SEPA XML with BOM not accepted by bank software

Summary

This blog aims to explain cases when bank software may reject the XML file generated from SAP Business One for SEPA based on the existence of BOM, but can be extended to any other electronic format based on EFM (Electronic File Manager)

The system format for banking SEPA, generate XML files that includes BOM (the processing instruction related to encoding)

In XML files, the encoding is declared at the beginning in root processing instruction, but never the less in standard Microsoft files, this is as well included as a hidden character.

The software that may receive the bank, may not accept that hidden character (you will not see it unless you have  text processor that shows the hidden code)

With the Add-on EFM you can change the encoding to eliminate the BOM

Steps:

This example is based on the standard SEPA for Credit Transfer ‘CT’ from SAP note 1963295

View of the file before change encoding, note in target the property ‘encoding’ with value UTF-8 , this will generate file including BOM

You can change it in the drop down list to the encoding ‘UTF -8 Without BOM’ , this will generate the file without the BOM

Then you can save it and upload it in your customer database.