Let’s talk about the architecture of SAP FS-CD. FS-CD is a settling system meaning it settles the incoming or outgoing payment but it is more than just a billing/settling system or payment engine. While other software providers only cover the receivable or payable part of the transaction FS-CD also deals with the Revenue and Expense side of the transaction. The Policy Management, Commission Management, Claims Management and other operational systems are called Calculating systems. These calculating systems actually calculate the amount for example what is the premium to be collected or what can be the claim amount to be disbursed out etc. and send this information towards SAP FS-CD.
There are various source systems which feed SAP FS-CD like SAP Policy Management (SAP FSPM), SAP Claims Management (SAP FSCM), SAP Commission Management (SAP ICM), Reinsurance (RI) or it can be other than SAP system.
Inbound Integration
Architecture of SAP FS-CD includes various policy administration systems, claims management systems, commission systems, or re-insurance systems can be integrated into one and the same SAP FS-CD system and client.
Any feeder or source system can feed real-time (online) or in batch (files) into FS-CD, mainly depending on its capabilities. Therefore SAP offers appropriate eSOA Enterprise Services for Insurance Billing and Payment, or alternatively classical Business Application Programming Interfaces (BAPIs), exposing Remote enabled Function Call Function Modules (RFC). These RFC Function Modules can be encapsulated into Web Services and exposed
through Web Service Technologies in the Application Server.
Bapi
BAPI (Business Application Programming Interface) is a standard interface that helps to integrate non-SAP applications with the SAP business process and enables providing data entry into the SAP system. There are many Bapis which can be called from outside SAP and can create master data or post transactions in SAP FS-CD.
KCLJ
External Data Transfer is a file system to transfer the master and transaction data from source system to SAP FS-CD. This is a standard mechanism where you have to define an sender structure with all the fields you are expecting from source and receiver structure and map the fields from sender to receiver. You can also apply complex transformation rules in it.
Odata API
Odata API is a standardized way to create and consume data APIs. It’s based on the HTTP protocol and RESTful APIs. You create an API and expose it so that the source system can use this service for posting into SAP or getting some information from SAP.
Real-time integration and operation is not mandatory, but strongly recommended. Additionally FS-CD provides ‘traditional’ methods to transfer data like file transfer via Direct Input (KCLJ).
In Real life projects, mixed scenarios are broadly supported, which combine for example real-time creation and maintenance of FS-CD Master Data, utilizing Enterprise Services or RFC Function Modules together with classical file transfer.
Outbound Integration
There can be various outbound integration from SAP FS-CD. Data processed in SAP FS-CD are pushed to external or another sap system. Pushing payment information like customer details, open items, and payment plans and payments from FS-CD to another application for further processing or reporting, often through interfaces like RFC function modules or file transfers.
There is a standard out of the box integration between FS-CD and FI-GL. So at the end of the day whatever is posted in FS-CD should be reported to FI-GL. There are standard programs which transfer these postings. FI-GL does not need to know about all the details of each transaction so all the transactions are aggregated and sent to FI-GL. There is a drill-back functionality from FI-GL back to FS-CD, so if someone wants to know where any particular amount came from what are the specifics around it, this drill-back function can give all the details in FS-CD for that amount.
Info-Containers
In addition FS-CD also has a standard framework for outbound interfaces named ‘Information Containers’, which can send structured information to different external systems, primarily for submitting FS-CD process results. Information Containers are intended to transfer data back towards various feeder systems either near-time, or scheduled automatically at a later point in time.