Importing, Processing, and Storage of Billable Items

You can import, manage, and bill billable items from various external systems. You define classes of billable items for the import and storage of billable items according to your business requirements. Classes of billable items determine the technical settings of a billable item - for example, the tables for storing data and the function modules that receive the items from the external system and save them in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable. You use a generation tool to create the interfaces and define the database table required for the data transfer. You can choose from preconfigured interface components, to which you can add installation-specific fields. The interface components map business processes from a billing perspective and define which business transactions a class of billable items supports (for example, clearing down payments).

You can transfer and store billable items from an external system as raw data or as billable data. You can simulate the billing of billable items. You can store billed items and simulated billed items separately in the database. The definition of data storage can be time-dependent. As a result, items can be deleted from obsolete tables based on a retention period.

You can monitor billable items from their status, change the status of individual billing transactions, and display billable items.

Sample reports are available for transferring raw data to billable items and for creating test data.

Processing Billable Items

In the billing process, you determine the rules for selection and automatic grouping of billable items in billing units. You can define technical restrictions for billing and for items to be billed. For each billing unit, the system creates a billing document, which you can processing further in Invoicing in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable. You can use the grouping variants for the billing process to control the aggregation of billable items for billing document items. You can use calculation rules to determine the target date for billing.

Billing can be automated or executed in dialog mode.

You can reverse billing documents.

Integration of SAP Convergent Charging

You can integrate Billing in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable with SAP Convergent Charging. You can use SAP Convergent Charging to price services dynamically and in real time and to determine bill recipients.

You link the two applications by activating the SAP Convergent Charging interface component during configuration of the class of billable items.

Integration of SAP Customer Relationship Management

You can integrate Billing in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable with SAP Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM). This allows you to define one-off charges in CRM and then transfer them to Billing in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable as billable items. You can bill the one-off charges in Billing and then continue processing in Invoicing in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable.

You link the two applications by activating the CRM Order interface component during configuration of the class of billable items. The interface component derives the internal account assignments of the billable item from the account assignment information in Customer Relationship Management.

For more information, see the documentation for Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable under Integration → Billing in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable.