forecasting of cash flows

[Former Member]

Hello SDN,

I want to forecast the following payments through the use of Cash managment and liquidity forcasting mechanisms of SAP

1) Accounts receivable payable during next week

2) Loans (short term and long term) repayable (instalment) during next week

3) LCs payable during next week

4)Money receivable during next week on account of LC

Can you tell me whether this is possible and how this can be done

Regards,

[Former Member]

This is obsolutely possible.

1. For Receivables and Payables you have to assign a Planning group in the Vendor/Customer master. For e.g. If you assign AR to the customers all the AR's will be totalled and shown in the Liquidity Forecast. Similarly you can assign a planning group AP to all vendors and so all the AP payables will be totalled and shown in the Liq. Forecast. SAP Liq. Forecast will show by due date. So for e.g. if a vendor has a payment term 'Due immediately' this will appear under today's date, if another vendor has a term Net 30, his invoice will appear on the Liq. Forecast on the 30th day.

2. In order to show all your long term and short investments and debts, you will have to use the Treasury and risk Management module. If all your investment and debt transactions are entered in SAP, then it will show up in the Cash Position report. You have to assign Planning levels to the Product type. For example if you raise money by issuing Commercial Paper, then in configuration create a Planning level and assign it to your product type 'CP'. Then whenever you enter a CP transactions it will show the inflow on the date you borrow and the outflow on the due date.This is applicable to all products.

3. In the same way you enter your Letters of credit and assign this product type to a planning level. This will also show up in your cash position report.

[Former Member]

Hi Kalyan,

Thanks for the v informative answer.

Do you have the config steps for the activities mentioned eg where i can assign the planning level to vendor, customer and to products.

and which reports do i run for the forecasting of liquidity position

Regards,

Rishikesh

[Former Member]

Hi,

You can assign planning groups in company code segment in the customer / vendor master.

There is no assignment for materials.

Certain planning levels are internally picked by the system and are not to be assigned:

M1 - Purchase Requisition

M2 - Purchase Order

M3 - Scheduling Agreement

S1 - Sales Order

XA - Payment Block

XR - Invoice Verification Block

Planning Levels are assigned to the GL masters for which you need the cash position.

There after you have to create a grouping structure, as regards how you would like to group the planning levels or GL accounts

Standard Reports:

FF7a - Cash Position

FF7b - Liquidity forecast

Hope this is useful.

Please Assign pts.

[Former Member]

Hi Rishikesh,

Cash Flow configurations need to be done as follows: (Report T-code FF7A

I. Determine which GL accounts you need to pull in Cash flow- Configurations required for all these accounts at step 2, 3 and 5 below.

II. Determine Structure : ie, grouping and headings etc of the Cash Flow - Configurations required defined in step 1 and 4 below.

Details of configuration :

1. Define Cash Flow groupings and Headers in t-code OT 18

2. Define Selection for groupings in t-code OT17.

For each grouping -

Keep one entry with Type as E and Selection as ++, Sum Term ++. This will pull all sub accounts defined.

Also define each account by using type G and account number in Selection and Sum Term as Name of GL account/ Bank name.

3. All accounts that you defined at 2 in OT17 also need to be defined at T-code OT16 - company code wise.

4. Other config required : Please refer building blocks documentation. - Define Source Symbols, Define planning levels, Define Planning groups.

Most of this will have been configured if you have used building blocks, but please check the same to configure as per your requirements.

SPRO path -> Financial Supply Chain Management->Cash and Liqudity Management->Cash Management-> Basic Settings---

5. Most important config, is that for all accounts you plan to pull on your Cash Flow, the fields for Cash management have to be made available for GL account master.

i.e. while defining account groups for Gl in SPRO, the field status for group 'Bank / financial details' all fields, should be 'Opt entry'.

If this is accidently suppress or display only, you will not be able to pull the account number in Cash flow statement.

Once this field is available for input, in Gl master data on T-code FS00-> create/ bank /interest tab-> bank/ financial details in company code tab..planning level that you configured in step 4 above, needs to be entered. Also Relevant to cash flow needs to be checked.

Configuration for FF7B, i.e Liquidity forecast is similar.

All the T-codes mentioned as well as spro path is relevant to SAP ECC6.0 ver. I think the IMG path is different in earlier versions. but you should get that in the relevant building blocks document.

Also this configuration does not apply if you are using Financial statement version INT.

Hope this information helps.

Thanks,

Uma

[Former Member]

Hi Uma,

Thank you for your informative answer. It has helped understand the functionality.

One more thing, my client wants to track the actual collection, cheques which bounced, actual payments etc against the forecast figures.

Is this possible? I am thinking of using bank accounts (cash position report FF7b) to get this information

Is there any other way to get this and then a comparision of forecast vs actual collection, payment etc.

This will help client to find out the accuracy of forecasts and how good sales people are at collecting on due date etc.

Regards,

Rishikesh