Purpose

Invoicing creates the link to contract accounting and provides the basis for bill creation. The contracts of a contract account are grouped together in invoicing for the joint bill. Posting documents are posted in subledger accounting. Budget billing plans are processed.

Prerequisites

Billing documents from the Contract Billing (IS-U-BI) component, or budget billing plans, which are managed in the Budget Billing Plan component must exist if billing is to take place.

Process flow

The general process consists of the following steps:

1. Once the contract is billed, you start bill creation. You must release the documents previously outsorted during billing checks.
2. Invoicing with Bill Creationresults in a print document and a contract accounting document.
3. To print the bill, you require the print document. When you execute the function, you specify the output type as a print parameter. It is possible to reprint bills.
4. If your utility company charges budget billing amounts instead of the expected bill amount, you manage these in the Budget Billing Plancomponent. To inform the customer about the number of budget billings and their amounts and due dates, you use either the Partial Bill Creation function or the Budget Billing Requestfunction. Print documents are generated, which you can process using the above-mentioned functions.

In addition to these general activities, the following individual processing steps are useful:

• When you create a consumption bill, you can run various bill checks, which may result in outsorting of the bill. A print document is generated, which you can use to simulate the bill using the Print Document Displayfunction. However, no postings occur in contract accounts receivable and payable. Postings do not take place until the bill is released using the Outsorting function.
• If bills are found to be incorrect, and their documents have been updated in the Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable(FI-CA) component, you must process them using the Bill Reversal function. In this way you create a reverse document in FI-CA. This document clears the bill items in FI-CA, carries out offsetting entries, and creates a reverse print document. To reverse billing documents that have been invoiced, you can use the Full Reversal function. Invoicing reversal, therefore, is integrated with the Contract Billing (IS-U-BI)component.

Result

Once the bill has been created, it is sent to the bill recipient. You can continue processing the bill receivables in FI-CA; the bill amounts are either paid by the customer, debited by the utility company, or dunned.