What is deciphering?
"Clearing" means balancing open items against each other. Invoices and payments or correction invoices (credit notes) are allocated to each other. The remaining open items then form the basis for further work steps, e.g. reminders (debtors) or payment runs (creditors).
Sometimes receivables and payables cancel each other out completely, whereby several invoices can also be assigned to one incoming payment or vice versa. If a residual amount remains on one side, this is referred to as "partial clearing".
You can clear debtors and creditors during batch posting and in banking when you address a subledger account. After a posting, clearing can be carried out or cancelled in the open item lists and in the G/L account reconciliation (for G/L account postings).
Button functions of the open items list
Various buttons are available at the bottom of the list.
Clear: a line must be selected.
This function allows you to distribute the payment amount manually (e.g. according to the payer's specifications) to several invoices. Select the item you want to split (in this case the payment) and click the button.
You can select the offsetting items via Add. You can search specifically for an invoice number or a posting text by entering it in the selection help. You can use the Clearing amount field to determine the exact amount that you want to allocate to the selected open item. The remaining amount of the open item is automatically adjusted.
Select items that have been incorrectly allocated and then click on Remove.
Don't forget to save the clearing (via CTRL+S or the disc symbol).
Details: exactly one item (preferably fully or partially cleared) must be selected.
The function is a display of the items with clearings, but in contrast to clearing, the items are displayed with their posting lines (multi-line display).
Direct clearing: at least one debit and one credit item must be selected.
This is the simplest way to clear two or more items.
Select two or more items with CTRL+left-click (multi-select)
You can check the balance of the selection at the bottom left.
Click the button.
As soon as you have clicked the Clear directly button, the remaining amounts of the items change, the items with a zero remaining amount are hidden depending on the setting of the Status field. Items with a remaining amount not equal to zero are partially cleared.
Cancel clearing cancels the incorrect allocations of the selected line.
Post cash discount: Exactly one line is marked with a receivable OI for customers (payable OI for vendors).
For more information, see Cash discount and tolerance.
Post tolerance: Exactly one line is marked with an open item, the side of the balance is irrelevant.
More on this under Cash discount and tolerance.
Post out manually: Exactly one line is marked with an open item, the side of the balance is irrelevant.
More information under Cash discount and tolerance.
Transfer open item amount: Exactly one line with an open item is marked, the side of the balance is irrelevant.
You must first define a clearing account (account type asset/liability) under Administration > Manage company > Posting settings.
You can then use the Transfer open item amount button to transfer the open item amount of the selected item to another person account. This creates two postings via the clearing account. The original item is cleared with one of them.
Do not use this to transfer invoices, as all relevant open item attributes such as tax, due date, account assignment or dimensions are not transferred. Use the correction function for an incorrectly posted invoice!
You can use the Transfer balance button to transfer the balance as a total value to another personal account. All items in the original account are cleared with the transfer posting.
Clear across pages
Items that are displayed on two different pages cannot be cleared. This restriction can be circumvented as follows:
You cancel the grouping and sort by the Open amount column to display equal amounts adjacent to each other. Sorting by absolute amount is possible.
Use More actions (three dots in the top right-hand corner) to display more lines per page. The current maximum (as of 2025) is 1,000 scrollable lines.
You are using the decimalisation function (see above).
Quick clearing via keyboard shortcuts
You can clear your open items even faster by using the space bar:
Select the first open item and press the space bar.
Use the arrow keys (cursor) to navigate to the corresponding counterpart and press the space bar again. The two items are cleared together .