Billing Plan Definition
- Source for non usage-based Billable Items (BIT):
- BIT for One-Time Activation Charge.
- BIT for Recurring Subscription Charge with Reference to Billing Cycle (Monthly, Quarterly, Yearly).
- BIT for Down Payment Request for Advance Payment.
- Billing Plan Request triggers Billable Item Creation.
The BIT from a BIP can be billed together with usage-based BIT from other sources.
Besides pay-per-use price models, the providers also offer subscriptions with recurring charges, such as a monthly music download flat rate. The billing plan can be used to define the amount of these kind of charges.
The end-to-end process using billing plans starts with the billing plan creation either for one-time or recurring charges or a combination of both. The request of a billing plan results in the creation of billable items. The steps that follow are known: the creation of billing documents and the subsequent creation of invoice- and contract accounting documents.
The billing plan uses the following data to create billable items for non usage-based charges.
The Amount can be defined absolutely or determined via SAP Sales pricing.
The Valid Time Period can be extended any time as long as the subscription is not canceled.
The Fee Generation defines interval and period to generate the amount based on billing cycle.
The Billing Date is the date, when the billable item can be billed the earliest. For example, the end or beginning of a period is always the same day, the 20th of a month.
The Exceptions define discounts or surcharges for a specific period. For example, if customer is always in vacation and will not use the product/service.
The billing plan processing starts with the billing plan header creation either with reference only to business partner and contract account or additionally to a provider contract.
The next step is the billing plan item creation with two different options:
- BIP items of the type One-Off create only one BIT.
- BIP items of the type Recurring create many BIT according to period and billing cycle.
Before a new billing plan can be used productive the status must be changed from Processing to Released. Status management exists on Billing Plan Header level and on Billing Plan Item level. Other statuses are Completed and Discarded.
The final step in billing plan (BIP) processing is the billing plan item request which results in the creation of billable items (BIT). The billing plan item request can either be executed individually or in a mass run. The request history of the billing plan shows the billable items created for each billing plan item.
The SAP Fiori App Manage Billing Plan allows to create, change and display a billing plan.
The SAP Fiori App Request Billing Plan Items Business Partner allows the request of billing plan items for one or more business partners and the subsequent immediate billing of the generated BIT in dialog mode.
The SAP Fiori App Request Billing Plan Items Mass Run allows the scheduling of a background job to request a high volume of billing plan items.