Integrating SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management and SAP Revenue Accounting and Reporting

As a SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management consultant, you want to verify the correctness of an existing SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management to SAP Revenue Accounting and Reporting integration. You check the settings in customizing and the transfer records available in the system to understand better the system setup.

As a SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management consultant, you want to verify the correctness of an existing SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management to SAP Revenue Accounting and Reporting integration. You check the settings in customizing and the transfer records available in the system to understand better the system setup.

The integration between Convergent Invoicing and SAP Revenue Accounting and Reporting requires configuration in both modules:

• SAP Revenue Accounting and Reporting
• SAP Convergent Invoicing

Within the end-to-end process the integration between SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management and SAP Revenue Accounting and Reporting uses Convergent Invoicing in the S/4HANA system exclusively as a data source. Convergent Invoicing sends all required data to SAP Revenue Accounting and Reporting. This ensures IFRS 15/US-GAAP conformity for scenarios in which customer contracts are entered in a non-SAP CRM.

As part of the Offer-to-Cash processes, Convergent Invoicing records transfer records for SAP Revenue Accounting and Reporting. On the basis of these transfer records, Convergent Invoicing creates revenue accounting items in inbound processing of SAP Revenue Accounting and Reporting.

The system differentiates between these revenue accounting item types (RAIs):

• Order-Items
• Fulfillment-Items
• Invoice-Items

• Inbound processing (Optimized version; feature is available with SAP S/4HANA 2020)
  • In the new (non-classic) version of Revenue Accounting Inbound Processing there is only one generic input structure for RAIs, no maintenance of RAI classes in customizing is needed
  • FARR_INBOUND_CA_ORDER_API for order items
  • FARR_INBOUND_CA_FULFILMENT_API for fulfillment items
  • FARR_INBOUND_CA_INVOICE_API for invoice items
  • If needed, you can use BRF+ framework to control how attributes for revenue accounting contracts and performance obligations are determined using the data of source items received from the sender component. Then you assign your BRF+ application to the sender component CA
• Inbound processing (Classic Version) – Maintain Revenue accounting item classes
  • CA01 for order items
  • CA02 for fulfillment items
  • CA03 for invoice items
• Define the logical system and the RFC destination for communicating with the system in which SAP Convergent Invoicing is running (transaction SM59).
• Assign the logical system and the RFC destination to the sender component CA. Maintain the condition type for the standalone selling price in Customizing for SAP Revenue Accounting and Reporting.
• Basic customizing for Contract Management (Optimized or classic version).

• Activate the business function Integration with Revenue Accounting.
• In Customizing for Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable under Basic Functions → Provider Contract → Define Change Reasons for Provider Contract Items, enter the change reasons for the change to the provider contract.
• You must make the following settings in Customizing for Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable under Integration → Revenue Accounting:
  • Activate integration with Revenue Accounting
  • Define the RFC destination for communicating with the system in which Revenue Accounting is running (transaction SM59).
  • Define the derivation of the Relevant for Revenue Accounting indicator of the contract item in the Activate Provider Contract Items for Revenue Accounting activity.
  • Maintain the service types (The service type is the classification of the service to be billed with regard to its revenue account assignment.)
  • In the Assign Service IDs to Service Types activity, define the settings for deriving the service types of a provider contract or a one-off charge from the CRM Service ID.
  • Define number ranges for the Revenue Accounting item ID.
• Define the specifications for determination of the service type for Revenue Accounting by using the item category or the material account assignment group, or a combination of both.

  The customizing node is here: FICAIMG → Integration → SAP Customer Relationship Management → Transfer for One-Off Charges → Define Main Transactions and Sub Transactions.

The following interface components for billable item classes are available in order to support the integration between Convergent Invoicing and SAP Revenue Accounting and Reporting:

• Service Types for Revenue Account Assignment

  This component makes the Service Type field available in the interface for transferring billable items. Alternatively you can determine the Service Type in posting area 8121.

• Integration with Revenue Accounting

  This component makes fields available that you can use for transferring required data to SAP Revenue Accounting and Reporting available in the interface for transferring billable items.

• Integration with Revenue Accounting (External Data Transfer)

  This component is used, if you deal with items without having a reference to a provider contract.

• External Provider Contract Reference

Based on the customizing settings in your system, S/4 Hana generates order items for SAP RAR, when you create or change provider contracts. The item type for order items is CAOI - Order Item (Contract Item).

For each contract item affected by a change, the system generates at least one order item for Revenue Accounting. Each order item consists of a main item and dependent conditions. The conditions consist of a condition for the total transaction price, and, if a standalone selling price is entered in the item, a condition for the total standalone selling price. From Customizing, the system determines the service type for recurring charges, as well as the condition types.

Event 8204 can be used for the calculation of total amounts on transfer records based on prices per recurrence period and runtime of provider contract items.

It’s called once for price determination per transfer record representing a recurring fee.

