SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management Loc...

andreabarthel · ‎09-19-2023

SAP Billing and Revenue Management in SAP S/4HANA is the full package, not least when it comes to subscription and usage-based models in a digital environment. Read on to find out how its core capabilities, Contract Accounting and Convergent Invoicing, plus integration with SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, can help you with everything from tax calculation and compliance, billing and invoicing, through to statutory reporting and payment collection.

Built on solid ground – a quick before and after

The traditional SAP billing process in Sales and Distribution (SD), which involves posting to Accounts Receivables (FI-AR), was originally designed to handle complex B2B sales in industries, like manufacturing. This process works well for moderate-volume transactions that require a high level of detail on each line item.

However, in high-volume B2C & B2B2C billing scenarios, such as those found in the telecommunications or utilities industries, the level of line-item detail provided by the SD/FI process is not necessary. Additionally, Accounts Receivables is not capable of efficiently handling the large volume of invoices that need to be processed within a short time frame. In fact, these types of businesses normally operate based on contracts, rather than individual sales orders.

To address these specific scenarios, SAP introduced Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable (FI-CA) about two decades ago. This component offers a reduced set of line-item data that is enough for contract-based billing of limited complexity, such as tracking energy consumption. It also provides higher performance and integration capabilities with specialized billing systems used in these kinds of industries.

Billing transformation in the age of streaming

To remain competitive in the disruptive digital environment, the trend in recent years has been to switch to subscription and usage-based models. However, this transformation from classical license and maintenance fees to subscription billing requires significant investment and a shift for businesses across countries/regions and industries.

Businesses are providing innovative services powered by new technologies, such as Software as a Service (SaaS), bundling their software license and maintenance services into a subscription model as well as offering products in the form of recurring services.

In this model, end-to-end integrated processes, across the recurring lifecycle of revenue management, have to be combined with innovative software that copes with the scale and volume demanded in the digital economy.

Compliance challenges – globally active and locally compliant

In parallel to the fast growth of innovative technologies that led to Everything as a Service (XaaS), tax authorities around the globe have been adding to the mix with a continuous increase in the number and complexity of legal mandates and disruptive changes. Compliance can be a challenge in this environment: Companies need to sustain profitable growth while handling a mass volume of invoices, with innovative business models, but still keep the pace in the digital economy by playing globally and being compliant locally.

Meet SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management for your global and local needs

SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management for SAP S/4HANA is the SAP solution for subscription and usage-based models, offering you a standardized approach to recurring billing and invoicing, tax compliance and embedded automation in Convergent Invoicing and Contract Accounting. It maximizes your global efficiency in tax calculation, tax collection, billing, invoicing, statutory reporting, and payment collection. It also enables high-performance processing of billable items from various billing systems, ensuring seamless compliance.

Picture 1. Areas of Localization

Natively integrated with SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management empowers your business to fulfill local compliance mandates, such as electronic invoices and statutory reporting, as well as automate compliance processes worldwide.

Picture 2. Integration with SAP Document and Reporting Compliance

To learn more about how this integration leverages your business worldwide to achieve a higher next level of compliance, read Integrate SAP Document and Reporting Compliance with SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management to automate compliance for your recurring billing

Localization – automated compliance across the globe

SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management localization delivers a global ready local experience and enables compliance with country/region-specific regulations by connecting core end-to-end business processes.

Localization enables you to leverage automated compliance across many countries/regions:

20 local versions in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition, and SAP S/4HANA (+11 more planned) - Link

17 local versions in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition (+12 more planned) - Link

Picture 3. Localization Coverage

For countries/regions that are not supported, you can easily leverage the extensibility embedded in SAP S/4HANA and SAP Document and Reporting Compliance for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition, to cover additional requirements and standardize your compliance processes and applications worldwide.

SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management localization helps you stay compliant in the digital world and go beyond. With tax compliance, billing & invoicing according to legal mandates, embedded automation, and streamlined processes you can reduce compliance risks and costs as well as increase the sustainability of tax operations.

Furthermore, these solutions allow you to benefit from Regulatory Relief as a Service, which delivers support for new and evolving regulations across the world and into the future.

More Information

For more detailed insights on SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management localization and SAP Document and Reporting Compliance, check out the following: