You can use the billing functions in SAP CRM to perform billing for the following business transactions:
Sales orders
Deliveries relating to sales orders
Sales contract release orders
Service orders
Service contracts
Service confirmations
Complaints (creation of credit/debit memos)
Entitlements
Warranty claims
Billing requests
Billing is also used to process the settlement of claims in market development funds and trade promotion management.
When business transactions are saved, billing-relevant transaction data is automatically transferred to the billing component, where input processing takes place and data is collected in a billing due list. Billing can either be triggered manually or can be scheduled to run periodically without user interaction. During billing execution, the system creates billing documents that can be sent to customers, and transfers data to integrated components.
The process flow described above is shown in the following figure:
Data can be exchanged between billing in SAP CRM and the following SAP software:
Sales and distribution, and materials management (in SAP ERP) for delivery-related billing
Accounting and controlling (in SAP ERP)
SAP Global Trade Services (for export documents and official declarations)
SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence (for statistical reporting)
You can also use an external interface to import transaction data from a non-SAP system into the billing due list. You can then include this data in billing.
You have configured the billing component in Customizing for Customer Relationship Management in the section Billing
.
Note
The billing component in SAP CRM is a pregenerated billing engine application. When you make Customizing settings for billing, you make these for the “CRM Billing” application.
Billing can be triggered by business transactions in SAP CRM or by deliveries in SAP ERP. For more information, see Billing Scenarios.
The billing due list is a list of billable transactions and their items. It contains all the necessary information for billing. From the billing due list, you can trigger billing for one or more transactions. For more information, see Billing Due List.
You can trigger billing manually, or you can schedule periodic billing jobs, automating the billing process to a large extent. For more information, see Billing Execution.
When billing takes place, billing documents (see Billing Document) are automatically created based on billing due list items.
After billing documents have been created, you can output them using different media (for example, print, fax, or e-mail). For more information, see Output of Billing Documents.
You can use billing plans to schedule individual billing dates, for example, to bill service contracts. For more information, see Billing Plans.
Billing data can be transferred to accounting, where it updates open items and can be used for controlling. For more information, see Data Transfer to SAP ERP Accounting.
For more information about billing of service transactions, see Billing of Services.