Displaying Additional Bill Information 

Purpose

With this process, you can display additional information for an invoice listed for your customer.

Prerequisites

The bill document is available in various formats depending on the component issuing the bill. Therefore, for example, a bill that has been stored in an optical archive can be available in PDF, TIF, and so on format. SAP Biller Direct gives you the option of integrating documents to the archive by direct link. Consequently you can offer these documents to your customers to download.

If no archive is available, you can create a bill in PDF format using the standard SAP print program. Note 508569 enables the output of PDF for the standard SD print program. It also shows how to modify customer-defined SD print programs so that you can output PDF documents in SAP Biller Direct. This only makes sense if the number of users for SAP Biller Direct is low. If several users access bill documents using SAP Biller Direct simultaneously, you need to connect an archive.

If you do not want a PDF display, it is possible to construct a bill in the Web application using the bill data (bill header and bill item data) as an HTML page (JavaServer Page). The link can then only be made from the Open Bills view.

SAP Biller Direct also enables you to download bill information in XML format for electronic processing. SAP Biller Direct only creates data in IDoc XML format in the standard for bills from the component SD (from SAP R/3 Enterprise Release 4.70). Customers can import the Idoc XML data into their systems directly, meaning that they do not have to enter bills manually.

The format that FI-AR (or the component issuing the bill) uses for the bill is determined in the Business Add-In Determination of Bills during the creation of the bill list. Depending on this, the Web application displays a detailed bill document in the following way:

·        If there is no bill document in FI-AR or the component issuing the bill, the Web application does not provide a function for calling up bill documents.

·        If the bill document does exist in FI-AR or the component issuing the bill, then the bill text has a hyperlink in the bill line in the Web application. If the user clicks on this hyperlink, the bill document is displayed in a separate window in the appropriate format.

·        If the bill document is available in PDF format, a PDF symbol appears in the column Action in the Web application. If your customer executes this function, the PDF document is displayed in a separate browser.

¡        If a different bill format is available in addition to the PDF format, then the bill document appears in this format when you click on the bill text hyperlink, and in PDF format when you click on the PDF symbol.

¡        If only PDF format is available, then the bill detail appears with this format regardless of whether you click on the bill text or the PDF symbol.

Process Flow

Web Application

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       1.      Requesting the bill document

In the Web application, your customer clicks on either the bill text in the bill line or on the PDF symbol.

When doing so this customer may be in any of the views Open Bills, Open Items, Create Payment Advices, Display Payment Advices, Display Line Items or Balance Confirmation.

Accounts Receivable Accounting

       2.      BAdI EBPP_INVOICEDETAIL

Business Add-In (Add-In) EBPP_INVOICEDETAIL is called up in FI-AR. Depending on the format requested (for example, raw data, PDF) there must be a corresponding BAdI implementation that creates or calls the bill of the component issuing the bill in the desired format. SAP delivers an example implementation for this. The data is returned to the Web application.

Web Application

       3.      Displaying the bill document

The Web application displays the bill document.

If the bill document is displayed using a separate Web server (for example, the Web server of an optical archive), then the URL for displaying the bill details can be transferred when you create the bill list. The Add-In EBPP_INVOICEDETAIL is not called, but the Web application sends an HTTP request to this URL. Since the Web application requests the bill data by request to the Web server for bill details, the Web server does not need to have an authentication mechanism. SAP delivers an example implementation for accessing a Web server for bill details.

We recommend that you work with a signed URL for accessing bill details from the Web server. You can then access the Web server directly from the customer’s browser without additional user authentication.

Connecting Other Billing Applications

SAP Biller Direct only provides display in PDF or XML format for bills from Sales and Distribution (SD). If you want to use this function for bills from other sources, proceed as follows: For further details, see also the documentation for the BAdI. For more information see the documentation for the BAdIs in the Implementation Guide (IMG).

As of mySAP ERP 2005:

Financial Supply Chain Management ® Biller Direct ® Process Integration with Accounts Receivable Accounting ® Business Add-Ins (BAdIs)

Earlier Releases:

Financial Accounting ® Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable ® Financial Supply Chain Management ® SAP Biller Direct ® Business Add-Ins (BAdIs)

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       1.      Create an implementation for the BAdI Determination of Bills (APAR_EBPP_GET_DATA).

In the method BEFORE_OUTPUT, set the indicator XXML or XPDF (or both) in the table C_INVOICE_ITEMS.

       2.      Create an implementation for the BAdI Determination of Bill Details (EBPP_INVOICEDETAIL).

The front end calls this BAdI when a customer selects the link to a bill. You can determine the required format using the parameter I_INVOICE_FORMATS.

                            a.      Create the corresponding binary data, and fill table T_XML and/or T_PDF.

                            b.      Then set indicator XXML and/or XPDF in structure C_INVOICE_FORMATS.