Describing Contract Accounts for Convergent Invoicing

The lesson provides an overview of the use of contract accounts and the relevant fields for convergent invoicing.

Before a document can be posted, a contract account must be assigned to a business partner.

A contract account can represent a receivable type. This is required for open item accounting within FI-CA. Therefore, a contract account is a unit that groups business partner postings.

The contract account category defines the following attributes:

• Whether you can assign one or more business partners to a contract account.

• Whether you can assign one or more contracts.

• Whether you can maintain a contract account online.

• The number range that is allowed for external or internal number assignments.

• Whether the account is a one-time account.

• The editing screens or data fields that you can use to edit the contract account.

The business partner's payment patterns are reflected in his/her creditworthiness.

The company code group includes all company codes that can be used to post to a contract account. One company code group is assigned to each contract account. Company code groups can overlap. For example, group G1 can consist of company codes 0001, 0002, and 0003, and group G2 can consist of company codes 0001 and 0003.

The Payment Term determines the due date and, in certain circumstances, the cash discount deadline.

The Account Determination ID is used for determining general ledger accounts.

The Tolerance Group defines limits for payment differences in the incoming payment.

The Alternative Invoice Recipient is a business partner who receives the invoice for due receivables instead of the contract partner.

The Collective Bill Account for the contract account is the master contract account in a contract account hierarchy, and also the recipient of the collective invoice.

The Invoicing Category is a key that references the contract account reference in invoicing. Together with the invoicing type and invoicing process, it controls the invoicing functions.

The Scheduling Characteristic is used in billing to determine the rule for determining the target date for billing a billable item. In invoicing, it is used to determine the rule for determining the target date for invoicing a source document.

The Billing Cycle is used in consume-to-cash integration with SAP Convergent Charging to synchronize recurring monthly fees with usage according to predefined billing periods. It can be used in scheduling to specify the billing date and the invoicing date.

The Individual Charges/Discounts Keys are defined for the contract account that controls the calculation of charges and discounts for this contract account in the invoice.

The payment term contains data for determining the due date and cash discount terms.

The payment conditions of general ledger accounting are referenced.

FI-CA supports the single-level cash discount procedure.

You can store different rules for determining the due date for credit and receivables.

The due date can automatically be corrected to a working day in connection with the factory calendar.

You can use transaction FPP4 todo the following:

• Create new bank details (determine a new bank ID for event 1053).

• Change or delete existing bank details.

• Create new payment cards (determine a new payment ID for event 1054).

• Change or delete existing payment card details and create customer contacts.

• Print confirmation letters.

• Control follow-up actions (such as dunning reversal and reversal of locks).

• Make further changes to a contract account (event 1083).

Transaction FPP4 makes it considerably easier to change business partner-related bank data. For example, the Maintain Payment Data transaction enables you to change the bank details of a customer who wants to pay by direct debit instead of cash. The information is changed in the BP master record and in dependent objects at the same time.

You can use a flexible set of rules to control follow-up actions such as the reversal of dunnings.

If you set the Create Bank ID indicator in the client-specific settings in customizing, you can determine a new bank details ID for the relevant business partner at event 1053.

If you set the Create Credit Card ID indicator in the client-specific settings in customizing, you can determine a new payment card ID for the relevant business partner at event 1054.

With a function module processed in event 1083, you can make further changes to the contract account when you save the data. In this event, you can change the Planning Group field in the contract account if a customer wants to pay by direct debit instead of cash.

Customizing: Financial Accounting (New) → Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable

→ Organizational Units.

→ Basic Functions.

→ Open Item Management.

→ Contract Accounts.

→ Postings and Documents

When Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable is integrated in an industry add-on, the industry in question must be activated (in the application area).

The overviews of the customizing activities in this unit are only part of the IMG.

Customizing settings for the (central) business partner are located under Cross-Application Components.