Discount Management

This section provides step-by-step instructions to work through the Discount Management process in SAP Business Network.

Discount Management refers to the process of managing discounts offered by your customers for early payment of invoices. In the context of SAP Ariba Payables, Discount Management enables customers to propose early payments to you at a discounted rate. This capability is operational in various countries across different regions.

There are some key points to note regarding Discount Management in SAP Ariba Payables:

• Functionality: When enabled, buyers can propose early payments to suppliers at a discounted rate through SAP Ariba Payables.
• Operational Countries: The Discount Management capability is operational in 22 countries, including North America, Europe, APAC, and Africa/MENA.

If your customer uses the Discount Management capability with your company, ensure the following:

• Discount Management Role: Create and assign a Discount Management Role to a user. Note: Administrators may have the role assigned to them by default. The specific roles required may vary, so it's essential to check the user interface and conduct testing for any updates or changes. Some roles that might need to be added include:
  • Inbox & Outbox Access
  • Supplier Discount Management Program Admin
  • Payment Activities
  • Supplier Treasury Agent (for viewing buyer-initiated early payment offers)
• Notifications Setup: Set up notifications for Accelerated Payments to ensure timely communication regarding early payment proposals.

Optional Permission: The permission for Payment Profile may be optional and only required if banking information needs to be accessed or modified.

 

Create a Discount Management Role

1. Under Users, please make sure to create a Discount Management with the following permissions, or assign these permissions to an already existing role:
   • Supplier Discount Management Program Administrator
   • Inbox and Order Access
   • Outbox Access
2. Assign Discount Management Role to a user (new user or existing user).

Configure Accelerated Payment Notifications

1. Navigate to the Settings menu by clicking on Settings, then select Network Settings.
2. Under Accelerated Payments, tick both notification options.
3. Enter the email address(s) of the person or group where the notification should be sent. You can enter up to 3 different email addresses per notification. If you enter more than one, separate the email addresses with a comma (no space).
4. Click Save and then Close.

Review & Accept an Early Payment Offer

1. From the Payments tab, select Early Payments, then click the Payment ID you want to open.
2. A detailed schedule will be shown based on a payment date and the applicable discount that would be taken if the invoice is paid on that date.
3. Select an option from the offers then click on Accept Payment Offer.

The acceptance document will be sent to the Buyer so the payment can be processed and paid by the date selected. Once an Early Payment Offer is accepted by a supplier, it is transmitted to the buyer’s ERP and cannot be undone.

Note: If you do not wish to accept the offer, simply click Done at the top of the page to close the offer without action.

Auto-Acceptance Rule

The Auto-acceptance Rule allows you to create rules to accept Ad Hoc early payment offers from your customers automatically. SBN compares the early payment offers you receive from your customers to your auto-acceptance rules and accepts offers that meet all the pre-defined rule criteria.

1. From the Company Settings dropdown menu, select Remittances.
2. Locate the Supplier Auto-acceptance Rule, and select Create.
3. Enter a rule Name and Effective Date.  All other fields are optional.  If Amount and APR limits are not entered, all Ad Hoc offers will be accepted.
4. Select Yes to activate the rule, then click OK to confirm.

Only one rule can be active at a time, even if the date ranges do not overlap.

Cash Optimizer Tool 

The Cash Optimizer recommends payments for early settlement, based on your working capital requirements.

1. Go to Payments > Early Payment Rules to view the early payment opportunities and the cash optimizer tool.
2. Click the Use Cash Optimizer button.
3. Review & Confirm the Early Payments

Dynamic Discounting Credit Memos

Dynamic Discount Credit Memos are also documents to be used as audit artifacts to document for tax officials why the tax amount provided is lower than originally documented because of the discount. They're not part of the transaction activity.

If you want to offer payment discounting in countries/regions that require credit memos to adjust tax, your enablement team must assign the “Credit Memo Auto Generation” task to the suppliers you want to enable. Those suppliers must then accept a services-specific terms-of-use agreement. This legal language works with the tax invoicing section of the general terms of use and spells out the process and limitations of the service.

SAP Business Network can now issue dynamic discounting credit memos on the supplier’s behalf so that buyers and suppliers have access to a scalable, simple approach to take advantage of early payment discounts in countries/regions that mandate credit memos.

If your customer instructs you to use Dynamic Discounting Credit Memos, you'll need to perform some additional setup, that will be mentioned in the Enablement Tasks tab:

1. Establish a numbering scheme for the Credit Memos: click on Create, then configure the range of numbers to be used for these automatically generated credit memos. This range should be different from your invoice numbering scheme.
2. Review which Buyer has activated Credit Memos creation, and for which countries: just click on Review from the relevant Enablement Task.
3. Confirm that you allow SBN to create Dynamic Discounting Credit Memos on your behalf: open the task and acknowledge the Terms of Use by ticking the box.
4. Access the Help Portal if you want to learn more: Dynamic Discounting Credit Memos | SAP Help Portal