Managing Usage-Based Billable Items

The CIT is an event transaction record which is generated in- and uploaded from technical source systems such as mediation engines.

The CIT is generated when customer consume services and therefore it contains source information about these services.

The CIT must be rated as a result of which a Billable Item (BIT) is created.

The BIT is a rated event transaction record which is generated in- and uploaded from rating source systems such as SAP Subscription Billing.

The BIT is managed in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Contract Accounting and Invoicing.

The BIT is the basis for billing and invoice creation for customer and partner and therefore it contains at least information about business partner, amount and source transaction.

Billable Item Usage-Based

• Parcel Shipment (Cent per Size and Weight).
• Print Service (Cent per Coloured Pages).
• Voice Calls (Cent per Minute).

Billable Item Recurring Charge-Based

• Monthly Subscription Fee for Cloud Service.
• Quarterly Subscription Fee for Car Fleet Maintenance.

Billable Item One-Time Charge-Based

• One-Time Account Activation Charge.
• One-Time Installation Charge.

The BIT can result by usage-based transactions, which occur when a customer uses a service and the usage generates a transaction which is charged to a customer or provider.

The BIT can result by recurring charge-based transactions, which occur when a customer subscribes to a service and pays a fixed amount at agreed intervals (monthly, quarterly).

The BIT can result by one-time charge-based transactions, which occur when a customer purchases a product or service and a single charge needs to be invoiced.

The BIT resulting by charge-based transactions are distinct from the BIT resulting by usage-based transactions in that there is no measurement of usage required.

The CIT and BIT class determines technical attributes such as:

• Data Structures for detailed Consumption (CIT) and Billing (BIT) Information.
• Database Tables for CIT and BIT Data Storage.
• Function Modules for CIT and BIT Upload.
• Enhancement Exits for Customer-Specific Fields and Logic.

SAP provides template CIT and BIT classes both named 0SAP.

The BIT data structures should provide the following information for billing and invoicing.

• Master Data such as Business Partner, Contract Account and Provider Contract.
• Organizational Data such as Company Code, Segment and Controlling Object.
• Accounting Data such as Main Transaction, Sub Transaction and Account Determination.
• Consumption and Rating Data such as Quantity, Price, Amount, Tax and Currency.
• Business Data such as BIT Class, BIT Category and Billing Process.
• Source Data such as Source System, Source Transaction and Date of Origin.
• Payment Data such as Payment Card Number or Bank Account and Payment Amount.
• Administration Data such as Status, Posting Relevant and Print Relevant.

The BIT can have various statuses. The billing process considers only those billable items that have the status Billable. After the successful billing, status Billed is set for them.

• Billable items with status Raw contain errors or are incomplete from the point of view of billing. You can either transfer them to Billable status or exclude from further processing.
• Billable items with status Raw Excepted can be excluded temporarily or permanently from further processing. Temporarily excepted items can be restored, that is, transferred to status Raw and processed further. Permanently excepted items are marked as reversed. These items cannot be restored and can therefore no longer be processed.
• Billable Items with status Billable form a billing worklist. You can either bill them or exclude from billing.
• Billable Items with status Billable Excepted can be excluded temporarily or permanently from billing. Temporarily excepted items can be restored, that is, transferred to status Billable and processed in billing. Permanently excepted items are marked as reversed. These items cannot be restored and can therefore no longer be billed.
• The billing process changes billable items from status Billable to status Billed.

The example shows a process flow of three consumed services for movie downloads and one subscription service for a music flat rate.

Based on this Information, billable items are created and aggregated to one billing document. The billing document is the basis to create and post the invoicing document, which is printed and sent to the business partner.

The SAP Fiori App Billable Items Upload enables the BIT upload into to the SAP S/4HANA Cloud for Contract Accounting and Invoicing via a source file on the application server.

The schema determines how the data of a source is imported. For this, you have to define the source data format, and which character is used as a separator for the columns. The Create Template button enables the creation of individual templates with the needed fields.

The source with the current schema settings can be displayed in a preview and previously imported data can be uploaded. The system does not store data in simulation mode.

The SAP Fiori App Billable Items Display enables to search for and display billable items, which provide the basis for the billing process. You can, for example, search for billable items by entering a value in one or more filter fields. Navigate from a billable item in the list to review the details of all billable items from the same source transaction, and navigate further into all details of any of these billable items.

It is also possible to display the record types that are reused by several billable items from a source transaction and to display a list of related consumption items.