- Scheduling
The meter reading unit in the installation allocates the object to scheduling. This means that dates for periodic meter readings are determined via the meter reading unit and billing dates are determined via the portion.
- Billing master data
The assigned rate category defines the billing rule for the installation. The billing schema and the rate are determined via the rate category. The billing class is used for statistics and allows for validations for scheduling and rate categories.
- Installation facts
All individual agreements with customers, such as prices or special rate conditions are maintained in the installation facts. Flat-rate installations may also contain the rate type, which is used for rate determination along with the rate category. Installation facts can serve many other location/customer specific purposes, usually for billing.
- The utility installation groups together all devices, registers and flat-rate billing values that are allocated to the same premise, belong to the same division and are therefore to be billed together.
- In the installation, you maintain the following links to other SAP S/4HANA Utilities components:
- The rate category for the rate determination control in consumption billing
- The meter reading unit for determining the meter reading dates
- The premise for the spatial allocation of the installation (linked to central address management by the address of the connection object)
- Each installation must be allocated to a premise.
- The Current contract and Current bus. partner fields are only displayed if a business partner has been allocated to the installation in move-in processing.
- Individual rate category data and facts enable you to adjust standard rates for a particular installation (that is, for a particular customer) (for nonresidential customers, for example). By allocating reference values, you can also model flat-rate installations in which no consumption entry devices are installed (for example, streetlights, or flat-rate heating installations).
- RTP interface: Customer-specific agreements such as quantity limits, service limits or price profiles can be recorded in interval-related billing. When you define the RTP interface, these values must be defined as parameter templates.
- Load profile: Synthetic profile whose values are generated based on predefined periods (defined using blocks of days and seasons) and the allocated day or annual profiles. Synthetic profiles are used in cases where interval reading does not take place. They are used to classify the consumption patterns of different customer groups. Customers that have similar consumption patterns are assigned the same synthetic profile.
- The rates upon which a bill is to be based are determined from the rate category in the utility installation. The rate category can be stored at device or point of delivery level, or in the installation facts.
- The rates determine prices via facts.
- The rates that apply to a utility installation's bill are summarized in a billing schema. The billing schema is entered in the rate category when the billing rules are modeled.
- You can display both the billing document (billing results) and the print document (invoicing results). All data from the previous billing is available.
- You can display the billing order if the installation has been prepared for billing.
- The billing class classifies contracts in the same division, for example, residential contract, nonresidential contract.
- In the rate category, the criteria that control billing for the different types of rates are specified. These might include the control of the period-end billing or budget billing calculation.
- The industry classifies companies according to their main area of economic activity. An industry can be allocated to business partners of the category organization. The industry serves as information only and is not relevant to billing.
- Temperature areas group together parts of a service territory that have roughly the same air temperature. They are used for weighting of degree days and for thermal gas billing.
- The Franchise contract defines the relationship between the utility company and the municipality regarding the franchise fee which will be charged. You set the Exempt from franchise fee indicator if no franchise fee is to be levied for the installation.
- The meter reading unit groups together installations and their devices and registers according to regional criteria for the purposes of meter reading and device management. The meter reading unit forms the basis for the meter reader's worklist.
- The installation is always allocated to one contract only (or to no contract).
- The installation is managed historically; this means that the installation can have several time slices.
- In contrast to the installation, the contract is not maintained historically and therefore has no time slices. Only the start and end dates of the contract are maintained at the contract level.
- You can display the time slices in the data environment of the installation.
- Load profile
The load profile provides a form of standardized consumption patterns. This reduces the number of superfluous readings and also provides a basis for energy production planning.
- You can allocate a consumption factor to each load profile historically. The values of the load profile are then multiplied by the value of the consumption factor. In the case of synthetic profiles managed using Energy Data Management (EDM), the system determines the consumption factor automatically.
- To identify load profiles that you want to allocate without using Energy Data Management, use table maintenance for the table ELPROF.
- The Purchase indicator shows that an installation or contract is used by the utility company to purchase utility services. As the utility company usually supplies customers with utility services, this indicator is not usually set. This is only an informative field. When billing small power producers, you can reverse the +/- sign for the consumption measured.
- You use the base period category to define whether the previous period or period of previous year is to be used as the basis for extrapolating energy consumption.
- In the Meter reading control field, you can override the number of customer meter readings or the number of estimations that have been predefined in the meter reading unit. You may wish to do this, for example, if a particular installation must never be read by the customer.
- In the blocking reason, you indicate why the object in question has been temporarily blocked for meter reading. If a blocking reason has been defined, no meter reading orders will be generated for that meter reading unit during meter reading order creation.
The installation type and voltage level fields, which also appear on the installation screen, are for information only and can be used for statistical evaluations if required.
