Control Data
Service contracts have various requirements with regard to the management of readings, the calculation of usage volumes, pool linkages, and change processes. All the relevant data for controlling the individual business processes is consolidated in the control data in usage-based billing.
Controls for Price Determination
Usage Function Group
The usage function group combines usage functions to form logical units and controls the assignment of usage functions to condition functions, and thus to the condition types as well. The usage function group lets you allow only certain condition types for a group of materials and assign condition types to different usage functions. For example, a service product could contain function group 001 Copiers
and contract class 10 Service
.
Contract Class
The contract class controls the grouping of the involved contract. The contract class is used by the Lease Accounting Engine. The contract class defines how the service contract is saved in accounting, for example, it records the legal owner of the product for which the service is rendered.
Note
You define the contract class and the usage function group in the product master data in assignment block Usage-Based Billing-Specific Attributes
. The system copies the data from the product master record to the control data. You cannot change the data.
Controls for the Usage Overview
You use the controls of the usage overview to specify the procedure for sending the reading reminders, the procedure for estimating usage, and the priority of the various readings depending on their origin. You use a validation rule to define which Business Add-In (BAdI) implementation the system uses to process the usage overview.
For more information, see Usage Determination.
Controls for the Billing Document
You can bill many different types of services in usage-based billing. There can be a bill for a flat rate, which already includes a certain usage volume (of copies, for example), and a separate bill for usage in excess of the flat-rate amount.
Depending on the customer requirements, for example, you can send the invoices for the service contract and the quantity used separately or together.
Dates
You can use date rules to link different dates together.
Linkages
When you display a usage-based service contract, this overview displays the pool contracts that are linked to this contract.
When you display a pool contract, this overview displays the usage-based service contracts that are linked to this contract.
For more information, see Pool Linkage.
Free-of-Charge Periods
In a service contract, you and your customer agree that the customer will pay a certain amount for a certain period. This amount is identical for each month or other defined billing period.
You can also enter free-of-charge periods in the contracts. In this case, the system does not include the free-of-charge period in the billing period. For example, this may be useful for seasonal business processes, or in schools.
If the free-of-charge period lies partially or completely in the billing period, the system calculates a new condition factor. The new factor is less than the original factor, which means the customer pays a lower price. The system considers conditions with a time-specific calculation rule (M, N, O, P).
If you do not enter any free-of-charge periods, the customer always pays the full amount.