When selling or implementing SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management (SAP BRIM) several questions about currencies can arise. The purpose of this document is to provide the SAP customer facing specialists with answers to some frequently asked questions about currencies in SAP BRIM. SAP BRIM joins the SAP Customer Relationship Management application, the SAP Convergent Charging application, the SAP Convergent Invoicing package, and the SAP Customer Financial Management package to create a comprehensive software solution that supports the order-to-cash business process for service industries.

Is it possible in SAP Convergent Invoicing to receive inbound information in different currencies and to create an invoice with one currency?

Yes, the postings will then all be made with the invoicing currency.

Is it possible in SAP Convergent Invoicing to create multiple posting documents with different currencies for one invoicing document?

No.

Where do we maintain the currency exchange rates used in the billing/invoicing process to convert the different currencies line items into the account currency?

The currency exchange rates are maintained centrally in FI(-GL) in SAP ERP Central Component (ECC) and used in CI/ FI-CA in various contexts. From a homogeneous aspect, CI, FI-CA and FI-GL are just components of the integrated SAP ERP. It doesn't matter where the currency exchange rates sit in SAP ERP as long as they sit 'somewhere' and there is only one copy that governs/controls everything in SAP ERP.

In the Implementation Guide (IMG), the configuration interface/tool for SAP ERP, there are many places within the various modules of SAP ERP where there is a configuration entry to maintain exchange rates, but they all arrive at the self-same screen/transaction. One configuration navigation path is "Enterprise Controlling → Consolidation → Data → Automatic Posting → Currency Translation → Exchange Rates → Maintain Exchange Rates", but there are at least 3 other paths all leading to the same transaction.

In case we put SAP BRIM on top of a general ledger other than SAP’s general ledger where does SAP CI/FI-CA take the currency exchange rates from?

In case we have another general ledger that is the corporate general ledger (e.g. Oracle), one must have a process to synchronize the applications that need to share and harmonize this data. The 'organizational arrangements' usually define which application is master and which is slave. They are influenced slightly by the 'technical arrangements' too. There are, of course, all of the integration topics to sort out: i.e. of FI-CA to SAP general ledger or to external general ledger.

How can one define a custom currency in a SAP CC 3.0 system part of a SAP BRIM systems landscape?

The SAP proprietary currencies consist of:

·         A unique SAP currency code

·         An ISO code which can be:

-       Filled with a proprietary and specific value

-       Filled with the code of an ISO 4217 currency defined by the International Standards Organization

-       Empty when a currency like "PNT" (Point) does not correspond to standard currencies

·         The precision which represents the number of decimal places

As SAP ERP is the master system of the currencies, one has to define first the custom currency as SAP currency in the SAP ERP system and then synchronize the list of currencies of the SAP ERP system with the list of currencies defined in the core database of the SAP CC system by using the SAP CC Core Tool menu “Tools → Currencies → Synchronize”. The synchronization only takes into account SAP currencies.

How can one define an additional currency in a SAP ERP system?

Here are the steps for defining an additional currency (e.g. USD6 in addition to the standard default currency USD) in a SAP ERP system:

1.    Access SAP Customizing Implementation Guide (IMG) → NetWeaver → General Settings → Currencies → Check Currency Codes. Here you create a new entry for the additional currency, for example USD6. NOTE: do not set the primary currency indicator/checkbox. If the primary indicator is not set on the ISO currency, in this example USD, then be sure to add the check box indicator to USD so that USD6 is converted to USD in CI Invoicing.

2.    Access SAP Customizing Implementation Guide (IMG) → NetWeaver → General Settings → Currencies → Set Decimal Places for Currencies. Create new entry USD6 and input 6 in the Decimals column.

3.    Access SAP Customizing Implementation Guide (IMG) → NetWeaver → General Settings → Currencies → Enter Exchange Rate. Here you indicate that USD6 to USD = Direct Quotation 1.00000.

How does the rounding of decimal places take place in SAP Convergent Charging 3.0?

The bulk-loader of SAP Convergent Charging 3.0 adapts the amounts of the charged items regarding their currency precision. The following sequence describes how the amount and currency are adapted by the bulk-loader:

·         The not relevant trailing zero are removed e.g. 1.23400 EUR -> 1.234 EUR

·         All the compatible currencies with the amount currency are listed. Two currencies are compatible if they have the same ISO code. For an amount in EUR, the list could be EUR, EUR4 and EUR6.

·         The currencies with a precision lower than the number of the amount decimal places are removed from the list e.g. EUR is removed from the list. If the list is empty, the charged item is rejected because there is no way to send the amount to SAP CI.