Event 8205 is called once per provider contract update. You can use it for adaptation of the order item transfer records that are proposed by standard.

When billable items for one-off charges are transferred, the system generates transfer records for SAP RAR. The item type for order items for one-off charges is CAOO - Order Item (One-Off Charge).

The system derives whether a billable item is a one-off charge that is relevant for Revenue Accounting from the service type you assign to the billable item.

Convergent Invoicing supports integration scenarios without usage of provider contracts. In such a scenario, you use the Integration with Revenue Accounting (external data transfer) interface component (REVENUE_ACCX) to create order items, fulfillment items and invoice items from billable items. This interface component contains the fields relevant for Revenue Accounting:

• Relevant for Revenue Accounting (RAREL); in this scenario set this flag during inbound processing of the billable items.
• Revenue Accounting Item Type (RA_ITEM_TYPE); usually derived by using posting area 8121.
• Original Item Type (RA_ORITY); specifies the type of the original item, for one-off charges and Order items from external systems always CAOX is used.
• Original Item ID (RA_ORIID); specifies the ID of the original item in the source system.
• Revenue Accounting Reference Type (RAI_REFTYPE); The Offer-to-Cash scenario (O2C) uses reference type PO (provider order).
• Revenue Accounting Reference ID (RA_REFID); the reference ID, together with the reference type in Revenue Accounting, acts as a means of grouping for the generation of revenue accounting contracts.

The system creates the order items as soon as you load a billable item in Convergent Invoicing. The generated order items have the item type CAOX - Order Item (External system).

Performance obligations in SAP RAR can be fulfilled either on a time basis or an event basis.

Consumption-based services are fulfilled on an event basis and refer to the Consumption fulfillment event. The S/4HANA system generates transfer records for fulfillment items by aggregating the billable items for rated consumption. The item type for fulfillment items is CAFI – Fulfillment item.

When loading billable items, the system generates fulfillment transfer records on the billable item level and stores these in table DFKKBIXBIT_RAI.

The fulfillment items are transferred using the mass activity for transferring to Revenue Accounting (transaction FP_RAI_TRANSF). This does not generate fulfillment items for each billable item, but aggregates the fulfillment transfer records on billable item level before transfer. This creates a transfer record for each aggregate. This is enriched with the Revenue Accounting item ID and is stored in table DFKKRA_RAI_MI. This reduces the volume of data for the fulfillment items to be transferred. Afterwards, the mass activity forwards the fulfillment items to Revenue Accounting. Aggregation and transfer can be executed in the same run, or you can also execute aggregation and transfer in separate runs.

Event 8208 is called once per BIT during billable item upload, it can be used for adjustment of fulfillment transfer records on level of billable items (table DFKKBIXBIT_RAI).

Based on the customizing settings of the system, invoicing generates transfer records for invoice items corresponding to invoicing document items that are relevant for revenue accounting. The item type for invoice items is CAII – Invoice item.

Whether the invoicing document item is relevant is determined on the basis of the provider contract item in combination with the configuration of the service type that is assigned to the invoicing document item.

Event 8207 it’s used to adjust invoice item transfer records that are proposed by standard; for example you can adapt exchange rates for amounts in local currencies. It’s called per invoicing document and provider contract item.

Event 8209 can be used to split one main item into multiple main items, or you can prevent an item to be transferred to SAP Revenue Accounting and Reporting.

By using the monitor for transfer records, you can analyze and display the information provided or to be provided to SAP Revenue Accounting and Reporting.

The monitor is available in your SAP Fiori launchpad, the name of the app is Display Transfer Records - Revenue Accounting (corresponding back-end transaction FP_RAI_MON).

In the app you can use different criteria for selection, for example, the transfer status, master data attributes or data classification.

You use a mass activity to transfer records created by Convergent Invoicing to Revenue Accounting. During the transfer, revenue accounting items are created in Revenue Accounting.

The app Transfer to Revenue Accounting is available in your launchpad (corresponding back-end transaction FP_RAI_TRANSF).

Before you execute the mass run, you have to configure the run as follows:

• Set the Run ID
• Define the level of processing.
• Aggregate Transfer Records:
  • This setting aggregates billable items into fulfillment transfer records.
  • Create Revenue Accounting Item: When this setting is active, the mass run calls the function module in SAP RAR for the creation of the RAIs.
• Define the selection criteria.

The mass activity selects the transfer records not yet transferred and reports them to SAP RAR. The objects are processed in this order:

• Transfer Records for Order Items from Provider Contracts, One-Time Charges, and External Systems. During generation, the system uses the time stamp of the revenue accounting item to check if an older version exists that was not yet transferred. If there is an older version, the system takes only the newest version into account.
• Transfer Records for Fulfillment Items. To reduce the volume of data, the system aggregates billable items to be registered into transfer records during a preliminary step (Processing level Aggregate Transfer Records).
• Transfer Records for Invoice Items.