Welcome to our blog series about SAP Subscription Billing’s new features!
Among others, from this month we would like to highlight several innovations related to our pricing and billing capabilities, as well as a few enhancements to the Manage Subscriptions app. But this is just a selection of all the features that we released the past weeks. You find the complete list in our What’s New page on the SAP Help Portal, to which you can also subscribe to get notified of any news.
Now let’s take a look at the highlights:
If you configure your rate plan template with pricing schemes, you can now define specific billing cycles on charge or credit level. For recurring and usage-based charges, this setting allows you to create billing cycles for your subscription charges that can deviate from the root billing cycle defined for the subscription. This way you can, for example, bill the recurring charges in a subscription item yearly, but the usage-based charges monthly.
The cycle start dates of all billing cycles within a subscription have to match and can either be calendar- or anniversary-based. To learn more about this feature, see Specification of Billing Cycles on the SAP Help Portal.
If the subscription uses rate plans with a reference to a pricing scheme, you can now specify different billing cycles for subscription subitems. That way, you can bill the main product yearly, but add-on products monthly, for example.
The rate plan of the product defines the billing cycle for the item. You can then change the billing cycle of a subitem by assigning a new rate plan. The only requisite is that all billing cycles in a subscription must be either calendar- or anniversary-based.
To learn more about this feature, see Specification of Billing Cycles on the SAP Help Portal.
You can now map the quantity and date field types from the Price Calculation service to product configuration attributes so that the price can be correctly calculated based on quantities and dates as well.
For more information, see Pricing Field Mapping and Pricing Based on Custom Attributes on the SAP Help Portal.
In the Manage Subscriptions app, the header of a subscription now shows key billing figures:
You can also select Billed to Date or Open Amount to display the closed or open bills of the subscription in the Manage Billing Data app.
In the Manage Subscriptions app, you can now filter the list of subscriptions by technical resource IDs. The search returns all subscriptions with a matching technical resource in their items.
To enable the search by technical resource ID in the app, select Adapt Filters in the filter bar and choose Technical Resource ID from the list of fields.
The SAP BTP Configuration Guide to onboard SAP Subscription Billing is now available in HTML format as well. You can access the new format from our Help Portal page or in this link.
In the Usage Records API, the $skipToken query parameter has been introduced for the usage-records (GET) endpoint. This parameter offers the advantage of a cursor-based pagination for the retrieved usage record data.
For more information, see Retrieve Usage Records in our API Guide.
In the Bills API, the $filter query syntax is now supported for filtering by item attributes with the /bills (GET) endpoint.
You can now filter for bills that contain the following, for example:
For details about the supported filter properties and operators, and for information about using the filter syntax, refer to the linked API reference documentation on the SAP Business Accelerator Hub.
The $filter syntax of the OData protocol offers the advantage of a standardized query syntax. OData is also used by many other SAP products.
Those were our highlights from the latest feature deliveries. Thanks for reading today’s blog post! ☁️
To make sure that you don’t miss the next feature articles, follow the tag SAP Subscription Billing. And in the meantime, you can find out more about our solution in the information section below.
Also: Please like this post if you found it useful, and don’t hesitate to leave us your feedback in the comment section.
In case of questions, feel free to ask them in our Q&A section using the tag SAP Subscription Billing.
Stay tuned and take care!
Diana
Among others, from this month we would like to highlight several innovations related to our pricing and billing capabilities, as well as a few enhancements to the Manage Subscriptions app. But this is just a selection of all the features that we released the past weeks. You find the complete list in our What’s New page on the SAP Help Portal, to which you can also subscribe to get notified of any news.
Now let’s take a look at the highlights:
Charge- and Credit-Specific Billing Cycles
If you configure your rate plan template with pricing schemes, you can now define specific billing cycles on charge or credit level. For recurring and usage-based charges, this setting allows you to create billing cycles for your subscription charges that can deviate from the root billing cycle defined for the subscription. This way you can, for example, bill the recurring charges in a subscription item yearly, but the usage-based charges monthly.
