SAP Solution Brief
SAP® Dispute Management
The SAP® Dispute Management
application enables you to
resolve customer disputes over
receivables more effectively.
Fully integrated with other
SAP financial management
applications, it can help you
improve the tracking and
processing of short payments,
streamline your accounts-
receivable processes, and
enhance your customer
relationships. Companies that
use SAP Dispute Management
have reduced their days sales
outstanding by as much as 20%.
DISPUTE MANAGEMENT
Optimizing Your Financial Supply Chain
To improve collections and reduce days sales outstanding (DSO),
nearly every company must frequently investigate open receiv-
ables from its customers. In many industries, some customers
regularly reduce bill paid amounts – or fail to pay their bills at
all. All too often, companies use manual processes to handle
these dispute cases, which can involve many different areas of
the organization. Such manual processing is typically time-
consuming and expensive, ties up significant resources, and may
also delay the resolution of dispute cases. In the United States, for
example, 61% of receivables remain open for more than 50 days.
There is a way that you can optimize the accounts receivable and
collections processes in your financial supply chain with the
SAP® Dispute Management application, a part of the mySAP™ ERP
Financials solution. Companies that use the application show
improvement in the processing of accounts receivable disputes,
with days sales outstanding reduced by as much as 20%.
Centralized Case Processing
When your company experiences a dispute with a customer
over a receivable, you can open up a dispute case in SAP Dispute
Management that becomes the central object for processing the
dispute. A dispute case is an electronic file for collecting relevant
information and displaying that information in a structured form.
It includes attributes such as the reason for the dispute, the
dispute’s priority, and the relevant customer contact. Amount
fields in the application show you – at a glance – the disputed
amount and all relevant payments, credit memos, and write-offs.
You can create a dispute case directly from a specific financial
transaction, such as the processing of an incoming payment that
has been reduced or a customer’s line-item display. (See Figure 1.)
You can also set the application to open dispute cases automat-
ically for payment deductions posted by electronic account
statement or lockbox file.
Figure 1: Create Dispute Case from Posting an Incoming Payment
(Short Payment)
When you create a dispute case, the application automatically
fills the amount fields. You can also set most attributes automat-
ically, which considerably reduces manual processing. As the case
is created, the application links all information for the disputed
transaction to the dispute case – including the customer name,
invoice number, and invoice amount – as well as all relevant billing
documents. You can then access these items directly from the
dispute case as you need them. (See Figure 2.)
Your department manager can assign a dispute case to a coordina-
tor who is then responsible for resolving the case. The coordi-
nator can also indicate any other employees who should be
involved, including those from other departments. The application
lets you classify and manage each dispute case according to its
current processing status and the reason for the dispute – which
may include the following:
• Incomplete supply or service (quantity deficiency)
• Deficient delivery or service (quality deficiency)
• A mismatch between price and service (price difference)
• Failure to meet the delivery date (time difference)
• Failure to follow through on promised trade promotions
• Other misunderstandings
Employees assigned to process dispute cases receive notification by
e-mail. They can process dispute cases directly in the application
or via a workflow task. The integration of dispute-case processing
with SAP workflow tools makes it easy for you to integrate
employees into the resolution process as they are needed, and
simplifies the user interface. Users can see an overview of all
previous activities related to their dispute cases and receive
notification of their responsibilities. They can enter the results
of their investigations as notes to the case and save any relevant
documents as attachments.
SAP Dispute Management lets you inform customers about their
cases either automatically or manually at any time. With the
manual correspondence option, users can enter text, adding
detail to enhance the customer’s understanding of the dispute.
You can involve managers in critical dispute cases through an
internal-escalation capability.
The close integration of SAP Dispute Management with your
accounts-receivable applications allows the immediate update
of amount fields and links. As a result, you can check a dispute
case at any time to see which payments, credit memos, or other
write-offs have been applied to the items involved. Once all
disputed receivables have been cleared, you can close the dispute
case automatically.
The application is fully integrated with other software in
mySAP ERP Financials, including the SAP Biller Direct application.
This means, for example, that your customers can enter dispute
cases in SAP Biller Direct and communicate through a note
function with the employees who process the cases. You can
use the SAP Collections Management application to create
dispute cases and collect receivables. The flexible architecture
of SAP Dispute Management also enables process integration
with industry-specific SAP solutions. This allows you, for example,
to use the dispute management application to support your
trade-promotion processes.
Figure 2: Dispute Case View
Many Business Benefits
SAP Dispute Management can help your finance department
accelerate customer collections and resolve late-payment issues.
With it, you can finally eliminate the use of faxes, voice mail,
and spreadsheets to resolve, track, and settle accounts-receivable
payments. Improving your processes for dispute resolution and
deductions management can cut your DSO and improve your
ability to manage cash flow. The application is designed to work
as an extension to your SAP software platform and is critical
in providing you with financial-supply-chain management
capabilities in mySAP ERP Financials.
Manage Your Entire Financial Supply Chain More
Efficiently
SAP Dispute Management is a part of SAP Financial Supply Chain
Management (SAP FSCM) set of applications. As one of the new
key functional areas of mySAP ERP, SAP FSCM optimizes the
financial and information flows within a company and between
business partners. In addition to receivables management,
SAP FSCM includes applications for electronic bill presentment
and payment in SAP Biller Direct, collections management in
SAP Collections Management, automation of credit decisions in
SAP Credit Management, management of liquidity positions in
SAP Cash and Liquidity Management, configuration of payment
factories in SAP In-House Cash, and management of financial
positions and market risks in SAP Treasury and Risk Management.
To learn more about managing your financial supply chain with
dispute management and other processes, visit the SAP Web site at
www.sap.com/financials.
 www.sap.com /contactsap

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