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Function documentationOutgoing Royalties Settlement

 

OR settlement is performed without dialog processing and generates credit-side billing documents on a regular basis, which are used to pay license fees for the current period.

Prerequisites

OR settlement (license settlement) has been implemented using the IPMO application. For more information on this application and the corresponding settings, see BEA-IPMO Application.

Features

This process is divided into the following phases:

  1. Settlement Data Collector

    Since OR-relevant business transactions for long running OR contracts can have diverse types and are numerous, they are initially archived in a settlement data collector. They are not entered in the billing due list until these detailed statements have been cumulated.

    Business transactions entered in the settlement data collector are transactions from IPM or an external system, in which an IP right is exploited, and which are reported to the Outgoing Royalties module because OR contracts may lead to a payment as a result of this rights exploitation.

    Records in the data collector are divided into raw lines and derived lines.

    • Raw lines assign several basic values to a combination of the transaction key, OR key and settlement period (see also the Key Fields in the Settlement Data Collector section of this documentation).

    • Derived lines contain a reference to an OR contract.

    • The values transferred from this raw line are entered as basic values in the pricing for this OR contract.

    Each business transaction is assigned to a specific OR contract in the settlement data collector, whose conditions determine the value of the payments. A business transaction may be assigned to several OR contracts if for instance it contains several rights. Several entries are created in the settlement data collector in this situation.

    Entries in the billing due list are created from billing request items in OR contracts but do not contain any price information in the first instance, since OR contracts do not contain price documents. The price document for an OR settlement is first created in the billing document.

    Key Fields in the Settlement Data Collector:

    • Business transaction that is relevant to outgoing royalties (license sales contract or SD product sales).

    • OR key, which represents the content restriction of an IP right, such as IP product, market etc.

    • You define the fields in the OR key in Customizing.

    • Settlement date or period: This defines the time period for the IP right exploited.

    These 3 key fields create the key for a ‘raw line’ in the settlement data collector.

  2. Cumulation in the Billing Due List

    During cumulation in the billing due list, basic values from all derived lines in the data collector, which reference the same OR contract item and whose settlement period is found in the same OR settlement period, are added together.

    Cumulation always takes place immediately if a value in the associated raw line changes. The system only takes account of data that refers to the current period here (per period values or PP values): The existing value is subtracted in the billing due list and the new value is added. Amounts are first converted to the OR contract currency using the conversion factor specified.

    Since data that has already been cumulated (inception to date values or IT values) is required for settlement, the system first calculates the ITD value once settlement has been performed for the previous period for the same OR contract item.

    The ITD value for a settlement period is the total of all PP values for earlier settlement periods for the same OR contract item. During settlement, PP values for the same settlement period are added to the ITD value to produce the correct basic value for settlement. The ITD value for a settlement period is the total of all PP values for earlier settlement periods for the same OR contract item. If changes occur, this value is corrected accordingly.

    Contract determination (generation of derived lines from raw lines) and updating the values in the raw lines takes place automatically in the billing due list.

    Use transaction /BEA/IPMO21 to trigger this process manually.

    You can define an alternative distribution-relevant data value for each item category that is used during the settlement of outgoing royalties. Define different data values as being distribution-relevant for different billing item categories by way of the Define Data Values Customizing activity — from SAP Customizing for Customer Relationship Management, select Start of the navigation path Industry-Specific Solutions Next navigation step Intellectual Property Management Next navigation step Basic Functions Next navigation step Pricing Next navigation step Define Data Values End of the navigation path.