The invoicing processes cover the processes of Invoicing in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable that create invoices and integrate billing documents in FI-CA. They map the business transaction that processes the billing documents, creates the invoice, and posts the invoice synchronously. In detail, they perform the following tasks:
Billing documents from different billing systems are selected, grouped, and displayed together on one invoice. (See Transferring Billing Documents and Billing Documents )
Billing documents are transferred to postings documents in FI-CA synchronously.
The invoice display of the tax amounts can influence the tax to be posted.
Invoicing documents are created. These save the information for the invoice and are the basis for the physical invoice printing.
Simultaneously, correspondence containers are created for invoice printing , and additional data is updated for providing data to Business Information Warehouse (BW) (See also Update in SAP Business Information Warehouse (BW) .)
Current information for the customer account, such as open invoice receivables, can be displayed on the invoice.
You can integrate further FI-CA business transactions in the invoicing processes such that the customer can be informed of changes to the customer account with the invoice. For invoice creation and posting, Invoicing in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payableuses FI-CA functions. For example, in an invoicing run, you can change the contract accounts of the customers processed by the run. The invoicing run can clear open items of an invoice with credit memo items of a contract account.
Invoicing orders must exist in order for an invoicing process to be started.
Invoicing orders are created when a billing document is created and are used for specific selection of the billing documents not yet processed by an invoicing process. If the invoicing of a billing document is successful, the related invoicing order is deleted.
In addition to billing documents that arise in the SAP system from the transfer of billing documents from external systems or from Billing in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable, SD billing documents from the component Sales and Distribution and collective bills from FI-CA can also be understood as invoiceable billing documents. Special invoicing processes can process these source documents. (See Collective Invoicing .)
Using scheduling, you can generate additional source documents. These enable periodic invoicing, independently of the existence of further source documents to be billed.
Parallel processing of the dataset is always possible. The invoicing processes use the function of the mass activity in FI-CA to split the dataset and distribute processing to different processes in order to reduce the processing time.
Invoicing Processes in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable (FI-CA)
1.2.2.1 Process Flow of Invoicing Processes
Purpose
Invoicing is performed in the following steps:
1. Data Selection
During data selection, the system selects the invoicing orders for the invoicing process. You define the selection criteria for the data selection for the invoicing process.
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2. Creation of Invoicing Units
The system groups the selected invoicing orders into invoicing units for each contract account. You can create several invoicing units for each contract account. For each invoicing unit, Invoicing in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable creates one invoicing document.
You define the criteria for creating the invoicing units for the invoicing process.
3. Processing of Billing Documents
The system includes the selected billing documents for an invoicing unit in the invoicing document. The billing document items are linked with the items of the invoicing document, and the derivations required for the posting in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable (FI-CA) are performed.
4. Performance of Additional Functions
In addition to processing billing documents, in Invoicing in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable , you can integrate further functions of FI-CA.
For example, these include interest calculation, creation of dunning proposals, or the calculation of charges and discounts. You define which additional functions are performed for each invoicing process.
5. Account Maintenance
Using the account maintenance integrated in Invoicing in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable , you can perform clearing between the posting documents entered in Invoicing and the open items of the contract account posted before invoicing. You define the criteria for clearing in the clearing control.
6. Update
The system writes the invoicing documents created for the invoicing unit and the posting documents to the database, and deletes the processed invoicing orders.
Along with the invoicing unit, a correspondence container for invoice printing and an extraction order for the update to BW are created.
Process Flow of Invoicing Processes
1.2.2.1.1 Processing Options
Purpose
Adjustment of the internal process flows of Invoicing in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable to your requirements.
Process Flow
The process flow of Invoicing in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable depends on the following parameters:
Invoicing process Invoicing Type Invoicing Category
This multi-level control enables you to run Invoicing in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable according to your requirements. The parameters specified above are determined as follows during the processing of each contract account:
The user specifies the invoicing process explicitly when starting Invoicing in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable . The main task of the invoicing process is to define which categories of source documents are to be processed. It also defines the process flow for the invoicing functions.
