Technical Name of Business Function |
ISU_MCOMM_1 |
Type of Business Function |
Industry Business Function |
Available As Of |
SAP Enhancement Package 4 for SAP ERP 6.0 |
Technical Usage |
Utilities/Waste&Recycl/Telco |
Application Component |
Utilities Industry (IS-U) component |
Directly Dependent Business Function Requiring Activation in Addition |
Utilities, General Enhancements (ISU_UTIL_1) Utilities, Waste and Recycling (ISU_UTIL_WASTE) |
You can use this business function to implement your business processed in the liberalized energy market more flexibly.
Requirements within the liberalized energy market differ considerably from country to country. This means that the software used to map the processes in these markets not only has to be efficient, but also extremely flexible and adaptable. Requirements can also change very quickly, with the result that companies using the software must be able to change the relevant data structures and processes at any time and adapt them to meet the new requirements.
SAP Utilities provides standard business processes required by utility companies in liberalized energy markets. On the one hand, these business processes must fulfill country requirements, and on the other hand be compatible with the internal processes of the utility companies.
SAP Utilities provides a platform that allows you to manage this integration with the necessary flexibility. If you activate this business function, you can enhance the SAP Utilities processes for registration and termination of grid usage, and implement these enhancements without having to make any modifications.
The functions available with this business function can be enhanced with the Business Intelligence Content as of SAP NW 7.0 BI Cont Addon 7.04 and the Infrastructure for Service Enablement of IDE Data Exchange business function (ISU_MC_DEX_1).
You have installed the following components as of the version mentioned:
Type of Component |
Component |
Software Component |
IS-UT 604 |
Software Component |
FI-CA 604 |
Software Component |
SAP_APPL 604 |
Software Component |
EA-APPL 604 |
SAP Enterprise Services |
As of IS-UT 604 |
You have activated the following business functions:
Utilities, General Enhancements (ISU_UTIL_1)
Utilities, Waste and Recycling (ISU_UTIL_WASTE)
You make the necessary settings for activating the billing and invoicing functions in Customizing for Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable.
Activating this business function provides you with functions for adjusting and enhancing the data structures and switch document functions, and, as a result, the central object of the process for registering for grid usage. New business add-ins are also available. The process has also been improved with regard to efficiency and user productivity.
The IS-U grid has been enhanced by an external ID and a corresponding code list to enable unique identification across the entire market. In intercompany data exchange, you can use the IS-U grid to represent actual grids or service areas.
If you activate this business function, you can also use the following functions in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable:
Receivables management
In Collections Management, you define the test series for champion/challenger analyses. You can define challenger strategies for a certain percentage of champion strategies and allocate master data groups for the analysis.
In Collections Management and in classical dunning, you can generate worklists from the dunning runs, which you can use as the basis for a telephone call to a customer, or for telephony systems.
You can define responsibilities for processing the worklists for a department, a group, and/or collection specialists.
Tax
Both surcharges and reductions are possible for withholding tax to be retained.
You can define any number of withholding tax base amounts or percentages as well as withholding tax amounts at business partner item level.
Integration with the general ledger accounting - account assignment
Receivables and payables can be assigned using a profit center.
The profit center, business area, and account assignments of Funds Management can be inherited from the receivables for the tax items. If necessary, the tax items are distributed between different account assignments.
Postings to balance sheet accounts (for example, bank accounts and bank clearing accounts) can be assigned using a profit center.
Other Enhancements in Receivables Management
You can include partial amounts of receivables in an installment plan. The first installment amount can be different to the remaining installments. You can also add additional surcharges to installment plans, such as inflation-related charges.
You can automatically write off receivables according to a time and amount grid.
The classic revenue distribution is available as a mass activity.
As part of the enhanced revenue distribution, you can not only distribute cleared receivable items by payment to the final recipient, you can also distribute open receivables items and payments on account.
You can group items together before automatic clearing.
For mass activities, you can determine the problem class of the messages issued by the application log.
Payments
In the payment run, you can use for master data preselection to select the business partner or contract account.
For international payment transfers, Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable supports BIC and IBAN in payment lots and in transfer programs for generating payment lots instead of bank codes and bank account numbers.
Integration with other application components
Extractors for the payment and returns history enhance the analysis options within SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence (SAP NetWeaver BI).
You can transfer clarification cases from SAP Dispute Management to an external application for further processing. This means, for example, that you can also create and process clarification cases in a Customer Interaction Center.
You can also subsequently integrate the Funds Management component (PSM-FM) from Public Sector Management with Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable.
Closing preparations
If, during invoicing, neither the times nor the amounts for the deferred revenue recognition are available, you can use events to trigger the revenue recognition.
In the event of doubtful entries or individual value adjustments, you can use ledger groups for the postings to update selected ledgers.
During value adjustment, you can specify an explicit value adjustment amount, which the system uses to perform indivudal value adjustment for a receivable.
You can create installment plan evaluations for the key date so that installment plans are taken into account for balancing purposes when listing the open items.
Entreprise Services
For submission to collection agencies, the file interface has been replaced by corresponding Enterprise Services. A monitoring function for collection services is available as well as transactions for processing collection agency data and posting collection agency payments.
By implementing the corresponding Enterprise Services, you can do the following within the external cash desk services:
Process deposits, withdrawals, and cash desk differences of external cash desks
Enter G/L postings and down payments to external cash desks (or in branches) in expanded form
Check the cash balances of external cash desks and payment collectors (branches)
Country-specific enhancements for Italy
You can levy Bollo for customers with tax exception.
Country-specific enhancements for USA
Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable supports the process of check escheatment for checks that were not cashed by the recipient within a specified time period.