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Introduction:
When I was sent on my first assignment on starting out my career as an apprentice with an
Auditing firm, the first instruction that was handed out was to cross check all the Invoices
with their Purchase orders and the GR documents.
If all the documents were in place they had to be marked with a green tick. And if by any
chance any instance was noticed wherein all the documents were not in place, it was a
probable duplicate invoice posted in the system and it had to be marked with a red mark to
be digged in further.
At that time, I used to wonder if there was any automated system to do this manual task or
even better to prevent any of this from happening, it would have been great.
SAP has an answer to address this issue.
Object of the document:
This document is an attempt to analyze the issue of duplicate invoice postings and ways to
prevent them.
The document covers:
Duplicate Invoices:
Duplicate Invoice postings happen when a single invoice received from a vendor is posted in
the system more than once and consequently paid more than once.
Reasons for Duplicate Invoice Posting:
Duplicate Invoices might be posted in the SAP system because of various reasons such as:
• Restricting the access to create vendor masters to authorized people only and
preferably staff from non-AP functions
• Putting in place framework for preventing creation of duplicate vendors
• Creating a framework for identifying and blocking vendors that do not have any
transactions in say, previous three months
• Making certain fields like Bank Account Number, Alternate Payee etc. in the vendor
master as sensitive fields, requiring approval by authorized persons, for making
changes
• Use the PO process for most, if not all procurements
• Use the three way check (Purchase Order, Goods Receipt and Invoice Verification)
• Limit the usage of Non-PO processes for procurement
• Adopting the process of parking, posting and approving of invoices by different users,
to record invoices.
• Making the Header Reference Number field as a mandatory field for all the document
types used for posting vendor invoices
• Making requisite configuration settings to achieve the duplicate invoice checks in
case of Logistics Invoices.
• Finally, creating programs for identifying duplicate payments which have passed
through despite the best efforts
Processes to be adopted in SAP to carry out a check for Duplicate Invoice Posting:
In SAP there is an inbuilt check for ensuring that duplicate invoices are not posted.
The check can be achieved by a combination of the following:
• Vendor Master data maintained with Indicator for duplicate invoices and credit
memos checked
• Message to be displayed on entering a duplicate invoice should be maintained as –
Error Message Type
• Additional parameters configured in SPRO to control the fields to be checked in case
of Logistics Invoice Verification
• Making the Reference document number field as a mandatory field for all the
document types used for posting vendor invoices
• Maintain the field – Check Flag for Double Invoices and Credit Memos (LFB1-
REPRF), as mandatory, for the account groups being used for vendors
• FI Document or
• Logistics Invoice document
Process Flow of Duplicate Invoice Check depending upon Invoice Type:
Fields checked in case of Logistics Invoice Verifiaction:
In case of Logistics Invoice, the following six fields would be checked to identify duplicate
invoices in standard SAP:
• Company Code
• Vendor
• Currency
• Gross Invoice Amount
• Reference document number
• Invoice Date
Out of the above fields, there is an option available to skip the checking of any of the
following three fields while trying to identify duplicate invoices:
• Company Code
• Reference document number
• Invoice Date
This can be acheived by carrying out the requisite configuration in the transaction –
OMRDC.
Whether the duplicate invoice checks would consider the fields Company Code, Reference
Document Number and Invoice Date would depend upon whether these fields are configured
as activated or deactivated in OMRDC.
• Company Code
• Vendor
• Currency
• Invoice Date
• Amount in document currency
• Company Code
• Vendor
• Currency
• Invoice Date
• Reference document number
Try to post a Duplicate Invoice against the same vendor with the same parameters as
already mentioned above.
In this example an invoice is tried to be posted against the same vendor with the identical
input parameters as already entered for document – 1900000005:
After entering the input parameters when the save button is clicked an error message is
displayed – Check whether document has already been entered under number 0001
1900000005 2012
Error Message Screen Shot:
For further details and illustrations please refer to the SCN document –