Lesson 1 of 6
Receivables from sales
6 min
Accounts receivable records what customers owe the company and follows that money until it arrives. In SAP S/4HANA each customer is a business partner with the customer role, and receivables are line items on the customer account, a subledger tied to a G/L reconciliation account such as domestic trade receivables. As with suppliers, you post to the customer and SAP S/4HANA updates the reconciliation account in the same Universal Journal entry.
At a manufacturer like Contoso, almost all receivables come from order-to-cash. Maria's team creates a sales order for Great Lakes Fleet Services in sales area 1710 / 10 / 00, ships the alternators, and creates a billing document. When the billing document is released to accounting, SAP S/4HANA posts a journal entry automatically: debit the customer, credit revenue and credit output tax. Finance does not type these invoices; it receives them.
- Sales orderGreat Lakes Fleet Services orders 50 CMC-ALT-100 alternators; payment terms copied from the customer's sales area data
- Delivery and goods issueShipping point 1710 ships; inventory and cost of goods sold post
- Billing documentInvoice created in sales and released to accounting
- Journal entryDebit customer (receivables reconciliation account); credit revenue via account determination; credit output tax
- Open itemThe invoice is an open item on the customer account until a payment clears it
Finance-only invoices
Some receivables have no sales order behind them: rebilling a customer for damaged returnable racks, a one-off service fee, or interest on overdue items. These are posted directly in accounts receivable. The classic transactions are FB70 for invoices and FB75 for credit memos, and Fiori offers equivalents in the receivables area; the exact app list depends on release and role. The user enters the customer, amounts, tax code and the revenue or other G/L account, and the payment terms default from the customer's company code data.
| Invoice from billing | Invoice posted in AR | |
|---|---|---|
| Created by | Order-to-cash billing, released to accounting | AR clerk directly in finance |
| Revenue account | Determined automatically by revenue account determination | Chosen by the user |
| Payment terms default | Customer's sales area data, copied through the order | Customer's company code data |
| Tax | Determined by pricing in sales | Tax code entered by the user |
| Link to logistics | Sales order, delivery and billing document in the document flow | None |
| Typical volume at Contoso | Thousands per month | A few dozen per month |
This difference matters for testing. If billing posts with the wrong revenue account or wrong terms, the root cause is in sales configuration or master data (sales area data), not in finance. If an AR invoice is wrong, look at the user's entry and the company code data. A finance tester who only tests FB70 has not tested the route that carries most of the money.
Reading the customer account
The app Manage Customer Line Items lists open, cleared and all items for a customer at a key date, with due dates, dunning data and clearing documents. It is also where SAP's learning content shows setting and removing a dunning block on a single item. Classic FBL5N offers the same view in Private Edition. For balances by period, Display Customer Balances (classic FD10N) shows debits, credits and the running balance with drill-down.
What would you do?
Great Lakes Fleet Services disputes an invoice: the due date is 30 days, but their contract says 45. The invoice came from billing. Where should Maria's team look first?
- Most receivables come from order-to-cash billing, posted automatically to the customer.
- Finance-only invoices and credit memos (classic FB70, FB75) are posted directly in AR.
- Billing invoices take terms from sales area data; AR invoices from company code data.
- Manage Customer Line Items and Display Customer Balances are the everyday views.
Check your understanding · not graded
Lesson check
1. Which document creates the customer open item in order-to-cash?
2. Where do payment terms on a billing invoice usually come from?
3. Which classic transaction posts a customer invoice directly in finance?
4. What is the first place to look when a billing invoice shows the wrong revenue account?