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Author's profile photo Harsha Baid

Workflow Based Approval of Payment Proposal

From EHP 7 onwards SAP offers a workflow based solution for release of payment proposal. This means that the payment proposal gets routed to a concerned approver before the payment run can be made. Unless the approval has been made, the payment run cannot be carried out.

Basically this involves implementation of the following SAP notes:

  • 2418713 – F110 F111: Workflow-based release of payment proposal
  • 2441804 – F110 F111: Workflow-based release of payment proposal (installation for SAP Note 2441805)
  • 2441805 – F110 F111: Workflow-based release of payment proposal

The overall implementation is governed in by SAP note 2441770 – FI payment program: Workflow based release of payment proposal.

Below configuration is needed to have this working:

IMG path

Financial Accounting-Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable-Business Transactions-Outgoing Payments-Automatic Outgoing Payments-Payment Proposal Processing-Configuration:

The company code and the payment method for which a workflow based release has to be activated is defined here:

The agent for approval can be defined at combination company code and currency level.

The agent determination can happen based on Vendor, Accounting Clerk, Payment Method, Amount etc.

In the below example we have based it on Vendor Number which means approval for vendors falling in a certain range would be directed to a particular agent based on the set up made:

The system checks the conditions for agent determination in the order specified. Once a condition for the payments of a business partner is fulfilled, the system transfers this to the work package of the selected agent for the workflow.

Case Study

Open Items posted on a vendor

Carrying out a proposal run based on the above list:

Agent determination in the payment proposal:

Attempting to carry out the payment run before the acceptance/rejection run:

 

Inbox of the approver:

Approver can block or reject some items:

Blocking items in payment proposal:

Payment proposal after editing:

Confirming the payment proposal

Payment proposal after being edited by the approver:

Once confirmed, the person initiating the transaction does not have the option to change the proposal:

Payment Run:

Payment document posted:

 

Thus we see that workflow based approval of payment proposal restricts unauthorized changes to the payment proposal during processing and restricts payment run before the workflow is completed.

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      26 Comments
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      Author's profile photo B.Ranjith Reddy
      B.Ranjith Reddy

      Nice Document Harsha,

       

      Regards,

      Ranjith

      Author's profile photo Sabyasachi Thakur
      Sabyasachi Thakur

      Dear Harsha,

      You have shared very good information. We have similar requirement. I have configured and activated workflow at company code level and executed F110 with payment proposal. In this step system gave below message.

      Link to the event is deactivated

      Message no. WZ165

      Diagnosis

      The linkage between the triggering event and the task has not been activated.

      Procedure

      When the triggering event is activated, the linkage is entered in the table automatically.

      Goto the definition of the corresponding task and activate the event linkage from there.

      Now we are migrating to S/4 HANA 1809 version.

      Can you please tell me is there missing any step? I will be waiting your reply.

      Thanks & Regards

      Amar

       

       

      Author's profile photo Gerard Jonker
      Gerard Jonker

      Dear Harsha,

      According to note 2712448 the existing workflow in ECC for the approval of the payment proposal will not work for S/4HANA with the FIORI-apps F0770 / F0771.

      In my humble opinion SAP should make a workflow to make it possible in the 1809 release, to work with a functional similar workflow.

      Kind regards,  Gerard Jonker

      Author's profile photo Zatopek Ondrej
      Zatopek Ondrej

      Hi Harsha,

       

      thanks for the informative blog. I have a requirement to issue notifications if a payment proposal is being made to a certain country (risky countries).

      Is it possible to issue workflow only if payments to certain countries are in the proposal?

      I checked the BADI FI_PAYMENT_PROPOSAL_WF and the method CHECK_WF_ACTIVE but it works only with the same basic parameters as the customizing (LAUFI, LAUFD, ZWELS), not really with REGUP or REGUH.

      Also I tried to customize some rules and when I issue a proposal that fit to no rule, some dummy package 9999999999 is assigned. So not really an option to skip the whole workflow.

      Thanks for any hints.

      Regards,

      Ondrej ZATOPEK

      Author's profile photo Muhammad Hasan Mufid
      Muhammad Hasan Mufid

      Dear Harsha,

      Thanks for your articles, very helpful

      Author's profile photo SGIT Team
      SGIT Team

      Hi Harsha,

       

      Can this be done with the core licence ? or Do we need to buy any new licence to use this?

      Thanks

      Naja

      Author's profile photo João Paulo Campos Amaral de Almeida
      João Paulo Campos Amaral de Almeida

      Dear Naja,

      You don’t need to buy a new license, you can build and use anytime.

      Author's profile photo João Paulo Campos Amaral de Almeida
      João Paulo Campos Amaral de Almeida

      Dear Harsha Baid,

      Can we select to block or to unblock many items without enter one to one?

