Collective Billing

Trigger collective billing if you want to bill as many billing due list items as possible, from various business transactions, selected using specific selection parameters, collectively. All billing due list items, which the system cannot assign to different billing documents using split criteria, are placed in a single invoice.

For more information on split criteria, see the documentation for Billing.

For more information on the special features in connection with the difference calculation, see the Maintenance of the Billing Due List unit.

Activities

Two options are available to you for performing collective billing:

Automatic collective billing by accessing a report
If you want to schedule and perform your billing on a regular basis automatically, define a report with specific selection parameters to do so. You can for instance, specify that the system is to perform collective billing for a specific billing unit proposed each day at 4 PM.
- To set up this job during billing, include program /1BEA/R_IPMI_DL_PROCESS in job processing.
- To set up this job during settlement, include program /1BEA/R_IPMO_DL_PROCESS in job processing.
In the SAP GUI, choose System Services Jobs Define Jobs and enter your required selection parameters. Information on job processing is available in the Basis documentation under: Computing Center Management System Background Processing .
Manual trigger of collective billing, by way of SAP CRM WebClient
1. In SAP CRM WebClient, use the search tool to find the billing due list items you wish to bill
2. In the Result List table, select the billing due list item you wish to bill
  - You can select as many items as you wish
  - If you select a root node or sub-node, the system will automatically select all sub-nodes and items that fall under the selected node.
3. In the Result List table tool bar, choose Collective Billing.
  The Billing Due List: Collective Billing screen appears and displays all the items that are to be billed – note that only items with the billing status “To be Processed” are displayed.
4. If desired, change the billing type by selecting a value from the New Billing Type list box.
5. If desired, change the billing date by indicating a date in the New Billing Date list box.
6. Choose Continue to bill the items immediately; choose Continue in Background to indicate when the billing process should take place; choose Cancel to stop this transaction and return to the search screen.
  - If you choose Continue:
    The Collective Billing Results screen appears – it first displays a temporary billing ID, which can be used for simulated billing.
    
    One document is produced for billing items that have the same billing date and payor or payee.
    If errors occur during the billing process, a message for each item triggering an error is displayed.
    Choose Save to save the billing documents – as the system saves the documents, it generates the “real” billing document number
    Choose Cancel to stop this transaction and return to the search screen. The billing documents are discarded and the billing due list items are not billed.
    Select two billing documents and choose Split Analysis to move to the Split Analysis screen.
  - If you choose Continue in Background:
    The Billing Due List: Collective Billing – Schedule Job screen appears.
    
    Enter a job name
    Indicate if you wish the job to start immediately or at a specified time.
    Check the Start Periodically flag if you wish that a billing job automatically take place on a regular basis. In this case, you must also indicate the frequency of billing (hourly, daily, weekly, monthly)
  Caution
  
  The system updates the billing documents generated in the database automatically when you trigger collective billing in the background. You can no longer reverse this billing. If an error occurs during billing, you can reverse the billing documents affected. For information on this, see Cancellation.
  
  End of the caution.