Comparing Rates 

To use the Rate Comparison e-service, create a simulation scenario belonging to category 2 (Simulate Orders for One Year with Rate Category Comparison) in Customizing for SAP Utilities under Contract Billing ® Billing Execution ® Define Simulation Scenarios, and enter value 001 in the ScE (Simulation Scenario from External Call) field. Also set the GrossLne (Gross Lines for Billing Simulation) indicator.

Under Alternative Rate Categories for Simulation, you can define a set of rate categories that can be simulated. Under the Alternative Rate Categories for an Application subnode, you can define which of the rate categories are actually simulated in the Rate Comparison e-service.

In Customizing for SAP Utilities under Customer Service ® Utility Customer E-Services (UCES) ® Service - Bill Simulation / Interim Bill ® Define Text for Rate Category, you can define a text for each rate category displayed in the simulation results. If you do not enter a text here, the system displays the short text of the rate category.

In Customizing for SAP Utilities under Customer Service ® Utility Customer E-Services (UCES) ® Service – Bill Simulation / Interim Bill ® Service Bill Simulation: Define Possible Rate Category Change for Service, you can define which rate category changes are possible in the e-service. Under New Rate Categories, you can only specify rate categories that do not require the installation structure to be replaced.

Executing the Rate Comparison E-Service

You can either enter a meter reading for all devices or you can enter the annual period consumption. The period consumption is used to estimate meter reading results for all billing dates in a year for which no meter reading results are yet available. Existing meter reading results remain unchanged.

As standard, the billing orders for a year are simulated if TERMTDAT of the schedule record for the portion lies within the year (Jan 1 to Dec 31) that is determined using the following data:

●      Start of billing period if no billing document exists yet for the contract or if the last billing document belongs to an interim bill.

●      ERCH-PTERMTDAT from the last billing document

For all existing schedule records with TERMTDAT in the period January 1 – December 31of this year, the internal billing orders are generated and simulated. Existing billing documents for the year are reversed internally and billed again. If all the schedule records for the year have not yet been generated, the system simulates a smaller period corresponding to the available records.

You have the option to change the simulation period in method ADJUST_SIM_PERIOD of BAdI BADI_UCES_IB. Then all schedule records with TERMTDAT in the specified period are simulated.