When activating Central Payment for historical open items, preventing double payments is critical. The standard SAP-recommended procedure involves actions in both the source and central systems.

1. In the source system: The historical open items must be excluded from future payment runs. The primary method is to mark these items as "technically cleared" (Option C). This effectively closes them for payment processing in the source system without creating any real financial postings, ensuring they can no longer be paid from there.

2. In the Central Finance system: As a safety and control measure during the initial load, the replicated open items are posted with a "payment block" (Option D). This prevents them from being paid prematurely by a payment run in the Central Finance system until all cutover activities, reconciliation, and validation are successfully completed.

A. Deleting open items is not a permissible accounting practice. It violates audit and data integrity principles and would create significant reconciliation problems.

B. Removing the payment method in Central Finance is counterproductive. The ultimate goal is to pay these items centrally, so removing the payment method would prevent this.

1. SAP Help Portal

SAP S/4HANA 2023

Central Payment

"Activating Central Payment": This official documentation outlines the cutover process. It states

"For the initial load of open items

you have two options to prevent double payment of these items... You can technically clear the open items in the source systems...". This directly supports option C.

2. SAP Help Portal

SAP S/4HANA 2023

Central Finance

"Initial Load of Open Items": The documentation on configuring the initial load specifies that a payment block can be set for the transferred open items. It details the configuration step: "In the Customizing activity Define Clearing and Substitution Rules for the Initial Load

you can define a payment block to be used when posting the open items in the Central Finance system." This confirms that setting a payment block in Central Finance (Option D) is a standard procedure.

3. SAP Course S4F80 (Central Finance in SAP S/4HANA): Unit 5

Lesson "Central Payment: Activation and Cutover Management" describes the process. It details using transaction FINSCFINAPARCLR in the source system to perform the technical clearing (supporting Option C) and the use of a payment block in the Central Finance system for loaded items as a control mechanism (supporting Option D).