The document discusses advance billing in SAP, which allows billing for future periods based on estimated consumption. Advance billing can be enabled at the rate category level and specific billing steps can be configured for periodic, advance, or both periodic and advance billing using controls in the billing schema. Examples are provided to illustrate how consumption is estimated and billed for past, current, and future periods based on the configuration.

1. Rate Category – Advance Billing
Hi All,
Continuing from the last post (can be checked here) on Period End Billing, this post in about Advance
Billing.
Following the same presentation format: Standard SAP definition (from SAP System) and then
screenshots explaining the demo.
Advance billing check box can be set at the Rate Category level.
'Advance Billing' Checkbox in Rate Category
Standard SAP definition states’
If you set this indicator, the system performs advance billing at the same time as each periodic billing. The
period for advance billing is calculated from the end of the periodic billing period to the next scheduled
meter reading date. We can control which steps are to be carried out in the period for advance billing
using the control of advance billing indicator in the billing schema.
Example: In monthly billing, you can always calculate the rental price a month in advance.'
Further Control of Advance Billing is defined as 'schema steps to be billed in advance.'
If the bill in advance indicator in the rate category is set, control of advance billing has the
following effects:
•Control of advance billing = ' ': The schema step is performed only in the period for periodic billing
•Control of advance billing = '1': The schema step is performed only in the period for advance billing
•Control of advance billing = '2': The schema step is performed in the period for periodic billing and
advance billing.
If the bill in advance indicator in the rate category is not set, billing in advance is not performed.
The control of advance billing has the following effects:
•Control of advance billing = ' ': The schema step is performed only in the period for periodic billing

2. •Control of advance billing = '1': The schema step is not performed
•Control of advance billing = '2': The schema step is performed only in the period for periodic billing.
Restrictions:
•Billing in advance is not permitted together with period-end billing and backbilling. We may
only use the blank value for control of advance billing for schema steps in the period-end billing rate and
for schema steps that are backbilled.
•In IF-variants, all the schema steps in the IF-ENDIF clause must have the same value for control of
advance billing
•Any schema steps with deletion operands must have the same value for control of advance billing as the
step with the corresponding deletion variant.
So we have already seen the checkbox at the Rate category screen above.
Let’s see the Schema steps.
Schema Steps
So we have 4 schema steps having different indicators in the field for 'control of advance billing'.
First schema step shall trigger only for periodic billing.
Second and third schema step shall trigger for period billing and also for advance billing.
Fourth schema step shall trigger only for advance billing.
As check box for advance billing is checked in rate category the above shall work, if it was not then the
scenario would be different. (How different, check the SAP text pasted above!)
So I am using standard Linear estimation procedure for Estimating the meter readings and different
price keys for the different schema steps for easier follow-up.
A. Below is the first line item for the first schema step: Period Billing step having no entry
in 'Control of advance Billing'.

3. So for the period 01012011 to 01022011 having 32 days estimation happens with periodic consumption of
100 units per day, which comes to 32 * 100 = 3200 units and price of 2 $/unit = 3200 * 2 = $ 6400
B. Below is the second line item for the second schema step: Period Billing step having '1'
entry in 'Control of advances Billing'.
So for the period 01012011 to 01022011 having 32 days estimation happens with periodic consumption of
100 units per day, which comes to 32 * 100 = 3200 units and price of 0.284 $/unit = 3200 * 0.284 = $
908.80
C. Below is the third line item for the third schema step: Advance Billing step having '1'
entry in 'Control of advance Billing'. This is the advance billing line item.

4. So for the period 02022011 to 01032011 having 28 days estimation happens with periodic consumption of
100 units per day, which comes to 28 * 100 = 2800 units and price of 1.5 $/unit = 2800 * 1.5 = $ 4200
This is an advance bill for the period in the future.
D. Below is the fourth line item for the fourth schema step: Advance Billing step having '2'
entry in 'Control of advance Billing'. This is just the advance billing line item; no periodic
billing item is triggered for this.
So for the period 02022011 to 01032011 having 28 days estimation happens with periodic consumption of
100 units per day, which comes to 28 * 100 = 2800 units and price of 0.284 $/unit = 2800 * 0.284 = $
795.20
So by using the indicator in the schema step and the check box in the rate category we can have bills
which can be used to show a forecast of the future billing amount to the customer.(Just a scenario in
which I think it can be used :) )
Where do you think it can be used??Please do post any queries and comments. Thanks... :D
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