We
have often come cross the term like Periodic & Milestone billing .This is
nothing but a Billing Plan
A
Billing Plan is a plan for the Billing dates for each line in a Sales order. It
can also be setup at the Sales order header level, in which case it would be
applicable for all the items then. SAP provides two Billing plan options –
Periodic Billing and Milestone Billing. Depending on your Business process
flows, these Billing plans could be setup and carried out.
For
example, in a Construction project type of business Milestone Billing would be
more applicable. In case of a Service
industry, the Periodic Billing plan would be more feasible.
Periodic
Billing Plan implies that the total Billing amount (mostly fixed) is paid in
full for each individual date in the Billing plan. For example, if you are
creating a rental contract, the system can propose a schedule of monthly rental
payments, according to the length and conditions of the contract.
On
the other hand, in Milestone Billing the Total amount to be billed is
distributed across multiple Billing dates with a set criterion to be completed upfront
for each Billing date. For example, you can use a billing plan for billing a
make-to-order item that is assigned to a project in the SAP Project System.
When you enter the project-related make-to-order item in the sales order (or
assembly order), the system proposes a billing plan based on milestones defined
for networks in the project. As each milestone is successfully reached, the
customer is billed either a percentage of the entire project cost or simply a
pre-defined amount.
The
few advantages of using a Billing Plan is that
- It automatically creates the Billing plan dates
- Puts Billing block by default
- Creates Billing documents with reference
- Updates Billing index
Billing
plans are setup in Customizing for Sales using few of the below-mentioned
important attributes
- Billing Plan Type
- Date Description
- Date Category
- Proposed Date Category
- Proposed Date
- Assigning billing plan types to sales document items
Pre requisites integration point –SD & FI
- Enterprise structure for SD is Setup
- Integration is setup between FI and SD
- Billing type configured and process flow setup from Sales order to Billing
