Exploring the Architecture of Convergent Invoicing (CITs and BITs, (Re)-Rating, Billing, Invoicing)

The Cloud Selection Service offers a "single transaction price model" for CPU and a "scaled price model for bandwidth." The price model for bandwidth requires a deferred rating, where all bandwidth consumption is collected for one month and the total minutes are calculated to determine the appropriate tariff. The monthly volume of bandwidth usage is then summarized at the end of the month to determine the scaled price.

If there is a delay in entering bandwidth usage data or if outdated prices for bandwidth usage are used, it will be necessary to perform a re-rating of consumption items.

A Billable Item (BIT) is a priced event transaction record that is generated by a source system and received by SAP Convergent Invoicing. It is then stored, processed, and applied to a customer or partner statement of invoice. This process serves as the starting point in SAP S/4HANA.

Usage Based transactions occur when a customer uses a service and the usage generates a transaction which should be charged to a customer and/or a provider, for example:

• CPU or RAM usage (0,035 Euro per CPU hour)
• Voice calls (0,2 Euro per minute international)

Recurring Charge or Subscription transactions occur when a customer subscribes to a service and pays a fixed amount at agreed intervals (daily, monthly, quarterly, and so on) for the duration of the contracted service, for example: Monthly fees for Cloud Selection Service (Basic Fee 1.000 Euro, SLA Gold 3.000 Euro)

One Time Charged transactions occur when a customer purchases a product or service and a single charge needs to be invoiced, for example: One time Account Set Up: Activation Fee 399 Euro

Scaled Price Models

Aggregate all bandwidth consumption for one month, and calculate the total minutes to determine the appropriate pricing tier. For example, RAM usage volume is summarized monthly to determine the tiered pricing.

Aggregating Consumption Items before Rating

For example, RAM usage consumption items are aggregated on a daily basis before being rated.

Creating and storing partner consumption items from billable items as input for partner rating

For example, if the IT department uses a software integrated into a cloud service, the cloud service provider must share the license fee for the software with the owner of the intellectual property.

Storing rated items for potential re-rating

If there is a discrepancy in pricing, consumption items can be re-rated to correct the pricing determination process. Reversing billable and billed items and re-rating is supported within BRIM processes.

If any of these use cases are relevant in the business process, the use of consumption items in the system architecture is justified.

Here are some business scenarios for data storage of consumption items:

• Link rated consumption items and billable items, and connect the consumption source to the corresponding price.
• Display the basis of ratings on customer invoices to maintain consistency in the invoicing system.
• Utilize an additional hierarchy level to reference consumption items that contribute to billable items.
• Enable an option for aggregating data.
• Include structured consumption item information on the invoice.
• Address any corrections needed for consumption items in the Convergent Invoicing Correction Workbench.
• Manually input consumption data in Convergent Invoicing.
• Aggregate consumption items before rating to reduce the volume of billable items.

To decrease the number of billable items, consumption items are categorized based on provider contract and consumption date into different groups. The aggregation rule calculates daily minutes and maintains the monthly total. This results in a reduction from nine aggregated Consumption Items before Rating to three billable items in February, equating to one billable item per day with consumption per contract.

1. Select relevant consumption items based on the rating from date.
2. Aggregate consumption items based on provider contract and consumption date (simple date without timestamp).
3. Trigger the rating process in Convergent Charging through a web service linked to the rating group of the consumption item.
4. Transfer the consumption item from the unrated to the rated table in the database.
5. Generate billable items.
6. Optional: Establish a link between the consumption items and the created billable items.

In Convergent Invoicing, the aggregation and enhancement of consumption items are utilized in deferred rating scenarios to reduce:

• Database utilization in SAP Convergent Invoicing
• Network traffic between SAP Convergent Invoicing and SAP Convergent Charging
• Rating transactions in SAP Convergent Charging

This results in a decrease in billable items, technical resources, and costs for customers with a high volume of consumption data records.

To facilitate the re-rating of usage based consumption, the introduction of consumption items (CITs) is a mandatory requirement. The following are the steps involved in the rerating scenario:

• Step (1): Restore counters and allowances, and reset the activation date of recurring charges in SAP Convergent Charging.
• Step (2): Reverse billable items.
• Step (3): Compensate billed items.
• Step (4): (Re)rate consumption items and reinitiate recurring charges in SAP Convergent Charging.
• Step (5): Send new priced items to SAP Convergent Invoicing

It is important to note that the rerating process must be initiated through re-rating requests to ensure the inclusion of SAP Convergent Charging in the re-rating process.

The BRIM solution offers end-to-end document flow, linking consumption data to G/L posting and conversely to ensure transparency in the rating, billing, and invoicing processes within the system. Documents can be aggregated at the start of each process step to streamline processing volume without interrupting the full document flow.