BCM overview and configuration

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Assumption: Reader has basic knowledge on Accounts payables and is aware of

FBZP set up in the system. 

Overview:
BCM stands for Bank Communication Management, which is a component under
FSCM (Financial Supply Chain Management). BCM is responsible for communication
with a bank in terms of payments sent, acknowledgments received and approval
workflows before payments are sent to the bank. Having said that BCM does not send
payment files to banks. It’s a middleware that picks up the file, encrypts it, and sends it
to the bank. BCM is responsible for the grouping of payments, merging of batches,
approvals for batches, and generating the payment batch. These batches get updated in
the bank monitor. Upon receiving responses/acknowledgments from the bank, the bank
monitor gets updated with appropriate status. In short, bank monitor is your single
source of truth for payment batches.

Configuration Pre-requisites:
To be performed by basis team:

 BCM module is activated in the system.

 WF-Batch user id is created. The user id has the “SAP All” role assigned.
 Package is created for workflows to enable rules to be transported to other
systems.
 Workflows are activated (This is a basis task and not a functional task). You
may check if all the related standard workflows are activated using tcode SWU3

To be performed by functional consultant:

 Make sure the workflow templates and tasks are assigned as general task. To do
so call transaction PFTC. Update task type and task. Click on edit to update this
task as general task. If this is not maintained as general task, you will not be able
 to see your batch in bank monitor(BNK_MONI/BNK_MONIP). Below is the
list of task type which needs to be updated/ checked:

50100075, 50100025,50100066,50100024,50100021.

Click on additional data tab>>Agent assignment>>Maintain.

Click on attributes after selecting the task

Change it to general task .

Warning: Please do not change the classification in any case. This will cause errors and
workflows will not work.

 Update all relevant workflow objects and/tasks to “general tasks”. Without

doing this you will not be able to use bank monitor. This activity will enable the
batch updates in bank monitor.

BCM Configuration:
This blog will cover only basic business scenario where we will have approvals in place
and relevant rules, roles and responsibilities created.

As stated, above BCM is a part pf FSCM module in SAP. Below is the node for BCM.
Basic settings:

Path:

IMG>>SPRO>>FSCM>BCM>>Basic settings>>Basic settings for approval

Below are standard basic settings for a payment batch. Select signature required only if
signatories are maintained in BAM (Bank account management)
Payment grouping:

Path: IMG>>SPRO>>FSCM>>BCM>>Payment grouping>>Rule maintenance

Here you will have to create the rule which will be used in the workflows in next step.
These rules are created based on business requirements.

These rules are applied to responsibilities created based on priority assigned.

Save rule and select the row to maintain the rules

Update rule criteria based on your requirement for the rule:

Release strategy:

Path:

IMG>>SPRO>>FSCM>>BCM>>Release strategy>>Change and release>>Assign

role to release steps
  Click on the new entries above and add “BNK_INI” as a release object. This
release WF task is activated by basis and is a standard workflow that is delivered
with the SAP BCM module.
 Select “01” from the drop-down for required release. This is your first-level
approval of the dual approval workflow.
 Select “1” from the drop-down for the WF release step. As mentioned above this
is your first step approval.
 Hit enter and save to generate rule number. This rule number is auto-generated
in the system. Do not enter rule number manually.

Save and select the rule to create responsibility:

create responsibility based on rules created for payment grouping above

Select the responsibility and click on create

Once it’s saved, the status of responsibility turns from red to green. Select the
responsibility and click on insert agent assignment to add the users responsible for the
first level of release of the payment batch

Select user and update the sap user id of the approver

Additional release steps:

Path:

IMG>>SPRO>>FSCM>>BCM>>Additional release steps>>Assign roles to release

steps:

This is the config for 2nd level of approver

Follow the same procedure as it was done for the first-level approver. This time only
workflow task changes to “BNK_COM”

Create rule
Insert agents for 2nd level approvers as done for first level approvers above

Define release procedure:

Select conditional and click on create to trigger 2nd level approval workflow using the
rule id created earlier.

Click on create new icon:

Click on the drop-down to expand the folder and select the release procedure. Usually,
we select rule id here. However, you may select any other option as well based on
business requirements.

Choose your options as shown on the screen below. You can always use drop-down:
Click on save and add it in a customizing transport:

Assign workflow template to release procedure:

Assign the workflow template being used to release procedure.

Mark rules for automatic approvals:

Here you specify if you want to have auto approval of payment batches or yu want the
approver to drill down the batch before approving it.

