Dispute Management:

What is dispute management?

• SAP Dispute Management is part of SAP Financial Supply Chain Management (SAP FSCM)

• SAP Dispute Management provides functions for processing receivables-related dispute cases

• It supplements the following process chains in the stage between invoice and payment if there are discrepancies with the customer:

>> Sales Order –Delivery –Invoice –Payment

>> Contract –Service Provision –Invoice –Payment

Disputed Invoices –Business Requirements:

• High DSO (Days Sales Outstanding)

• Difficulty in predicting cash flow

• High cost of solving these disputed invoices

• Disputed invoices can indicate issues in the customer relationship due to

– Quality problems

– Logistical problems

– Pricing

– Account relationship

• Disputed invoices can reduce customer profitability

Problems in Dispute Case Processes :

How Does SAP Dispute Management Help?

• SAP Dispute Management controls and streamlines the dispute case process.

• As central component for handling dispute cases, SAP Dispute Management enables cross-department dispute resolution.

• SAP Dispute Management is integrated in financial but also in logistical processes.

• SAP Dispute Management organizes and stores all information and documents related to a dispute case.

• Automation, workflow and case management capabilities minimize the need for manual exception processing.

• SAP Dispute Management includes sophisticated reporting.

– Detect quality issues

– Control workload

– Track dispute process

– Deductions per customer

Visibility of Dispute Cases :

When do selling companies notice the existence of disputes?

1.Customer informs them about the deduction

Call center contact Account manager contact Letter

2.Incoming payment is an underpayment

Accounts receivable specialist posts incoming payments Cash accountant is post processing incoming payments

3.The customer does not pay an invoice.

Which Events Lead to Dispute Cases?

Receivables-related dispute cases arise if customers deduct an amount from the invoiced amount that exceeds the difference tolerated by the selling company or hold back a Payment

• Reasons for dispute can be justified:

– Goods were damaged

– Wrong price

– Late delivery

• Reason for dispute can be unjustified:

– Delivery was on time

– Pricing was right

Dispute case Process Integration :

Integration in Financial Processes :

• SAP Dispute Management is integrated in those financial processes of SAP Financials Accounts Receivable where disputed invoices typically become visible:

– Post incoming payments with residual items

– Display line item list

– Clear account: Residual items

– Bank statement post processing: Residual items

• Automatic creation of dispute cases for residual items created by lock box file or electronic bank statement

• The system automatically copies amounts from FI document into dispute case and links corresponding documents.

Line Item Display and Dispute Case Integration :

Disputed Objects / Customer-Disputed Objects (I) :

• The manual or automatic creation of dispute cases in clearing transactions is still possible

– A residual item is assigned as “disputed” object to a dispute case

– Tight process integration in subsequent clearings / payments

– Update of the disputed amount in the dispute case

• New: Creating dispute cases without assigning any FI-AR items

New: Assigning FI-AR items as “customer-disputed” objects to a case

– Cleared items

– Credit items

– Every open item, including items with special G/L indicator

– One single item may be assigned to several dispute cases

– Manual entry of the customer-disputed amount

– However: No process integration in clearing transactions, no automatic update of the customer-disputed amount

Disputed Objects / Customer-Disputed Objects (II) :

Disputed Objects / Customer-Disputed Objects (III) :

• When you select Assign function, existing dispute cases are evaluated and made available for selection list form .

• In standard system, the following are used as evaluation criteria:

– Customer

– Company Code

– Invoice reference

– Customer-disputed amount

You can implement the badi FDM_AR_CDIS_ASSIGNMENT to make customer-specific adjustments to evaluation criteria.

Advantages :

• Dispute cases can be created before the actual payment deduction takes place.

– A customer might call and complain about an invoice.

– The invoice can be added as a customer-disputed object to the dispute case which is being created, the customer disputed amount is entered.

• Time to resolve the dispute is gained.

• Dispute cases can be created after an invoice has been cleared.

• If the customer has a general issue, a dispute case containing only the customer account can.

