A/P Credit Memo

An A/P Credit Memo reverses the value of an A/P Invoice: it records a credit the supplier owes back to your company. Where the A/P Invoice booked a payable, the credit memo unwinds it. It is the financial correction document of the purchasing chain, used when a supplier over-billed, when returned goods must be credited, or when a price or quantity on an invoice was wrong.

Purpose

An A/P Credit Memo answers the question “the supplier’s invoice was too high (or the goods came back) — credit us for the difference.” It reduces the Accounts Payable balance owed to the supplier, so the company pays only what it genuinely owes. Common triggers are returned goods, damaged or short deliveries billed in full, pricing errors, and post-invoice discounts.

The credit memo is the money reversal, the counterpart to the Purchase Return, which is the goods reversal. When an item-based credit memo is raised, it can also reduce stock (mirroring the inventory the original invoice or receipt represented); a service credit memo touches only the ledger. When goods physically go back to the supplier, the return handles the stock and the credit memo handles the payable — often as a pair.

Position in the document chain

The A/P Credit Memo hangs off the A/P Invoice, reversing its value. It may also be raised from a Purchase Return.

flowchart TD
    GRPO[Goods Receipt PO] --> API[A/P Invoice]
    API -->|value credited back| ACM[A/P Credit Memo]
    PRET[Purchase Return] -.->|goods credited| ACM

    style ACM fill:#fee2e2,stroke:#dc2626,stroke-width:3px
    style API fill:#fef9c3,stroke:#ca8a04
    style GRPO fill:#dcfce7,stroke:#16a34a
    style PRET fill:#fecaca,stroke:#dc2626

• Copies from: an A/P Invoice (normal — reverses its value), or a Purchase Return, or nothing (a standalone credit).
• Effect: reduces the open Accounts Payable balance to the supplier; the net amount still owed is settled by a later Outgoing Payment.

Each credit-memo line carries BaseType / BaseEntry / BaseLine pointing back to the A/P Invoice line it credits, so a partial credit matches cleanly against the original bill.

Key fields

An A/P Credit Memo is a Document entity — the universal base shared by every SAP B1 transactional document — distinguished by its DocObjectCode of oPurchaseCreditNotes (19). The supplier’s CardCode is a vendor V-code (e.g. V001).

Header

Lines (DocumentLines collection)

Stock and G/L effect

G/L effect: the credit memo reverses the payable. It debits Accounts Payable (reducing what is owed to the supplier) and credits back the input VAT and the original debit side (GRNI, Inventory, or Expense, depending on how the invoice posted) — the mirror image of the A/P Invoice:

A/P Credit Memo (reverses an A/P Invoice's value):

DR  Accounts Payable (supplier)       1,170
CR      Goods Received Not Invoiced / Inventory / Expense   1,000
CR      VAT Recoverable                       170

Stock effect: an item-based credit memo decreases stock in the line’s WarehouseCode (mirroring the inventory the invoice represented); a service credit memo has no stock effect. When goods physically go back, the Purchase Return normally carries the stock movement and the credit memo carries the value — so raising both on the same goods would double-count stock. Choose the pair deliberately.

Service Layer entity

(SAP’s current generally-available Service Layer is /b1s/v2/; Norma’s connector and mock both speak /b1s/v1/PurchaseCreditNotes. Note the SL name is PurchaseCreditNotes even though the business calls it an A/P Credit Memo.)

How to create it in Norma

Use the create_ap_credit_memo tool — the purchasing twin of create_credit_memo. It needs:

• card_code — the supplier’s code, a vendor V-code (e.g. V001).
• lines — each an item_code + quantity.
• Optionally per line, unit_price — when given it is authoritative (the amount credited back); when omitted the line falls back to the item’s list price.

Every Norma write is held for human review before it reaches SAP. A credit memo reverses a real payable in the general ledger, so the review gate shows exactly what will be booked (supplier, lines, prices, VAT, total) before anything posts. Only on approval does the connector POST it to /b1s/v1/PurchaseCreditNotes. Nothing is written to SAP until a human approves.