SAP Note 10757 - FAQ: MR11, clear GR/IR clearing account.

Symptom

This note shall answer frequently asked questions regarding the
maintenance of GR/IR clearing accounts.

Solution

1. What does "clearing" a clearing account mean?

The documentation states that the posting to the GR/IR clearing account
made at the time of a goods receipt is "cleared" as a result of the
posting of the invoice (and vice versa).
What is meant by this is that the postings made to the GR/IR clearing
account then balance off to zero.
The formulation can lead to misunderstandings, as in financial
accounting "clearing" can mean both this balancing off to zero and
the process of marking items as cleared.
In invoice verification, no automatic marking is carried out in the
case of postings to the GR/IR account. This is done in financial
accounting.

2. What kind of purchase orders can be cleared by Transaction MR11?

Maintenance of GR/IR clearing accounts is only relevant for purchase order items with valuated goods receipt and refers to quantity differences in a purchase order item.

3. How is the purchase order history updated after the account maintenance?

MR11 closes the purchase order history without preventing goods receipts or invoice receipts from being posted to GR/IR clearing account.

A purchase order cannot be archived as long as there is a quantity difference.

4. When can MR11 (maintenance of GR/IR clearing accounts) be executed?

Maintenance of GR/IR clearing accounts is required for clearing a quantity difference in a purchase order item which will probably not be corrected by other transactions (goods receipt, return delivery, invoice, credit memo...).

5. How can the user-specific selection parameters be saved?

Via menu path: System --> User defaults --> Hold data, you cannot save the selection parameters. Up to and including Release 4.70, the function is not available for programming reasons.

See also Note 454523.

In addition, you can save the selection screen as variant. Menu path: Goto --> Variant --> Save as variant.

6. Why are freight/customs clearing accounts updated in stock transport orders?

In stock transport orders, no invoice is expected, but additional freight costs are allowed in the purchase order item if they were set in customizing.

During goods receipt, those planned freight costs lead to the update of the freight/customs clearing accounts. As of Release 4.6C, the accounts can be cleared using Transaction MR11.

7. Why can maintenance of GR/IR clearing accounts in some cases not be carried out for a purchase order with account assignment type 'order'?

The (maintenance) order was settled and closed in a technical and business-operational sense.

8. How can maintenance of GR/IR clearing accounts be canceled?

As of Release 4. 6C, Transaction 'MR11SHOW' can be used for canceling. Canceling the maintenance of GR/IR clearing accounts is not possible in Releases prior to 4.6C.

Other terms

MR11, MR11SHOW