Performing Billing Process Configuration for Selection, Grouping, and Aggregation

At the conclusion of this lesson, you will understand how to customize billable item data selection, groupings into billing units, and aggregation into billing item types.

Several customizing steps are necessary to run the billing process. In this lesson we go step by step through our business example to understand why the system selects and groups billable items as it did in the business example.

You want to distinguish between billing documents that belong to periodic billing and billing documents that arise due to contract termination (final billing documents). This distinction is made using the billing type.

For final billing documents, you want to add additional informational items that are not relevant for posting.

Billing types are mandatory. You have to assign a billing type to each billing process at the level of the subprocess.

Business Example:

Print Service Corporation has private customers and commercial customers. Both groups receive invoices with different lists and different printouts.

Therefore, Print Service Corporation categorizes contract accounts into two groups:

• Private Customer

• Commercial Customer

Master data and the invoicing category influence both the billing and invoicing process.

You can define an invoicing category in customizing to sort contract accounts into different categories. In customizing, choose Financial Accounting (New) → Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable → Convergent Invoicing → Invoicing → Invoicing Processes → Define Invoicing Categories.

For our business example, Print Service Corporation defines category YN01 for Residential Customer and YN03 for Business Customer.

You enter the invoicing categories in the master record of the contract account and use them for a finer control of invoicing.

You can use the invoicing category in billing and invoicing to fine-tune the billing and invoicing process flow. You enter the invoicing categories in the master record of the contract account.

There is no billing category. The invoicing category is used for the billing process as well as for the invoicing process.

You can assign different billing types and grouping variants to different invoicing categories, but this is optional.

The invoicing category can also be used to fine-tune invoice processing and printing.

The billing process specifies which subprocesses it supports. For each subprocess, the billing process specifies the following:

• Which contract accounts are billed

• Which billable items are selected for billing (selection)

• How the billable items are grouped into billing units and, as a consequence, how they are grouped into billing documents (grouping)

In addition, the billing process classifies billing documents from a business and accounting perspective by means of the billing types assigned to it.

In billing, the billing process can help you control the aggregation of billable items by means of a grouping variant.

You can create new billing processes in customizing for contract accounts receivable and payable under Convergent Invoicing → Billing → Billing Processes → Define Billing Processes.

It is possible to modify the result of the data selection with the event 8112. In the function modules that are processed at event 8112, you can check the selection scope and reduce it if necessary.

Customizing IMG → Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable → Integration → Billing in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable → Billing Processes → Define Billing Processes.

Selection Variant:

The selection variant specifies which billable item classes the billable items are selected from, and also which billable items are processed in the billing process.

You can refine the selection further by specifying the billable item type and source transaction type for each billable item class. When doing so, you can also specify that certain individual values of these attributes are included or excluded from the selection.

The configuration also enables you to enter combinations of values of the attributes mentioned.

Business example for data selection variant:

1. Select billable Items of billable item class PBLW and PCOL.

2. From billable item class PCOL, select billable item type TEL1 or TEL2 with source transaction unequal 01.

Customizing IMG → Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable → Integration → Billing in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable → Billing Processes → Define Selection Variants.

Solution:

Define a selection variant VAR4. Assign billable item class PBLW and define two sequences for PCOL.

For the first sequence for PCOL, select TEL1.

For the second sequence, select TEL2 and exclude source transaction 01.

The selection number is used when you configure the selection variant for billable items. It is used so that for each billable item class, you can enter multiple valid combinations of billable item types and source transaction types for billable items.

Assume that multiple values have been entered for the billable item type for one sequence number of the selection. In this case, the system links these values in the selection statement using a logical or condition. The same applies for the source transaction type.

If there are combined selection specifications in the selection statement, then the system links the billable item types and source transaction types with a logical and condition. This is assuming that they have the same sequence number of the selection. If they have different sequence numbers, then the system links them using a logical or condition.

In making this decision, the system interprets the sequence number only within one billable item class.

You can find the customizing for selection variants under Customizing Implementation Guide → Financial Accounting (New) → Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable → Convergent Invoicing → Billing → Billing Processes → Define Selection Variants.

Due to the defined data selection variant VAR4, the three billable item types are not selected for billing process BiDA and billing subprocess BSDA.

When more than one billable item is processed during billing of a contract account, it can be advantageous not to process these billable items in one common billing document. Instead, companies often want to group items together based on specific criteria (such as a common currency or a common billing period). The system then needs to create a separate billing document for each of these groups.

Grouping separate billable items into different billing units.

Grouping variants are not necessary, you can retain the system default.

Billing in contract accounts receivable and payable provides this function in the form of billing units. A billing unit groups together all billable items that are to be processed together during billing and for which the system creates a common billing document.

The system can create billing units automatically using the rules for grouping control that are entered for the billing process. In addition, you can influence the creation of billing units manually in the processing dialog for billing.

In customizing for contract accounts receivable and payable, choose Billing in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable → Convergent Invoicing → Billing → Billing Processes → Define Grouping Variants.

Customizing IMG- → Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable → Integration → Billing in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable → Billing Processes → Define Grouping Variants.

Exception for billing in dialog in expert mode:

The billing units created are offered for selection in a dialog box.

You can find the customizing for grouping variants under Financial Accounting (New) → Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable → Convergent Invoicing → Billing → Billing Processes → Define Grouping Variants.

Customizing IMG → Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable → Integration → Billing in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable → Billing Processes → Assign Billing Item Type.

In this customizing activity, you define how grouping variants are determined for controlling the aggregation of billable items in billing.

The grouping variant mentioned here controls the link between the billable items and the items of the billing document (aggregation of billable items). You can define the granularity of this linkage. It can range from a 1:1 relationship between the individual billable items and the related billing document items to the blanket assignment of all billable items in a billing document to all billing document items.

With the default setting, billable items where all the relevant fields are identical are merged.

Again, the grouping criteria have to be seen as split criteria.

For billable item class PBLW, we split along the BIT date (this is the date of the origin of the billable Item).

The result is different for billable items with different BIT dates.

Customizing IMG → Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable → Integration → Billing in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable → Billing Processes → Assign Billing Item type.

You assign the billing item type of the item in the billing document to the attributes subprocess and item types of the billable item.

By making this assignment, you are able to represent the business meaning of the billable item by the item type of the billing document item, so that it is available in invoicing and for printing the invoice.

IMG: Financial Accounting (New) → Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable → Convergent Invoicing → Billing → Billing Processes → Define Billing Item Types.

IMG: Financial Accounting (New) → Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable → Convergent Invoicing → Billing → B illing Processes → Assign Billing Item Types.

In these activities, you define and assign the billing item type of the item in the billing document to the attributes subprocess and item type of the billable item.

First, define number ranges for billing documents by specifying the upper and lower limit in customizing under Financial Accounting (New) → Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable → Convergent Invoicing → Billing → Billing Documents → Maintain Number Ranges for Billing Documents. You cannot use external number assignment. The billing document numbers are exclusively numerical. For number assignment, the system distinguishes between individual processing and mass processing.

The name of the number range for individual processing must begin with a number between 1 and 9. The name of the number range for mass processing must begin with a letter (A - Z).

Define the billing types and assign them to number ranges in customizing under Financial Accounting (New) → Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable → Convergent Invoicing → Billing → Billing Documents → Maintain Document Types and Assign Number Ranges.

In the third step, you define the determination of document types for the billing documents for posting area 8110 (Financial Accounting (New) → Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable → Convergent Invoicing → Billing → Billing Documents → Assign Document Types). We recommend that you assign different document types to actual billing documents, reversal documents, and simulation documents.