case

 

2. Dispute Amount - Original Disputed Amount - Credited Amount - Paid Amount

 

3. Paid Amount - Payment Recieved

 

4. Credit Amount - Credit Memos created for the customer account

 

The automatic creation of Dispute Case based on Underpayment or Dunning levels can be done by execution of T Code FDM_AUTO_CREATE either in foreground or a scheduled background job. The process for Underpayment is as under:

 

 



 

 



 

 

 



 

The selection of the radio button "Automatic Incoming Payments" creates dispute cases for all such customer items where the amount of incoming payment is less than the invoice amount which the customer was supposed to pay. There are multiple selection parameters like company code, house bank. customer number, billing document number etc which can be used from the first and second tab. There is also an option to run the program in a test mode before the actual dispute cases are created.

 

 

 



 

 



 



 

When the radio button for "Open Items" is selected, the dispute case is created based on the basis of all the open items on the customer account. The processing of the "Open Items" option is similar to "Automatic Incoming Payments". The additional features are the option to select customer open items on features like a certain dunning level or due by certain no of days or a combination of both.

 

The most popular method of creation of a dispute case remains through the customer line item display or Transaction code FBL5N

 



 



Upon saving after entering the required information, a dispute case is created. Dispute cases which have been created can also be viewed in Transaction Code UDM_DISPUTE. All the attributes and associated notes for Dispute Cases can be viewed here.

 

I will touch upon the configuration steps for the Dispute Management shortly in the series.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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