The cycle start dates of all billing cycles within a subscription have to match and can either be calendar- or anniversary-based. To learn more about this feature, see Specification of Billing Cycles on the SAP Help Portal.
Different Billing Cycles for Subscription Subitems
If the subscription uses rate plans with a reference to a pricing scheme, you can now specify different billing cycles for subscription subitems. That way, you can bill the main product yearly, but add-on products monthly, for example.
The rate plan of the product defines the billing cycle for the item. You can then change the billing cycle of a subitem by assigning a new rate plan. The only requisite is that all billing cycles in a subscription must be either calendar- or anniversary-based.
To learn more about this feature, see Specification of Billing Cycles on the SAP Help Portal.
More Mapping Fields Supported for Pricing
You can now map the quantity and date field types from the Price Calculation service to product configuration attributes so that the price can be correctly calculated based on quantities and dates as well.
- In the Manage Business Configuration app, under Pricing Field Mapping, you first map the product configuration attribute in a subscription item to the quantity or date field types that you have defined for your pricing scheme.
- In the Manage Subscriptions app, under the Product Configuration of a subscription item, you then select the configuration attributes that you previously added to the pricing field mapping. You can also manually enter other configuration attributes.
For more information, see Pricing Field Mapping and Pricing Based on Custom Attributes on the SAP Help Portal.
Key Billing Figures of the Subscription
In the Manage Subscriptions app, the header of a subscription now shows key billing figures:
- Billed to Date: The total amount that has been billed for the subscription until today. The amount is derived from all the closed bills for the subscription.
- Open Amount: The total amount that has not yet been billed for the subscription. The amount is derived from all the open bills for the subscription.
- Billed on Average: The average amount that has been billed for the subscription. The amount is derived from the total amount billed for the subscription divided by the number of closed bills.
You can also select Billed to Date or Open Amount to display the closed or open bills of the subscription in the Manage Billing Data app.
Filter Subscriptions by Technical Resource ID
In the Manage Subscriptions app, you can now filter the list of subscriptions by technical resource IDs. The search returns all subscriptions with a matching technical resource in their items.
To enable the search by technical resource ID in the app, select Adapt Filters in the filter bar and choose Technical Resource ID from the list of fields.
New Look for the SAP BTP Configuration Guide
The SAP BTP Configuration Guide to onboard SAP Subscription Billing is now available in HTML format as well. You can access the new format from our Help Portal page or in this link.
Enhancements in API Query Parameters
New query parameter for retrieving usage record data with the Usage Records API
In the Usage Records API, the $skipToken query parameter has been introduced for the usage-records (GET) endpoint. This parameter offers the advantage of a cursor-based pagination for the retrieved usage record data.
For more information, see Retrieve Usage Records in our API Guide.
OData $filter Syntax to Filter Bills Based on Item Attributes in the Bills API
In the Bills API, the $filter query syntax is now supported for filtering by item attributes with the /bills (GET) endpoint.
You can now filter for bills that contain the following, for example:
- At least one item with a specified product
- Example filter with product A: $filter=billItems/any(i: i/product/id eq 'A')
- Only items for a specified subscription
- Example filter with subscription B: $filter=billItems/all(i: i/subscription/id eq 'B')
For details about the supported filter properties and operators, and for information about using the filter syntax, refer to the linked API reference documentation on the SAP Business Accelerator Hub.
The $filter syntax of the OData protocol offers the advantage of a standardized query syntax. OData is also used by many other SAP products.
Those were our highlights from the latest feature deliveries. Thanks for reading today’s blog post! ☁️
To make sure that you don’t miss the next feature articles, follow the tag SAP Subscription Billing. And in the meantime, you can find out more about our solution in the information section below.
Also: Please like this post if you found it useful, and don’t hesitate to leave us your feedback in the comment section.
In case of questions, feel free to ask them in our Q&A section using the tag SAP Subscription Billing.
Stay tuned and take care!
Diana
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