Dispute Case Details : Central Unit for all Activities :

Summarizes and structures all dispute-related data

– Attributes (status, reason, current processor, and so on)

– Notes

– Action log

– Linked objects (customer, invoice, residual items, proof of delivery)

– Created correspondence

Is the control object of the disputed item

– Assign different roles (processor, person responsible)

– Status concept

– Processing deadlines for next processors and planned end date

– Escalation

Can be accessed and processed by all authorized employees

– Accountant

– Collection Agent

– Dispute Manger

– others

Amount Fields of Dispute Case :

Original disputed amount

– Amount disputed when the dispute case was created

Disputed amount

– Amount that is currently disputed (different to original disputed amount because of payments, credit memos, write-offs)

Paid

– Amount of the original disputed amount that has been paid

Credited

– Amount of the original disputed amount that has been credited

Cleared manually

– Amount that has been cleared manually

Automatically written off

– Amount that has been written off automatically

Reason and Status of Dispute Cases :

• Reason specifies cause of disputed item:

– Damaged goods

– Trade promotion

– Incorrect invoice

• Status specifies current state of processing:

– Open

– In process

– Resolved

• Status concept for status control.

• Status and reason can be freely defined in Customizing.

Customer Contact Data :

• Customer contact data can be stored in the dispute case

• There are two options how to maintain customer contact data

– Select contact data from customer master data

– Enter contact data directly in the dispute case

• Customer contact data comprises

– Name

– e-mail

– Fax

– Telephone

– Postal address (only stored in customer master data)

• Customer contact person is used as receiver of customer correspondence.

Structure of Linked Objects :

Pre-defined structure to store related SAP business objects for

Business Partner

– Customer master data

Disputed Objects

– Invoices, residual items, …

Resolved Objects

– Resolved residual items, invoices, …

Items assigned during clearing

– Credit memos, partial payments

Other Objects

– Billing documents (integration into SD)

– FI invoices and other accounting documents

– Related dispute cases

– Account statement items

Various

– Any number of additional customer-specific folders can be added

Dispute Resolution Process :

Roles in Dispute case

• Coordinator monitors and coordinates dispute case processing

He or she is responsible for the dispute case and is the main contact person for processors

Example: Dispute Manager of a business unit

• Processor is the person who is assigned to the next activity

Example: Delivery Manager to confirm wrong delivery or Account Manager to approve credit memo

• Person Responsible is the person accountable if the dispute case cannot be resolved and who receives escalation

Example: Account Manager

Dispute Case Functions :

– Open items can be added at a later point of time

Search functionality

Mass activities

– Changes of attributes including setting escalation reason

– Automatic write-off and closing of dispute cases

– Charge cost center of person responsible with amount written-off

Usability

– History of viewed objects

– Resubmission of dispute cases

– Add dispute cases to favorites

Assign dispute case-related business objects manually

– Examples: Proof of delivery, trade promotion, order.

Summary :

BADI’S in Dispute Management :

FDM_AR_DEF_CASE_TYPE : Customer-Specific Default Values for Case Type

FDM_AR_DEF_REASON : Customer-Specific Default Values for Reason

FDM_AR_DEF_PRIORITY : Customer-Specific Default Values for Priority

FDM_AR_DEF_EXT_REF : Customer-Specific Default Values for External Refe

FDM_AR_DEF_PROCESSOR : Customer-Specific Default Values for Processor

FDM_AR_DEF_CATEGORY : Customer-Specific Default Values for Category

FDM_AR_DEF_FIN_COORD : Customer-Specific Default Values for Coordinator

FDM_AR_DEF_RESPONSIB : Customer-Specific Default Values for Person Respon

FDM_AR_DEF_DUE_DATE :Customer-Defined Default Values for Processing Deadline

FDM_AR_DEF_PLAN_END :Customer-Defined Default Values for Planned Closing Date

FDM_AR_DEF_CASE_TITL : Customer-Specific Default Values for Title

FDM_AR_DEF_NOTE : Customer-Specific Default Values for Case Notes

FDM_AR_DISP_COMPLETE : Customer Enhancement for Completion of Dispute Case

SCMG_VALIDATE_C : Customer-Specific Validation of Cases

FDM_USER_SCREEN :

FDM_AR_UI_FIALDSTAT :