Sources of Information in Credit Management

Use

Credit Management contains a range of functions to assist you in processing blocked sales and distribution documents, and to help investigate critical cases.

Features

The following graphic illustrates these sources.

The following section describes the different ways in which you can access information in Credit Management. The table under "Activities" describes how to access these various functions.

• Customer master record

The customer master record contains the data (address, telephone and fax number, dunning procedure, sales data and so on) that you require to be able to conduct business with the customer. To learn how to display a customer master record, see Displaying Customer Master Records

• Account analysis

The account analysis function enables you to call up information on a customer account. You can then view the customer’s payment history (for example, do they usually qualify for cash discount? How many days early do they pay their items on average?). This information assists you in assessing a customer’s liquidity and likely payment record in the future.

• Line items, line item longest overdue, most recent payment
• Credit master sheet

The credit master sheet displays such credit data as the current and maximum credit limit, and the total of deliveries, orders, and invoices outstanding.

• Credit overview

The credit overview shows certain additional data including dunning data, open items and texts on the customer.

• Early warning list

This list displays which customers are to viewed as critical as determined by the credit check in the Sales and Distribution (SD) application component. A customer is classified as critical, if, based on the data that you defined under Automatic Credit Control (in Customizing for Credit Management under Sales and Distribution ® Basic Functions ® Credit Management/Risk Management ® Credit Managment ) they would not satisfy the following checks (carried out using the information from the A/R summary) either now or in the near future:

a. Longest outstanding open item

b. Overdue open items

c. Highest dunning level permitted

d. Next date on which customer is checked

e. Age of the data in the A/R summary

f. Percentage of credit limit used up

• Financial Information System (FIS)

You can use the FIS to carry out customer evaluations online, structured according to your own requirements. Due date analyses, payment history evaluations, and DSO figure calculations are just some of the functions you can perform.

You can summarize or breakdown the data produced in these reports - from open item display to the customer credit management data - to whatever degree you require. You can also edit and present the data from the reports graphically.

• Sales Information System (SIS)

The SIS enables you to collect, summarize and evaluate data from sales and distribution processing.

Activities

You access the information functions from the Credit Management screen.

Function	Menu path	Further information
Account analysis	Financial accounting data ® Account ® Analysis	For more information, see Account Analysis
Line items	Financial accounting data ® Master records ® Display ® Environment ® Line items ® In company code or in control area	If the customer exists in several company codes, select the appropriate company code in the dialog box.
Oldest due item	Financial accounting data ® Master records ® Display ® Extras ® Oldest item	A dialog box appears with the most important data for this item (document number, amount, days in arrears).
Last payment	Financial accounting data ® Master records ® Display ® Extras ® Last payment	The system displays the date, amount, and currency of the last payment.
Credit master sheet	Check ® Credit master sheet	For more information on the credit master sheet, choose Help ® Application help You can also access this function from the R/3 screen by choosing Accounting ® Financial accounting ® Accounts receivable ® Periodic processing ® Info system ® Report selection ® Credit management.
Credit overview	Check ® Credit overview
Early warning list	Check ® Early warning list
Financial Information System (FIS)	Environment ® Financial Accounting ® Info system	For more information, see the Financial Information System
Sales Information System (VIS)	Environment ® Sales and distribution ® Info system	For more information, see the Sales Information System