Introduction
Billing Document Request, a Factsheets-based Fiori app, was introduced to view billing data generated from the External Billing Document Request (EBDR). This App provides a quick view of all the information available before performing the billing. Initially, this app was introduced in SAP S/4 Cloud version 1708, now this App is also made available in SAP S/4 1709 On-Premise Version.
The billing clerk would be able to access the following information on the Billing Document Request, which helps interactions with business partners involved in the end-to-end billing process.
- General information
- Billing date
- Status
- Business partners
- Total amount
- Reference system that the EBDR data originates from and the associated external reference number
- Terms and conditions (Incoterms)
- Individual billing items contained in the EBDR – You can branch directly to material details
- Business partners – You can display contact details for the sold-to party, bill-to party, and payer
- Accounting information
- Pricing elements
- Tax information
- Texts attached to the EBDR (originating from an external system)
External Billing Document Request (EBDR) Process
The omnichannel approach for billing is to present one single invoice for all types of divergent billing processes. For the customer, it is one interface and eliminates reconciliation overhead. For the organization, it reduces customer service requests and always deals with a single source of billing information.
As subscription models are maturing, diverse types of billing requirements are also emerging. Three types of billing requirements are very common now:
- One-time billing – this is traditional billing and is used for any kind of delivery-based sales
- Subscription billing – Some form of this billing is recurring, and they are also based on usage of data. Billing for data center and cloud services usage invokes usage-based subscription billing
- Recurring billing – Project-related milestone billing is one form of recurring billing
When it comes to billing and invoicing, the customer expects a single Invoice instead of receiving multiple invoices for different services. SAP provides an External Billing Document Request (EBDR) solution for convergent billing options.
Business Process Steps
- Receive External Billing Information
- Validate and reprocess IDOC errors
- Create External Billing Document Requests
- Manage EBDR
- Attach missing documentation or other information
- Run Billing Due list
- Verify Billing Due list picks of Documents from the ERP system as well as EBDR documents
- Create Billing Document – Convergent Billing
- Generate Invoice document to be sent
- Validate Accounting postings for Receivables
- Validate Revenue Recognition postings
- Single Integrated View of Billing Data
- Reduces Overhead of Reconciliation between different types of invoices
- Solution Centric, Subscription, and Recurring Billing are supported out of the box with these new features
This blog post is part of GyanSys Solutions Lab's weekly series titled SAP S/4 1709 Simplification Digest. Contact us to learn more about changes in SAP S/4 1709 and how it impacts your organization.