Select appropriate option as per the business requirement

This covers basic configuration for BCM. BCM offers flexibility to choose how you
may want to do batch grouping. This can be done by using additional criteria for
payment grouping as below:
Select group fields from drop down and assign priority as per the requirements.
Check out my next blog on payment status management and bank statement monitor.

Note: I have covered only BCM basic configuration. Payment status management and
bank statement monitor will be covered in next blog.

Feel free to comment if you have any questions or clarifications.

Happy SAPing !!
Assigned Tags

 SAP Bank Communication Management

 FIN Accounts Receivable and Payable
 SAP Workflow Management, workflow capability
 bcm configuration
 bcm workflows

 Payment approvals configuration using BCM in SAP S/4HANA

By Omprakash Ramapuram ArjunaSep 02, 2020

 Bank Communication Management – Payment Status Reports

By Parul JunejaSep 13, 2021

 SAP End to End Payment Monitoring on Bank Monitor in BCM

By Colin ThomasSep 24, 2020

 BCM/S4HANA/Payments approved automatically; Maybe Approvals are sent to

BAM, not to the BCM.

By Hoysala SAPJul 03, 2021

 BCM/S4HANA/Function Module to send Payment Approvals to BCM

By Hoysala SAPJul 07, 2021

 SPRO Nodes missing in S4HANA Cash Management/Enable Payment

Approval

By Hoysala SAPJul 07, 2021

12 Comments
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BALASA MANJUNATH
March 15, 2022 at 1:08 pm

Thanks for explaining the topic and basic configuration.

Please share link of next blog payment status management and bank statement monitor.

 Like 0
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Hassan Suleiman
April 28, 2022 at 4:59 pm

Thanks for your detail explanation.

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David Sanaphonh
July 5, 2022 at 7:48 pm

Thank you Jarna for listing the key custo steps

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Sanjay Mukhopadhyay
December 5, 2022 at 1:40 pm

Hi Jarna, first of all big thanks for sharing the detailed customizing steps with
explanation. I am wondering what is the role of BCM apart of approval of payment files
through customized workflow ? If a client is implementing SAP MBC ( Multi Bank
Connectivity), is it advisable to have SAP BCM activated / implemented or is there a
workaround without BCM ? Can you also share your experience on how the linkage
between SAP BCM and SAP MBC  will be setup by the SAP MBC team ? Thanks in
advance.

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Jarna Hemnani
Blog Post Author
December 28, 2022 at 11:37 am

Thanks for reading my blog. This is a very good question indeed. Do read by bog post
on SAP MBC as well.
SAP MBC is like a middleware which will act as a swift partner whereas, SAP BCM is
more of workflows and controls to make payments to bank. monitor bank payments and
much more.

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Ajay Ishtdev Tiwari

January 31, 2023 at 6:14 pm

nice blog , thanks

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Jarna Hemnani
Blog Post Author
February 1, 2023 at 9:05 am

Thank you for reading my blog.

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Harish Pothuguntla
February 3, 2023 at 6:05 am

Hi Jarna Hemnani

Greetings

Actually i am working as senior SAP consultant i have gone through your blog it is
good.

And you mentioned

"Note: I have covered only BCM basic configuration. Payment status management and
bank statement monitor will be covered in next blog" 

Further which link i need go for entire cycle.

Waiting for your reply

Thanks

Harish

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Jarna Hemnani
Blog Post Author
February 3, 2023 at 10:31 am

Hi Harish,

Thanks for reading my blog. Payment status management and bank statement monitor
blogs are not published yet. I am still in process of writing on these 2 topics. Will
publish these blogs soon. However, PSM is a very standard config in SPRO and you
map statuses based on the response codes you receive from bank.

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Harish Pothuguntla
February 3, 2023 at 11:34 am

Hi Jarna Hemnani

Actually i am new to BCM. And i am going handle this project in live

So if you surely write continue this blog it will be very helpful

And in future please try post regarding BAM also

Keep blogging & i will stay tune to you

Thanks

Harish

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jithendra Shivashankar
March 16, 2023 at 12:13 pm

Hi Jarna Hemnani

Could you please post how to configure logic file directory in Transaction FILE.

Thanks

Jithendra

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jithendra Shivashankar
March 17, 2023 at 9:11 am

Hi Jarna Hemnani

Greetings

Actually, I am working as SAP consultant i have gone through your blog it is good.

And you mentioned.

"Note: I have covered only BCM basic configuration. Payment status management and
bank statement monitor will be covered in next blog."

Further which link I need go for entire cycle.

Waiting for your reply

Thanks

Jithendra KS

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 Share