SAP Electronic Bank Statement: Basic Process and Overview

Electronic Bank Statement

Think of Electronic Bank Statements (EBS) as documents that are sent by the bank from one system to another. These documents contain the bank transaction details of the indicated account holder.

How does it relate to SAP?

In a corporate and accounting perspective, companies need to record and keep track of all incoming and outgoing payments. These are usually posted in SAP as accounting documents. Electronic Bank Statements can be sent and/or uploaded to SAP. Depending on the SAP configurations, the uploaded EBS or bank statement can be posted and automatically reconciled.

If there are issues with the posting, the concerned business process users can still check on the statements and do some manual postings if necessary. Moreover, if there are cases wherein the bank is unable to provide an electronic statement, the statement can be manually entered in SAP.

Basic Process Overview

1. Receive the EBS from the Bank (formats can vary)
2. EBS is uploaded in SAP (FF.5)
3. View Bank Statement and GL Balances (FF67, FEBA, FEBAN, FBL3N)

For 1 and 2, note that this was written for basic overview purposes, but you can expect that there can be established interfaces and dedicated secured repositories between the bank and SAP.

FF.5 Import / Upload Electronic Bank Statement

FF67 Process Manual Bank Statements / View Bank Statements

FEBA View Bank Statements

FEBAN View Bank Statements (more “user friendly”)

FBL3N View GL Account Balances

TCode	Task
FF.5	Import Bank Statement
FF67	Process Manual Bank Statements / View Bank Statements
FEBA/FEBAN	View Bank Statements
FBL3N	View GL Account Balances

Electronic Bank Statement Formats

There are many EBS formats but the most commonly used would be MT940 and BAI2. These formats are structured differently but they usually have the same type of information such as:

• Account identifier
• Custom coding structures
• Reference data
• Opening balance
• Transaction type
• Transaction date
• Transaction amount
• Closing balance

MT940

Usually used in Europe. Developed by The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), it is a Customer Statement Message that provides an end of day account statement. It should be noted that there are some countries in Europe that utilize different formatting.

For example, Belgium has their own format called “CODA” or The Coded Statement of Account which serves as their own national banking standard. In this case, the process of uploading the EBS differs in such a way that the CODA or .cod file needs to be converted to MultiCash format in SAP. They have their own dedicated TCode (FEBC) for the conversion of CODA files to MultiCash. You can read more about it in this blog post.

There is also a format called MT942 which can provide intra-day account statements at a specified period of time. It is not to be confused with MT940 which provides an end of day account statement.

	Description
MT940	SWIFT Message MT940 Customer Statement Message
MT942	SWIFT Message MT942 Interim Transaction Report

Other format examples include ETEBAC for France, DTAUS for Germany, CSB43 for Spain, etc.

BAI2

Usually used in USA. Developed by that Bank Administration Institute, it is a format for cash management balance reporting. It should be noted that BAI and BAI2 are not the same. BAI2 is the latest version and they ultimately differ in their level of information and reporting detail. As far as BAI is concerned, it was announced that BAI is no longer formally supported.

Format Summary *most commonly used

Additional Information

What is SWIFT?

It was mentioned briefly that MT940 was developed by The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT). You can think of SWIFT as a communications network used by banks and financial institutions to securely communicate financial related information such as money transfers etc.

Why do CODA files need to be converted to Multicash in SAP?

Conversion needs to be done so SAP can process the bank statement and proceed with the bank statement posting.

Other Info.

• You can view some other financial services file formats and document standards here
• Supported SAP EBS Formats
• SAP Help Electronic Bank Statement (FI-BL)
• This blog post has a YouTube version! Click here to see the video.

Need more help? Free SAP Bank Accounting EBS Learning Kit!