·         The compatible currencies having the closest precision with the amount precision will be the amount currency e.g. for the amount 1.234, the currency EUR4 will be chosen.

·         The amount is adapted to have exactly the precision of its new currency e.g. 1.234 EUR4 will be 1.2340 EUR4.

           Finally the amount 1.2340 EUR will be sent to SAP CI as 123.40 EUR4.

If the charged item has several amounts and several currencies, the amounts will be converted to have the same currencies or compatible currencies. If the currencies aren’t compatible (EUR and USD), the charged item is rejected. The reason of this decision is that SAP CC doesn’t know which currency field is associated to which amount field.

Here are some samples of charged items having several amounts and currencies and how they are converted to be loaded into SAP CI:

In regards to the step where the bulk-loader removes the currency where it is lower than the number of the amount decimal places, what if there is only one currency in the list (e.g. JPY) and the amount is e.g. 2.11? Would the bulk-loader logic remove the only matching currency (e.g. JPY has a precision of zero) since it is lower than the number of amount decimal places?

In this example the bulk-loader CANNOT send the amount JPY2.11 because there is no compatible currency with JPY supporting at least 2 decimal places defined in the landscape. The goal of the bulk-loader is to convert data from SAP CC to SAP CI. The conversions are technical conversions and they are not business (via exchange rate for instance) and they comply with the strong constraint that the conversions must be lossless. For instance, if the rater indicates that a prepaid account has been debited of JPY2.11, then the bulk-loader MUST NOT inform SAP CI that the prepaid account has been debited of JPY 2. That's the reason why the bulk-loader throws an exception when the amount has too many decimal places regarding its currency. The error message one gets is the following: "BillableItemFieldValidatorException: No currency was found to format an amount with '2' decimal places".

So for this example one has to create a new currency JPYX having a precision of 2, or the amount JPY

2.11 must be rounded in the raters. There are several ways to do that:

• if the SAP CC platform has to work with  currency precision only, one can configure the parameters "TRANSACTION_*_PRECISION" and "TRANSACTION_*_ROUNDING_MODE" to force the charging engine to work with the currency precision.
• or the amount rounding can be done directly in the price plan.

Is there a way to influence the bulk loader currency selection procedure in SAP CC?

No.

Does the SAP CC 3.0 parameter TRANSACTION_PRECISION need to be set to “-1” and TRANSACTION_ROUNDING_MODE to “nearest” in order to enable the rounding of decimal places in SAP CC 3.0?

The bulk-loader sequence for adapting the amount and the currency is independent of the TRANSACTION_PRECISION and of the TRANSACTION_ROUNDING_MODE. These two configuration parameters are relevant for the raters. They define the precisions of the amounts computed by the charge components. If TRANSACTION_PRECISION is between 0 and 6 then the amounts computed by the charge component can have up to the same number of decimal places e.g. up to 4 if TRANSACTION_PRECISION is 4. The TRANSACTION_ROUNDING_MODE defines how the amount is rounded if it has more decimal places than defined in the TRANSACTION_PRECISION. If TRANSACTION_PRECISION is "currency precision" (=-1) then the amounts computed by the charge component will have the number of decimal places of the currency of the charge component. For instance, if the charge component is configured to compute amount in EUR4, then its computed amounts will have up to 4 decimal places.

Which currency is used in the rounding if the charge is defined as multicurrency and the charge plan is defined as multicurrency (the advance currency of the charge within the subscription)?

Thecurrency of a multi-currency charge component can be specified in the charge plan item or charge condition. If the charge plan item or the charge condition is itself multi-currency then the currency MUST be defined by the charge activation of the subscription or by the charging contract items. As soon as the currency is defined, it isn't possible to overwrite it in an upper level e.g. if the charge condition defines the currency then it isn't possible to define another currency in the referencing charge activation. The currency of a charge component is the first one found from the charge activation to the charge component.

Does the currency setting on the subscriber account in SAP CC 3.0 overwrite the currency setting on the charge/charge plan/subscription or does the system issue an error if the currency is inconsistent (like in SAP CC 2.0)?

Like in SAP CC 2.0, the currency of the subscriber account in SAP CC 3.0 is mainly relevant to check customer related provisioning inconsistency and is not used as possible currency of a multi-currency charge component. 

What do the parameters TRANSACTION_DETAIL_PRECISION and TRANSACTION_ROUNDING_MODE affect?

Transaction is the internal business object representing the result of the activation of a charge component. The transaction has main fields e.g. the computed amount and details e.g. the computed property introduced in the price plan. The transaction is visible in the charged item mapping of the charge condition as the possible values for the charged item fields. Some of the transaction details are numerical. The two configuration parameters TRANSACTION_DETAIL_PRECISION and TRANSACTION_ROUNDING_MODE are used to define the precision and the rounding mode of these numerical details.

