Usage Determination

To bill your customers for usage, you need to determine the relevant usage volume. You can do this as follows:

By entering readings on the Counters or Readings pages
For more information, see Usage Recording with Counter Readings.
By importing readings from outside your SAP CRM system
For more information, see Counters and Readings, section Integration.
By estimating usage
You can set up estimation procedures to estimate usage during period-end closing if no billing-relevant reading takes place within a certain period (see Prerequisites below).

Usage values are shown in the usage overview, which collects all the usage-related information required to bill the service contract. A usage overview is available for each service contract item as a separate assignment block.

If no reading has been entered for a billing period, you can enter readings directly in the usage overview.

Recommendation

We recommend that you use Counters or Readings pages to enter readings, rather than doing this in the usage overview. If you enter readings in the usage overview, and readings are subsequently recorded for the same period on the Counters or Readings pages, your entries in the usage overview are overwritten.

End of the recommendation.

Prerequisites

Usage Estimation

You have made the following settings in Customizing for Customer Relationship Management, under Transactions Settings for Contracts Additional Settings for Service Contracts Settings for Usage-Based Service Contracts Usage Recording :
- Defined estimation procedures in the activities Define Estimation Procedures and Business Add-Ins (BAdIs) BAdI: Define Estimation Procedures .
- Defined estimation sequences to determine which estimation procedures are used and in which order.
  You do this in the activity Define Estimation Sequences.
For each contract item, you have specified an estimation sequence in the Control Data assignment block.

Usage Overview

You have checked the following Business Add-Ins in Customizing for Customer Relationship Management, under Transactions Settings for Contracts Additional Settings for Service Contracts Settings for Usage-Based Service Contracts Usage Recording , and, if necessary, made changes to meet your business requirements:
- Definition of how the system identifies which readings are valid for billing and are, therefore, included in the usage overview (activities Define Validation Rules for Usage and Business Add-Ins (BAdIs) BAdI: Define Item Processing in the Usage Overview )
- Definition of checks that the system performs when a new reading is received or the system has to choose between multiple readings for the same settlement period (activity Business Add-Ins (BAdIs) BAdI: Check Usage of Readings in Usage Overview )
For each contract item, you have specified the validation rule for readings (if required), in the Control Data assignment block.

Features

Merging of Usage Overview Entries

If no billing-relevant readings are available for a particular settlement period and a billing-relevant reading is received for a subsequent settlement period, the entries for the two periods are automatically merged in the usage overview.

If you cancel the billing-relevant reading at the end of the last period, the system reverses the merging of the periods.

Example Example

Usage Data (Not Yet Visible in Usage Overview)
Settlement Start Date	Settlement End Date	Usage Function	Reading Value	Last Reading	Usage
2007–04–01	2007–04–30	1	None	320	None
2007–04–01	2007–04–30	2	None	50	None
2007–05–01	2007–05–31	1	None	None	None
2007–05–01	2007–05–31	2	None	None	None
2007–06–01	2007–06–30	1	1300	None	880
2007–06–01	2007–06–30	2	160	None	Not yet calculated

Usage Overview After Merging of Entries
Settlement Start Date	Settlement End Date	Usage Function	Reading Value	Last Reading	Usage
2007–04–01	2007–06–30	1	1300	320	980
2007–04–01	2007–06–30	2	160	50	110

End of the example.

Period-End Closing

Period-end closing is an action that does the following for an item, if no billing-relevant readings are available in the usage overview of a service contract at the end of the period:

Triggers usage estimation, if estimation is permitted

Note
If no estimation takes place, you cannot release the item in the contract, or bill the period.

End of the note.
Changes the settlement period end date so that the action can be scheduled for the next period

The actual period-end closing date and the date on which the system executes scheduled period-end closing are shown in the service contract, in the Dates assignment block.

Period-end closing also has an influence on the reading reminder date.

Note Note

You cannot omit individual periods from period-end closing.
You must process periods in chronological order.

End of the note.