Introducing Retroactive Billing in SAP Self-Billing Cockpit

Retroactive billing is a special billing function often used in scheduling agreement processing. New pricing agreements made with your customers may also affect existing invoices that have already been processed and settled. This is often the case in scheduling agreement processing where you have long-term and high-volume supply relationships with your customers which are settled through self-billing processes. To cover these requirements, SAP Self-Billing Cockpit supports the processing of self-billing invoices that contain retroactive billing information.

When a new self-billing transmission is received in SAP Self-Billing Cockpit, the system detects that it is a retroactive billing document based on the header-/item-action code combinations, 001/009 or 099 (for SBINV), and 006/009 or 099 (for SBWAP). During the simulation step, the system determines the internal retroactive billing values based on the valid prices you stored in your SAP S/4HANA system and it compares it with the claimed retroactive billing value received from the buyer.

Deviations of the buyer's claimed value and the expected values are revealed and checked against defined tolerance limits. This makes it easy for you to spot issues early in the process when working with retroactive self-billing documents and to take corrective measures in a timely manner. This could be adjusting prices in your SAP S/4HANA system, or reaching out to your customer for clarification of the matter.

If all issues are solved, you can execute the self-billing document and, if necessary, you can create more billing documents (credit memos or debit memos) to settle any differences.

Flowchart illustrating the process of handling retroactive price changes. The steps are: 1) Billing document already settled, 2) Receive transmission with retroactive price change, 3) Simulation to determine and compare internal retroactive billing value, 4) Execution.

Comparison of Claimed Value Change and Internal Retroactive Billing Value

Value-based clearing invoices with retroactive billing deal with value changes (for example, retroactive price changes) claimed by the buyer that refer to a transaction that has already been processed and settled.

The internal retroactive billing value is calculated in your system based on inputs such as price changes of the settled transaction saved in the SAP S/4HANA system. You can then check the simulation result and compare the retroactive billing values and the claimed values by the customer that they communicated in their self-billing transmission. When determining whether to create a new open item, the system compares the claimed net value change against the internal retroactive billing value that is determined during simulation and also considers tolerance limits defined for the respective customer. Therefore, this processing type eliminates the creation of unnecessary new open items.

For example, if both you and the buyer have agreed on a negative retroactive price change and the claimed net value change is equal to the internal retroactive billing value, no new open items are created. However, if the buyer's claimed net value differs from the agreed retroactive price change and defined tolerances are exceeded, the system indicates an open item relevance and show the projected value of the open item. Depending on the situation, the system creates billing documents for clearing and open items in the SAP S/4HANA system when the self-billing document is executed.

Flowchart illustrating the process of handling self-billing documents. The process starts with a Self-Billing Document, which undergoes a claimed value change. This value is then compared with an internal retroactive billing value derived from a Retroactive Billing Simulation Result. The comparison results in Clearing Documents and Open Items.

Open Item Creation

Differences and relevance for open item creation are transparently indicated.

One of the key benefits of SAP Self-Billing Cockpit is that its modern UI makes it easy to spot deviations and issues. This also applies to retroactive billing where you find all relevant values at a glance and you are informed of any deviations and if they are relevant for creating new open items. For example, the self-billing document item detail page and history page make it clear which kind of difference occurred during the retroactive billing process and what the value of those differences is by showing:

The open value
The transmitted net value received form the buyer
The retro-billing difference determined as the difference of old net value and simulated internal retroactive billing value
The price-related value difference
The quantity-related value difference
The retro-billing open item value
The open item relevance
The open item quantity and open item value

SAP interface showing the Manage Self-Billing - Automatic Posting screen. The top section displays details for Part 68 (TG6668) with various financial metrics such as Open Value, Price-Related Value Difference, and Retro-Billing Open Item Value. The Open Value is 0.00 EUR, Price-Related Value Difference is -50.00 EUR, and Retro-Billing Open Item Value is 45.00 EUR. The New Open Item Quantity is 0 PC, and the New Open Item Value is 45.00 EUR. The bottom section lists billing documents with three entries: Initial Invoice (F2), Difference Clearing (G2), and New Open Item (Debit Memo). Each entry includes a billing document number, item, order reason, main reference, net value, quantity, and billing date. The net values are 150.00 EUR, -50.00 EUR, and 45.00 EUR respectively. The billing dates are all August 24, 2023.