Explaining Invoice Agreements and Invoice List Agreements

With the master agreement in place it is now possible to bring billable items of several provider contracts and different business partners on one invoice or additionally, create an invoice List. The master agreement is enhanced with an invoice agreement or invoice list agreement.

For invoice creation control parameters of the provider contract as well as the contract account are taken into account.

Billable items are processed depending on the provider contract and contract account they are assigned to. This is determined by which invoice the billable items end up on.

In the example above, business partner 100 has a contract account 10 and three provider contracts. Depending on the control parameters in the contract account as well as the provider contract, three invoices are created in the end and that is one invoice per provider contract.

Additionally, business partner 400 receives a separate invoice for their contract account 40 and provider contract 4.

With the master agreement in place it is now possible to bring billable items of several provider contracts and different business partners on one invoice.

The processing of billable items checks whether a master agreement has to be considered for the given billable items. The check is performed based on the validity area of an agreement of the master agreement. The validity area can be defined based on any field of the billable items.

Billable items which do not qualify for a master agreement will be processed according to the provider contract.

In the above example, you can see that some of the billable items of provider contract 1 and 2 have been put together onto one combined invoice. The same is true for some of the billable items of provider contract 2 and 3. Additionally, all the billable items of business partner 400 will be put on one invoice with some of the billable items of provider contract 3.

This can be achieved because it is possible to slice the given billable items depending on the given validity areas of the invoice agreements. The slicing cannot only be done vertically (within the given master data objects) but also horizontally (across different master data objects).

Some billable items of contract 1 do not qualify for the master agreement and thus, are put on a separate invoice which is created according to the control parameters of the provider contract.

In an integrated scenario CRM focuses on the ordering side of a master agreement, ERP focuses on the billing side.

For this, different types of agreements within the master agreement can be created.

For a more convenient maintenance of the agreements area of validity, it is possible to define business partner and product groups. By those groups the single records are bundled together and can be assigned to an agreement more easily (instead of entering each entry separately, which can become quite cumbersome).

The agreements are built up out of a rules part and an area of validity part. The rules part is specific for each type of agreement. It outlines what has to be done when a billable qualifies for an agreement (for example, the rules part of an invoice agreement tells who the invoice recipient is). The area of validity specifies the conditions under which the rules are applied. The conditions can be set up based on business partners, products and further selections based on filters and function modules.

The list above explains the major parameter of the invoice agreement.

An invoicing list is a summary of multiple invoices or parts of invoices in the form of additional correspondence.

Business Example

Once a month, the group headquarters receives a summary of all invoices that were sent to its subsidiaries.

You make the following entries in an agreement for the creation of invoicing lists: Recipient of the invoicing list

Specify a business partner number. For technical reasons, a contract account number is also required. However, the system determines the contract account number automatically.

Since the creation of the invoicing list is a function of invoicing, the following entries are also required

• The invoicing category, which is itself a part of the control parameters (similar to the situation for invoice creation).

• The billing cycle, which specifies the intervals in which invoicing lists are created.

For invoicing lists, you cannot restrict the validity areas by products or by other general criteria (filters and function modules). You can restrict the selection to certain business partners. You can also restrict the selection to certain invoice agreements.

The invoicing of the original billing documents checks if these contracts are relevant for an invoicing list and creates an additional invoice source document of the category SUBIN as a result of the invoicing process.

The source document, SUBIN carries the information to whom the invoicing list shall be sent.

The source document is processed by an invoice process with the activated invoice function invoicing list, SUBINV_LIST.

If invoices are sent out in a decentralized way but the headquarters want to have an overview, additional invoicing lists can be used for this. They are similar to an invoice copy but can also be set up in such a way that only final amounts are displayed and not billable items. They can be dependent on business partners as well as invoice agreements.

The agreements are built up out of two parts. These include:

• A rules part

• An area of validity

The rules part is specific for each type of agreement. It tells what has to be done when a billable qualifies for an agreement (for example, the rules part of an invoice agreement tells who the invoice recipient is). The area of validity specifies the conditions under which the rules are applied. The conditions can be set up based on business partners, products and further selections based on filters and function modules.

Simple filter:

Choose Telecommunications → Business Master Data → For Integration with Rating and Charging → Master Agreement → Change Filter.

With regard to their structure, there are two different types of filters:

1. Simple Filters:

   Simple filters contain selection conditions, similar to those you are familiar with from reporting. A billable item or a contract partner qualifies if it fulfills the selection conditions.

   You can create simple filters in the production system or in the customizing system and use them in any agreements of a master agreement.

   Choose Accounting → Financial Accounting → Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable → Master Data → For Integration with Rating and Charging → Master Agreement → Edit Filter (Transaction FP_Filter2).

2. Compound Filters:

   You can create compound filters using simple filters and function modules.

   A compound filter selects a billable item or contract partner if one of the following conditions is fulfilled:

   • A billable item or contract partner fulfills at least one selection condition of a simple filter contained in the complex filter.

   • A function module selects a billable item or a contract item.

   If a compound filter also contains excluding filters or function modules, an item or a contract partner fulfills the selection conditions only if none of the exclusion criteria is also fulfilled.

   You can create compound filters only in the customizing system. In defining compound filters, you can only use simple filters that were also created in the customizing system. You use compound filters in discount agreements.

   Choose Financial Accounting (New) → Contract Accounts Receivable → Basic Functions → Master Agreement → Define Filters for billable Items.

The following transactions are relevant for filter maintenance:

• FQ_FILTER: Maintenance of simple general and compound filters as part of the customizing.

• FP_FILTER3: Display of simple, general and compound filters created in the customizing as well as the productive system.

• FP_FILTER2: Maintenance of simple general filters.

• FP_MA1/FP_MA2: Environment → Additional Environment → Maintain Filters: Maintenance of business partner specific filters.

Test of filter is possible for master Agreement:

Choose Accounting → Financial Accountings → Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable → Master Data → For Integration with Rating and Charging → Master Agreement → Utilities → Test data for Filters (Transaction: FP_MA_TEST).