Chargeback 

Use

You can use this process to grant special conditions to customers in selected customer groups who have negotiated lower prices with the product manufacturer (vendor). Then you can combine and settle the resulting claims as chargeback requests with the product vendor. Since the special conditions are taken into account automatically, and the chargeback request is generated automatically, the transaction only becomes more complicated than a regular sales transaction on those occasions where the amount of the chargeback is disputed with the vendor. In the latter case, complaints processing assists in communication with the vendor.

All documents involved in the process are linked by means of document flows and document the reason for granting special conditions.

Process Flow

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       1.      At the beginning of a chargeback process, the vendor transmits to you an agreement that he has negotiated with a customer group. The core of this agreement consists of special conditions for specific products that customers of the customer group can take advantage of. The customer list is transferred together with the conditions. This data is stored in your system as a condition contract.

       2.      When a customer from the group orders one of the discounted products, the sales order determines the special conditions and calculates a reduced price. This step includes the determination of the condition contracts that are valid for the customer and finding the conditions defined therein. Cases where multiple condition contracts are simultaneously valid can be handled using condition exclusion. You can choose here whether the customer is to be granted the highest or lowest price.

       3.      When the sales invoices are being created, the same transactions run as when a sales order is being created. Therefore, the same reduced price is determined and posted to Financial Accounting. If you wish, the expected chargebacks from the vendor can be posted as provisions.

       4.      On release of the sales invoice to Financial Accounting, generation of chargeback requests can be triggered with Post Processing Framework. You can choose here whether the chargeback documents are to be generated directly or if your generation is only to prebooked. In the latter case, a report must be started which undertakes creation of the chargeback documents. This can occur by means of batch processing during off-peak periods.

       5.      Usually, chargeback requests are generated with a posting block. Therefore, they serve initially as a container for claims against the vendor. You can combine claims in a new chargeback request. In this case, posting to Financial Accounting occurs from the generated collective chargeback request. You can use the print output controls of the chargeback requests to send the claim to the vendor for checking (for example, by IDOC, fax, e-mail). Release to Financial Accounting can then occur dependent on the vendor’s response. If the vendor accepts the chargeback request, the document is released. Otherwise the vendor’s requested changes are recorded as a complaint. The item and field to which the complaint refers are noted and also the correct value from the vendor’s perspective. You can enter additional texts here to further describe the reason for complaint. The complaint can be created automatically in the framework of an EDI scenario. If you accept the vendor’s proposed changes by releasing the complaint, the document is automatically modified accordingly and released to Financial Accounting. Alternatively, you can dismiss individual complaints, make manual changes to the document, and then send it to the vendor again by means of print output control.

Result

As a result of the chargeback process, you have granted your customers a reduced price based on the condition contract and posted it also. Your claims against the vendor resulting from the agreement between customers and vendor have been created as chargeback requests. Based on these, the claims are posted in Financial Accounting. Simultaneously, the granting of the conditions was documented in the form of document flows from condition contract to orders and sales invoices, and also sales invoices after chargeback requests.