Dear SAPers!

Here is another post in my series that explains the issue of bank statement lines with zero amount. Normally most banks do not provide bank statements with zero value lines. In fact, I did not even encounter such a case in my first 8 years in practice. I’ll not try to provide an explanation why there are lines of this kind in bank statement. There are many business cases and if you have any specific queries, it would be best to discuss them with your bank representative.

The purpose of this post is to explain how to deal with this case. Here is an example of such a line in bank statement (MT940 format):

When you upload a bank statement with such a line, you’ll encounter an error message F5078 “Posting without line items is not allowed”. The screenshot below shows this error message in the posting log in transaction FF_5.

The BTC code 809 from this line item is not assigned to any posting rule. Therefore, a default posting rule UA-Z for outgoing payments is assigned to it. This posting rule has two posting areas, but no posting will be generated during the upload. Zero value items will status in unprocessed status. If you’re using the transaction code FEB_BSPROC for post-processing, you can select such line and mark it manually as “Completed”:

However, this will mark the item as “Completed” only in the second posting area. The first i.e. bank posting area will stay open:

There is a small workaround to resolve this problem. You must configure message control for error message FV781. You can do that in transaction OBA5 or maintenance view V_T100C. Launch the transaction and provide application area FV:

Provide error message and set the control indicator to “S” or “I”. Save the changes.

Next time you’ll upload bank statement, you’ll not encounter any error messages and line items with zero value will be automatically marked as completed:

If the configuration is not working for you, please consult a KBA-note 2661523 “EBS line items with zero amount”. It contains useful references to other OSS-notes, which might be helpful in your analysis.

Regards,

Bohdan