The Creditor Reference is an international business standard based on ISO

International Organization for Standardization

The International Organization for Standardization , widely known as ISO, is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. Founded on February 23, 1947, the organization promulgates worldwide proprietary, industrial and commercial...

 11649, implemented at the end of 2008.

Using Creditor Reference, a company can automatically match its remittance information to its A/R

Accounts receivable

Accounts receivable also known as Debtors, is money owed to a business by its clients and shown on its Balance Sheet as an asset...

. This means that the company's financial supply chain's STP will be increased.

The Creditor Reference was first implemented within the SEPA rulebook 3.2.

Implementation

A vendor adds the Creditor Reference to its invoices. When a customer pays the invoice, the company writes the Creditor Reference instead of the invoice number in the message section, or places a Creditor Reference field in its payment ledger.

When the vendor receives the payment, it can automatically match the remittance information to its Accounts Receivable system.

Structure

The Creditor Reference is an alphanumeric string, 25 characters long, with the letters "RF" at the beginning. After the letters are two check digits, which confirm that the reference will be entered correctly.

The remaining part of the Creditor Reference (up to 21 alphanumeric characters) is the Reference. The content of the Creditor Reference can be determined without any restrictions.

Example: RF 18 5390 0754 7034 [in this example, the check digits are "18"]

External links

• European Payment Council's Creditor Reference pages
• ISO white papers
• SWIFT Community (requires registration)
• Creditor Reference Calculator
• Business Resources