Integrating with SAP Commerce

Let's first review the purpose of SAP Commerce before you see how it integrates with Subscription Billing.

The point of using SAP Subscription Billing with SAP Commerce is to enable businesses to manage subscription-based billing and revenue recognition within their e-commerce platform, streamlining the process and providing a seamless customer experience. The integration scenario with SAP Subscription Billing involves aligning the capabilities of SAP Commerce with the subscription-based billing and pricing offered by SAP Subscription Billing. At the core of this integration is the ability to enable customers to subscribe to products or services directly through the SAP Commerce platform.

Through the integration, SAP Commerce uses the capabilities of SAP Subscription Billing to handle the complexities of subscription billing. This includes accurate price calculations, flexible billing cycles, and the ability to manage recurring payments seamlessly. The integration enables businesses to ensure that customers are appropriately billed for their subscriptions based on the terms and conditions set forth in SAP Subscription Billing.

Also, the integration scenario allows for the synchronization of product and pricing information between SAP Commerce and SAP Subscription Billing.

The following are the limitations of integrating SAP Commerce with SAP Subscription Billing:

• This integration does not support pricing using pricing schemes. Prices must be maintained using the pricing engine of SAP Subscription Billing.
• Integration with Convergent Invoicing is not supported.
• Also, the integration of SAP Subscription Billing with SAP Commerce does not support the following SAP Subscription Billing features:
  • Subscription parameter display
  • Custom references
  • Product configuration (needed for specific prices in Price Calculation)
  • Products with multiple rate plans
  • Standard or custom business partner functions
  • Allowances

Integrating SAP Commerce with SAP Subscription Billing involves several replication steps. Integration begins with the replication of the business configuration from SAP Subscription Billing to SAP Commerce.

The following graphic describes how SAP Commerce Cloud is replicated to SAP Subscription Billing using SAP Cloud Integration:

The preceding graphic illustrates the process flow for customer registration and managing updates in customer details using SAP systems. Here's a breakdown of the process:

1. Storefront: The customer registers their details on the storefront.
2. Cloud Integration: The customer registration details are sent through an integration flow.
3. Subscription Billing: The customer details are replicated in the subscription billing system.

Customer registration and updates are managed by data flowing from the storefront through cloud integration to the subscription billing system to ensure that customer details are consistently replicated and updated across systems.

Next, let’s look at the process of product and price replication for SAP Commerce.

A digital subscription product created in SAP Subscription Billing is replicated to SAP Commerce using SAP Cloud Integration. A subscription represents a contractual agreement between a customer and the enterprise. This agreement gives the customer access to specific products and services for a certain period.

The following steps define the subscription product replication process according to the preceding graphic:

1. Subscription Billing: This component is responsible for managing subscription products and rate plans. It initiates the process by creating or updating subscription products and rate plans.
2. Cloud Integration: This component acts as the intermediary, facilitating the integration flow between Subscription Billing and Commerce. It ensures that the data related to subscription products and rate plans is transferred seamlessly from Subscription Billing to Commerce.
3. Commerce: This component receives the replicated subscription products and rate plans from the Cloud Integration. It ensures that the subscription products and rate plans are available in the commerce system for further processing and customer interaction.

The flow of a subscription product and rate plan data from Subscription Billing, through Cloud Integration, and finally to Commerce, ensures that all systems are synchronized and up-to-date.

Once the products and pricing are replicated, the customer can create an order. Let’s have a look at the order replication process.

The sales order placed in SAP Commerce storefront is replicated to SAP Subscription Billing and SAP S/4HANA based on the type of product.

While placing an order, a customer can do the following:

• Add only subscription products. This order is replicated to SAP Subscription Billing.
• Add both physical and subscription products to the same order. In this case, physical and subscription products are internally split into separate orders. Orders with physical products are replicated to the SAP S/4HANA system for fulfillment. Orders with subscription products are replicated to SAP Subscription Billing where the orchestration process takes place. Subscriptions are created for the individual line items. Customers can manage subscriptions from the SAP Commerce storefront.

The SAP Commerce provides the following features:

• Creating an order with physical and subscription products.
• Displaying order details.
• Extending subscriptions for subscription products.
• Canceling subscriptions.
• Displaying bills and bill details.

The following graphic illustrates the subscription order replication process when integrating SAP Subscription Billing with SAP Commerce.

1. A customer logs in to the SAP Commerce storefront and places an order. The order can contain a subscription product or both physical and subscription product.
2. If an order only contains a subscription product, the order is replicated to SAP Subscription Billing.
3. If an order has both a physical and a subscription product, the order is internally split into two orders. The order with a physical product is replicated to SAP S/4HANA. The order with a subscription product is replicated to SAP Subscription Billing.
4. Subscriptions are created for the individual line items in the order.
5. The customer can view the order and manage the subscriptions from the SAP Commerce Cloud storefront.
6. The customer can view the bills for a given date range. The customer can also view the unbilled usage details of the subscriptions.
7. The customer also has the option to extend or cancel the subscription.