Accounts Payable (FI-AP) is the sub-ledger holding what the company owes its vendors. It covers recording invoices, running payments and clearing the resulting items.
How the vendor master is organised
The vendor master is split across three levels, reflecting the fact that different departments own different information.
| Level | Information held | Owned by |
|---|---|---|
| General data | Name, address, telephone, tax number | Shared across the company |
| Company code data | Reconciliation account, payment terms, payment method, payment block | Finance |
| Purchasing organisation data | Order currency, buyer, Incoterms | Purchasing |
Two routes for recording an invoice
A vendor invoice can be entered directly in FI or through MM invoice verification. Which route applies depends on whether a purchase order exists.
| Route | Code | Document type | When it applies |
|---|---|---|---|
| Direct FI posting | FB60 | KR | Costs with no purchase order โ rent, utilities, professional fees |
| MM invoice verification | MIRO | RE | Goods and services bought against a purchase order |
Three-way match
On the MM route, SAP compares three documents before accepting an invoice.
- Purchase order: what was agreed โ item, price, quantity
- Goods receipt: how much actually arrived
- Invoice receipt: how much the vendor is billing for
Where quantity or value differs beyond the configured tolerance, SAP blocks the invoice for payment. A blocked invoice stays unpaid until someone investigates and releases it with MRBR. This is an important internal control against incorrect and duplicate billing.
The timing gap between receipt and invoice is absorbed by the GR/IR account introduced earlier: credited at goods receipt, debited at invoice verification, and clearing to nil once both have happened.
The automatic payment program (F110)
Payments can be made one at a time with F-53, but in practice they are run in bulk through F110, which follows a fixed sequence.
| Step | Stage | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Parameters | Company code, payment method, payment date, next run date and vendor range |
| 2 | Proposal | Open items matching the criteria are selected into a payment list |
| 3 | Review the proposal | Individual items can be excluded or blocked |
| 4 | Payment run | Accounting documents are posted and the items cleared |
| 5 | Payment medium | Bank files and remittance advices are generated |
Down payments and special G/L
A prepayment to a vendor has to be kept separate from ordinary payables: it is an asset, and netting it against a liability would misstate the balance sheet.
SAP handles this with special G/L transactions. Posting with a special G/L indicator sends the amount to an alternative reconciliation account reserved for down payments rather than the normal one. The item still appears under the same vendor, but lands on a different G/L account โ that is the whole point of the mechanism.
The same mechanism covers bills of exchange and guarantees. Vendor line items, including special G/L items, are displayed with FBL1N.