Working with Preliminary Billing Documents

Note

See what Carla has to say about preliminary billing documents:

Note

An example: a customer receives a preliminary billing document to verify that both parties are aligned regarding how a certain professional service that a company has provided, is to be billed. The customer points out an inconsistency in the pricing. The delivering company agrees and changes a pricing condition in the preliminary billing document. The (final) billing document can then be created and sent to the customer, safe in the knowledge that both parties are fully aligned regarding the upcoming settlement of the invoice.

Preliminary billing documents are structured identically to standard billing documents. While the header contains general data that is valid for the entire billing document, each subsequent line represents an individual billing item and contains data that applies to that particular item. Header and item fields are identical to those found in a standard billing document.

The billing type can be used to indicate what type of billing document is created when a preliminary billing document is converted to a standard billing document.

Note

To make use of preliminary billing documents in an SAP S/4HANA system, the business function Functionality for Preliminary Billing Documents (SD_BIL_PRELIMBILLINGDOC) must be activated in Customizing.

Since SAP S/4HANA release 2022, you can set a billing date for a billing document that you create from a preliminary billing document in the Manage Preliminary Billing Documents app and the Schedule Billing Creation for Preliminary Billing Documents app. If you don’t set a billing date, the billing date is copied from the preceding preliminary billing document to the billing document.