There is a differentiation between mandatory and optional invoicing functions.
Each invoicing process proposes an invoicing type. You can override the invoicing type at event 2603. Using the invoicing type, you can react individually to the composition and the properties of the invoicing unit. The invoicing type also defines, for each invoicing unit, which optional invoicing functions are performed.
At master data level, you can influence the process flow of Invoicing in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable using the invoicing category; this is transferred from the contract account.
1.2.2.1.2 Activating/Deactivating Invoicing Functions
Purpose
Adjustment of the process flows of Invoicing in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable to customer-specific/industry-specific requirements by activating
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and deactivating invoicing functions
Process Flow
The system decides whether an invoicing function is performed for each invoicing unit using the following criteria:
1. Assignment of invoicing function to invoicing process
The system checks whether the function is assigned to the invoicing process.
2. Assignment of invoicing function to invoicing type
The system checks whether the function is assigned to the invoicing type.
3. Selection of function in dialog
If Invoicing in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable is run in dialog or in expert mode, the system checks whether the user has selected the invoicing function .
Step 1
When you define an invoicing process (see Implementation Guide for Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable Integration Invoicing in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable Invoicing Invoicing Processes Define Invoicing Processes ), in the subdialog Invoicing Functions , you have to assign one or more invoicing functions to an invoicing process. When you start Invoicing in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable with an invoicing process, the assignment of the invoicing functions has the following effect:
Invoicing functions assigned where the indicator Function Can Be Activated is not selected are performed. The run cannot be prevented in step 2 or 3.
Invoicing in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable does not perform invoicing functions that are not explicitly listed in the assignment. This decision can also not be changed by step 2 and 3.
For invoicing functions assigned where the indicator Function Can Be Activated is selected, step 2 or 3 defines whether they are performed . Step 2
In the definition of the invoicing types, in the subdialog Invoicing Functions , you can assign all invoicing functions that are designated as can be
activated/deactivated to the combination of invoicing type and invoicing category. In the assignment you must also maintain the activation status. Invoicing in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable interprets this assignment as follows:
Functions that can be activated and that are not assigned to the invoicing type are not performed. This decision cannot be changed by step 3.
Functions that can be activated that have been assigned to the invoicing type with activation status 1 Function active, cannot be deactivated in dialog , are performed. This decision cannot be changed by step 3.
Functions that can be activated that have been assigned to the invoicing type with activation status 2 Function active, can be deactivated in dialog , are performed. This decision can be changed by step 3.
Functions that can be activated that have been assigned to the invoicing type with activation status 3 Function not active, can be activated in dialog , are not performed. This decision can be changed by step 3.
Step 3
If you run Invoicing in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable in dialog, and select the expert mode, you have another influencing option. Invoicing functions (step 1) that can be activated according to the invoicing process can be activated or deactivated in a dialog step if the activation status (step 2) permits this.
1.2.2.1.2.1 Examples: Activating/Deactivating Invoicing Functions
Example 1
You assign the following functions to invoicing process 01:
Function Can Be Activated
You assign the following invoicing functions to invoicing type 02 and invoicing category 03:
Function Activation Status
ACCT_MAINT 2 Function active, can be deactivated in dialog
HIST_ITEMS 1 Function active, cannot be deactivated in dialog
INTEREST_SEC 3 Function not active, can be activated in dialog
You run the invoicing program with invoicing process 01. An invoicing unit with invoicing type 02 and invoicing category 03 is processed.
Result
The same conditions as in example 1 apply. However, you run invoicing in dialog or expert mode.
Result
INV_BILL_DOC is performed (no selection option).
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HIST_ITEMS is performed (no selection option).
For ACCT_MAINT, execution in dialog is proposed.
You can deactivate the function.
For INTEREST_SEC, in dialog the system proposes not to run the function.
You can activate the function.