      Joao Paulo Almeida

      Author's profile photo Kalana Gunasekera
      Kalana Gunasekera

      Hi Folks,

      Does anyone else have an issue where once the payment proposal is approved, WF-BATCH schedules and executes the payment run in background? Any way we can prevent this from happening ?

      thanks,

      Kalana

      Author's profile photo Jose Juan Grela Martinez
      Jose Juan Grela Martinez

      Hi,

      We have the same issue. Any solution?

      Author's profile photo Kalana Gunasekera
      Kalana Gunasekera

      Hi Jose,

      The note 2441805 mentions the use of BAdI FI_PAYMENT_PROPOSAL_WF to influence the way the workflow executes the payment run in the background.

      thanks,

      Kalana

      Author's profile photo Bhaskar Basam
      Bhaskar Basam

      Hi Harsha

      I'm getting below message while running the payment proposal log.

       

      Please let me know which event we need activate in SWE2

      Regards

      Bhaskar

      Author's profile photo Karla Mojarro
      Karla Mojarro

      Hi Bhaskar,

       

      Did you find the event to active in SWE2?

       

      Regards.

      Author's profile photo Bhaskar Basam
      Bhaskar Basam

      Can you please let me know which Business object and event do i need to active the workflow

      Author's profile photo Varun Sahlot
      Varun Sahlot

      Had the same error message in Payment proposal log

      Solution: Enable event and linkage for CL_PAYMENT_PROPOSAL in SWE2

      Author's profile photo Richa Shukla
      Richa Shukla

      Thanks for the informative and concise blog.

      I was able to successfully implement one step approval for Payment Proposals by implementing the sap notes.

       

      However, we have the requirement of 2-step approval for payment proposals.

      Do you have any insights as to how we can achieve that?

      Author's profile photo Kalana Gunasekera
      Kalana Gunasekera

      A workaround for a 2nd step of the approval is restricting authorization to subset of users who can execute the payment run. Basis should be able to assist you here.

      Author's profile photo KAPIL MEHTA
      KAPIL MEHTA

      Hi Harsha

      In above solution, Can we configure multi level approval hierarchy OR Approval can be done by one approver only ? In this solution, WF is triggered on Proposal. Please confirm if my understanding is correct ?

      Regards

      Kapil

      Author's profile photo DurgaPrasanth vemula
      DurgaPrasanth vemula

      Hi Harisha,

      In above your solution can we configure the below requirement in S/4 Hana 1909.

      • Payment approver needs to receive an email notification when there is a proposal for approval
      • The link will need to specify the date/time by which the payment run needs to be approved.
      • We will need to consider a repeat notification if one or both of the approvers do not approve the payment run the first time.
      • If payment is rejected, a repeat notification link will be sent to the approver after the queries/clarifications are resolved so that the approver not approving this payment run the first time knows that the queries/clarifications are resolved.

      Thanks

       

      Author's profile photo Adnan Maqbool
      Adnan Maqbool

      Hi

      Any solution for multi approvers. Configuration is showing option to add multiple approvers but once first approver is confirming the package, workflow is getting completed.

      Will be appreciated, if blog can be extended for multi approver option.

      Author's profile photo Bikash Rout
      Bikash Rout

      Hi,

      In my case, after the proposals are approved, the workflow is not completing. Any idea what could be the reason?

      Author's profile photo Alexis Otto
      Alexis Otto

      If the Link to the event is deactivated and you cannot find the CL_PAYMENT_PROPOSAL in SWE2, then activate the link first in t-code PFTC > WS Workflow Template > 23200018:

      Afterwards you will see CL_PAYMENT_PROPOSAL in SWE2

      Author's profile photo Phani Kumar Gudlavallety
      Phani Kumar Gudlavallety

      Hi Harsha,

      I have created the similar set up and activated Event Linkage. The work items are reaching to the approvers inbox and they were able to approve.

      The issue we are facing is when we mention a specific approvers for different range of amount, the work item is being sent to all of them without considering the range mentioned.

      It seems, in the above example the range is mentioned based on approvers.

      Can you please let me know if anything is missed with respect to the range.

      Thanks & Regards.

      Author's profile photo Arun Karthik B
      Arun Karthik B

      Hi Harsha,

      Thanks a lot. Nice and useful document.

      I configured the workflow based on amount, but system not triggerring WF to agent based on amount set for each agant.

      Example:

      INR 1 to 9999          - Agent 1

      INT 10000 to 99999 - Agent2

      But WF always triggering to Agent 1. Can you explain how to achieve above requirement ?

       

      BR

      L.Ananthakrishnan

       

      Author's profile photo Muhammad Hassan Askari
      Muhammad Hassan Askari

      Hi Harsha,

      Thanks a lot. Nice and useful document.

       

      During payment proposal my workflow is working properly but i am unable to trigger the notification to approver. Agent name is also not coming while i have configured it properly.

       

      Author's profile photo George Radicopoulos
      George Radicopoulos

      Hi Harsha,

       

      I have already implement the BCM Functionality and i would like to trigger workflow during the Payment Proposal and not during Payment Run.

       

      Do you know if i have any chance through BADI or other functionality?

      Thanks in advance

      George