SAP Learning Journey

Understanding Process Steps for Project Billing (‏4E9‏)

Objectives
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:

After completing this lesson, you will be able to:

  • Understand the process steps for Project Billing

Configuration for Maintaining a Project Billing Profile

You can make configuration settings related to the billing profile, materials, and material determination. You can also define criteria for the purpose of material determination.

With the associated business role (Configuration Expert - Business Process Configuration), the configuration expert can use the billing profile to define materials and carry out the material determination based on the defined settings. This is achieved by navigating to the app Manage Your Solution → Configure Your Solution → Step Maintain Project Billing Profile (SSCUI ID – 103637).

Configuring project billing profile, materials determination, and the criteria is mandatory for the new project billing process.

Activities

To be able to carry out material determination, you must start by having a project billing profile. You can create a project billing profile with the name CMPRJBL001. You maintain this profile for all material configuration related to project billing.

Material Determination

Within this profile, you have the possibility to configure materials for incoming costs or quantities, or both. You also have the choice to decide if you want to use the material defined in the source of the posting by choosing the Material Direct option.

Under the quantity and costs column, you can choose any of the following options:

  • Transfer Costs Only – This option transfers only the costs to be billed (where the quantity is set to 1) for further billing processes. If the cost equals zero, the items are not transferred for further billing.
  • Transfer Quantity Only – This option transfers only the quantities to be billed for further billing processes. If the quantity equals zero, the items are not transferred for further billing.
  • Transfer Costs and Quantity – This option transfers both costs and quantities to be billed for further billing processes.
  • For Costs <> 0: Transfer Costs and Quantity – This option transfers both costs and quantities to be billed for further billing processes (when the cost is not equal to zero).
  • For Quantity <> 0: Transfer Costs and Quantity – The option transfers both the costs and quantities to be billed for further billing processes (when the quantity is not equal to zero).

Material Determination Criteria

Additionally, you can add specific criteria that enables the material to be determined. You can use the following fields to define the material determination criteria:

  • Activity type
  • G/L account
  • Material

Based on the criteria you define for the material to be determined, the prices are determined accordingly and transferred for further billing processes.

However, if none of the material determination criteria defined matches with an incoming posting, then the material determination fails, and these costs are not transferred for further billing processes. It is therefore recommended to configure a fallback material determination. With Business Add-In (BAdI) PROJ_BIL_MODIFY_BDR_DATA, you can change the material tax classification of billing document requests triggered from the project billing solution.

Process Steps for Project Billing

  • Billing for Fixed Price Items
  • Billing for Time and Expense Items
  • Billing for Usage-Based Items
  • Billing for On Account Prepayment
  • Manage Workflows for Project Billing Requests
  • Schedule Repricing for Project

Prerequisites

For billing elements to appear in theManage Project Billing app, the following prerequisites must be met in the Create Customer Projects / Plan Customer Projects app:

  • The project must have the Use Project Billing setting set to Yes.
  • The stage of the customer project must be In Execution.
  • The billing items must have the contract type Time and Expenses, Fixed Price, Usage-Based or Periodic Services.
  • The billing items must also have at least one billing plan item defined in it. For Fixed Price items, the billing plan item specifies the amount and billing due date. For Time and Expenses and Usage-Based items, the billing plan item specifies the billing due date. For Periodic Services, the billing plan item specifies the amount, billing due date and the period of service.
Note
The billing elements of projects in stage Completed are also displayed in the Manage Project Billing app. You can prepare billing documents for projects in stage Completed in case the billing elements contain amounts that are not billed yet.

Billing for Fixed Price Item

Process StepDescription
Create Customer Project for Fixed Price ItemYou can create a Customer Project where you have maintained the Contract Type as Fixed Price assigned to a work package with the Amount and Billing Due Date.
Check Billing Element and Create Billing Document Request

By accessing the Manage Project Billing app, you can check the Unbilled, To be Billed, Billing in Process, and Billed amounts. You can subsequently create and submit a Billing Document Request using the Prepare Billing option.

One can navigate to the Prepare Billing screen and process fixed price billing items by including items with due dates in the past as well as items with due dates in the future

Create Customer InvoicingYou can create a billing document referencing to the Billing Document Request you created using the Project Billing.

Billing for Time and Expense Item

Process StepDescription
Check Sales Price (optional)Check/Change the sales price for the material of your selection.
Create Customer Project for Time and Expense ItemYou can create a Customer Project where you have maintained the Contract Type as Time and Expense assigned to a work package with the Amount and Billing Due Date.
Time Recording for Staffed ResourcesThe resources submit the timesheet as per the assignments and tasks.
Create Supplier Invoice for Travel ExpensesYou can choose to create supplier invoices for Travel Expenses.
Prepare Billing for Time and Expense items including Postponement and Write OffBy accessing the Manage Project Billing app, you can postpone or write off the To Be Billed and Time and Expense items. You can also re-include the postponed items. Subsequently, you can create the Billing Document Request.
Create Customer InvoicingYou can create a billing document referencing to the Billing Document Request you created using the Project Billing.

Billing for Usage-Based Item

Process StepDescription
Create Customer project with a Usage-Based itemYou can create a Customer Project where you have maintained the Contract Type as Usage-Based (example - license) assigned to a work package
Prepare Billing Document RequestBy accessing the Manage Project Billing app, you can find your project where your billing element is WBS and billing method is Usage-Based Billing for preparation of the Billing Document Request.
Submit the Billing Document RequestIn the New Project Billing Request screen, choose tab Usage Based Billing, and then the tab To Be Billed. Then select a line and choose Submit. You can also optionally choose to write off, postpone or defer after date.
Create Customer InvoicingYou can create a billing document referencing to the Billing Document Request you created using the Project Billing.

Billing for On Account Prepayment

Process StepDescription
Create Customer Project for Time and Expense ItemYou can create a Customer Project where you have maintained the Contract Type as Fixed Price assigned to a work package with the billing item which has a due date set up with the Item Usage type Payment on Account.
Time Recording for Staffed ResourcesThe resources submit the timesheet as per the assignments and tasks.
Billing for On Account PrepaymentBy accessing the Manage Project Billing app, you can choose On Account Prepayment. An On Account Prepayment is billed to your customer in advance for Time and Expenses contracts and reduces the amount posted to accounts receivables during billing. The Billing Document Request generated from this item is then referenced to create a billing document for the customer.

Manage Workflow for Project Billing Request

Process StepDescription
Manage Workflow for Project Billing RequestYou can configure different workflows to streamline the approval process for project billing requests. The Manage Workflow for Project Billing Request app provides multiple options for setting the approver and start conditions, and helps control and manage approval processes.

By default, approvers are notified via notifications in SAP Fiori Launchpad. You can also configure the system to notify approvers via email. 

Schedule Repricing for Projects

Process StepDescription
Schedule Repricing for ProjectsYou can schedule the recalculation of billing amounts whenever there is a change in the sales rates or material configuration using the Schedule Repricing for Projects app.

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