Setting Up Billing Plans

The following figure provides an overview of a billing plan:

When processing an order, instead of storing a single billing date, you can store a detailed billing plan with several billing dates in the sales document at item level.

You can also define a billing plan at header level. This plan is then valid for all items assigned to it. These header billing plans are assigned to sales document types.

Periodic billing is often used for rental and service agreements in order to bill the full amount periodically at certain dates.

Milestone billing is often used in plant engineering and construction in order to spread billing of the full amount over several dates within a billing plan.

Depending on the business transaction you are processing, the system will automatically propose one of the two billing plan types.

The following figure gives an overview of periodic billing:

Periodic billing can be used, for example, for transactions involving rental contracts.

The contract data stored in the system can then be used as the basis for creating the billing plan.

The start and end dates define the duration of the billing plan. If possible, they are taken from the contract data. If the duration is unlimited, you may decide not to set an end date. In this case, new dates can be extended to the horizon (the horizon specifies the number of settlement periods that are set in the billing plan).

You can create new dates either directly in the billing plan or by using the report RVFPLA01. You should schedule the report to run at regular intervals because new dates are not compiled automatically when you bill individual settlement periods.

You can use the billing dates to determine when and how often billing is carried out, for example, on the first day or the last day of every month.

The following figure gives an overview of milestone billing:

During milestone billing, the total value to be billed is distributed among the individual dates according to certain rules. You can enter as many dates per billing plan as you require. Billing plan dates can be blocked for billing.

Changes that occur (for example, to the amounts) after you have created certain milestone billing documents are distributed among the remaining billing plan dates. The amount remaining to be retro-billed for the billing documents already created is included in the final invoice.

The system creates an entry in the billing index for each billing date. This means that you will find an entry in the billing index for this milestone billing at the time of the billing date specified. In this case, billing is carried out as order-related.

When you create a billing document, the system updates the status of the billing plan dates. Dates that have already been billed can no longer be changed in the billing plan. You can display existing billing documents using the document flow.

The following figure outlines a billing plan with a link to milestone billing:

A typical example of milestone billing is the billing of projects in plant engineering and construction. Such projects often include a series of milestones, which represent the completion of various stages of a project.

In SAP S/4HANA, milestones are stored in a network along with planned and actual project data. Milestones are assigned to the billing plan dates, and are blocked for billing until you confirm the milestone as completed.

In a milestone billing plan, you can now control the following about a billing date:

• Whether it is a fixed date.
• Whether the billing date should be updated with the actual date of the milestone.
• Whether the billing date is updated with the actual date of the milestone, if production is completed before the planned billing date.

The following figure outlines how to determine billing value:

A billing rule can be created for each billing plan date. This rule defines how the value to be billed on a particular date is determined. This allows you to define, for example, whether a fixed amount or a percentage of the total amount is to be billed. The system can also determine whether the amount to be billed counts as a final invoice for which unbilled dates must also be taken into account.

Within pricing condition records are created for special condition types, for which monthly prices can be defined (when dealing with rental costs, for example). This allows the value to be billed month by month.