One Exposure: Reconcile bank account balance cross different data sources

One Exposure, which is the central storage for SAP Cash Management, storing the data (named cash flows) which forming the figures displayed in the apps for Cash Position and/or for Liquidity Analysis.

It turns out that is a common and basic requirement to compare the figures from One Exposure with other data sources, like bank statement, G/L accounts, etc. Among all the figures, the bank account balance is the essential one.

Account Dimension

To reconcile the bank account balance cross One Exposure and other data sources, we need firstly make the definition of bank account balance on the same page. That’s the concept ‘account dimension’ coming from.

Account Dimension: G/L Account

When account dimension as ‘G/L account’, it means, we fetch balance based on the G/L accounts. And for One Exposure, the flows which shipped G/L account normally coming from Accounting integration part, or in short FI flows. Or, to be more specific, the G/L account balance from One Exposure is the accumulated amount from ACTUAL flows per G/L account (field FI_ACCOUNT) and currency.

There are two blogs which describes the ‘bank account balance’ very well:

What is Actual Bank Account Balance in New Cash? | SAP Blogs

GAP Analysis of Balance between Cash Apps and G/L | SAP Blogs

Despite the fact that the Notes mentioned in the blogs above are not more needed after Flow Builder Plus on the stage since OP2021, the bank account balance described in the posts are still correct.

Account Dimension: Bank Account (House Bank/House Bank Account)

The apps in SAP Cash management side are based on Bank Account by default, the bank account here stands for the account which modeled in ‘Bank Account Management’. And normally the bank account will define with connectivity path what is the linkage between house bank/house bank account and the bank account.

To be more specific, the bank account account balance from One Exposure is the accumulated amount from ACTUAL flows per bank account (field: BANK_ACCOUNT_ID) and currency.

Unlike the G/L account dimension:

• Bank account dimension relies on house bank/house bank account information in the original documents.
• The linkage between house bank/house bank and bank account itself could change. And it is normally impossible to change G/L account information in accounting documents.
• The house bank/house bank account which is part of account assignment, means it could be influenced by the inheritance in the document chain tracing process (Liquidity Analysis part). For instance, the bank line item without house bank/house bank account but it cleared a payment with such information, the final flow will fetch house bank/house bank account from the payment document and may result in a different bank account.

Cash Position Cash Flow and Liquidity Analysis Cash Flow

Flow Builder Plus, a.k.a. Flow Builder 2.0, introduces the accounting scope concept, and the different accounting scope will result in different cash flows.

There will be two data sets for flows from accounting side: Cash Position cash flow and Liquidity Analysis cash flow.

Please refer to my old post for detail: Flow Builder Plus: the business insight, Part I for a better understanding.

Program ‘Bank Account Balance Reconciliation’

Program ‘Bank Account balance Reconciliation’ (T-code: FCLM_BANK_RECONCIL) was released already. This program targets to:

• Help the customer to gather G/L account balance;
• Help the customer to compare bank account balance from:
  • Bank Statement (closing balance)
  • G/L account balance
  • Classical CM balance
  • Account balance in One Exposure
• Drill down to detail page to compare accounting document line item with One Exposure flow
• Analyze the difference by ‘Show Difference Only’
  • Add the document back to Delta Table and trigger event for Flow Builder to reprocess.

In the elder releases, that program supports G/L account dimension only. Now since OP2021, this program has been enhanced:

• Supporting Bank Account (house bank/house bank account) dimension.
  • The bank statement balance fetching by house bank/house bank account not G/L account;
  • The G/L account balance are fetched by the G/L account defined in connectivity path.
• Supporting Cash Position Cash Flow and Liquidity Analysis Cash Flow;

The dimension ‘Bank Account’ are introduced by the new enhancement, and is for OP2021 only, please refer to Note 3195729 – Bank Account Balance Reconciliation.

As the prerequisite, your system shall be OP2021 SP1 (or apply Note for Flow Builder Plus on OP2021 SP0) and a well configured:

1. Collective Note 3097908 and,
2. Technical implementation Note 3111810
3. Trouble shooting Note 3144000