Can I use more than 5 decimal places for amounts in SAP CI?

Generally currency maintenance in NetWeaver allows 5 decimal places and exceptionally 6 digits. Please note that for the standard fields like BIT_AMOUNT, domain WRTV7 is used which is a 7Byte packed field.

Can I use more than 6 decimal places for amounts in SAP CI?

Currently there is no standard solution for handling more than 6 decimal places in CI. See question “How to use arbitrary number of decimal places for ISO and non-ISO currencies in SAP CI?”.

How to use arbitrary number of decimal places for ISO and non-ISO currencies in SAP CI?

An option for a project can be to provide in BIT_AMOUNT and BIT_CURR a TCUR* conform currency code and an amount with a corresponding number of decimal places.

If the customer wants to use 8 decimal places or even an unrestricted number of decimal places, then an option could be to use a character type field (e.g. CHAR18) in the billable item class to store the amount in maximum precision. For example: Z_BIT_AMOUNT = 1.23456789 also linked to the currency stored in BIT_CURR.

If you want to use the maximum precision amount for computation, then you can convert it into a packed field.

A prototype of a CHAR18 to WRTV7 conversion is present in function module Z_GL_CONVERT_CHAR18_TO_WRTV7 in System VBS.

Dear Experts,

I am having the requirement as similar to SD module “Release to accounting".

I am creating the invoicing in convergent Invoicing and accounting document is created automatically.. My requirement is accounting document needs to be created after the release using another steps.

I tried to use some events; I couldn’t find any relevant events to achieve this requirement. Could anyone help me to find out the workaround?

Regards,

Aswin

Thought by Achim Hebestreit, Global Lead SAP Mobile for Telecommunications, and myself on the new role of telcos:

Do you remember the last time you used a phone booth? I wouldn’t if it had not been last week. In search of a dry place to roll a cigarette in rainy London, I passed one of those signature red telephone booths. Upon stepping in it took me a moment to realize that I was not the first person to use this place for something other than making a call.

It smelled like a public toilet that was being used by about every drunk in London and was decorated with a zillion adult stickers. So, I decided to forgo the cigarette in favor of going to my hotel for a shower…

Thinking back, I realized that the decay of this once so proud British landmark makes sense in some way. Of course I do not mean its newfound use as loo or adult art gallery. But what could be more outdated nowadays than a single-service device that is bulky, stationary and unmovable? Today, the notion of going somewhere to make a call is as alien as it is now common to make a call on the go. Telcos made this change possible to a large extent. They developed the technology, they built the networks and they, of course, sold the service. And for a long time, traditional services like telephony were bestsellers. But once the technology became universally available, this business became less profitable. Traditional services alone won’t do it in near future. Telcos have to move on. It’s a twist of fate that it is the telco industry which is in danger of becoming today’s phone booth: bulky, stationary and not moving.

But in fact, telcos do have all the assets necessary to be a driving power of innovation. One could forget about that looking back on a decade that was ostensibly dominated by the internet. The telecommunication industry was the home team in the internet revolution, owning the infrastructure but ultimately had done little more than conceding the playing field that others have played on.

OTT-players were the innovators of the internet age who filled the gaps telcos had left open or did not see. Their success is for telcos a look in a mirror of missed opportunities. But we stand on the edge of the new mobile age that could give the momentum back to telcos.

Mobile services are getting more complex in both quality and in quantity. To manage a mobile service or to combine several, you need size and expertise. We have seen a number of OTT-players struggling recently. They lack fully developed business models, infrastructure and the capabilities to invest.

Guess where those qualities can be found? There are not many OTT-players who combine both elements as good as a telco. In order to offer a mobile services that provides customers with a whole new kind of mobile life you need telcos.

Take mobile payment. There are many stakeholders involved. But telco companies are in a unique market position (again), having all the assets to make (e.g.) the mobile wallet service a convenient and natural experience for consumers: Customer relationship, information, financial resources, considerable technological know-how and above all: trust. Would you entrust Facebook with your private banking information? Would you want to give Google that kind of knowledge? But you do have this trusting relationship to your telco. This gives them the possibility to be a broker of mobile services to their customers. These do not even need to be telco-made. In this way keen consumers would have access to many more services. And these in turn would become trustful due to the customer’s relationship to their telco. And at the same time, companies that offer good services but are not connected with consumers would get linked to those who opt in.

Telcos could elevate mobility to a whole new level by managing and harvesting different mobile services. In this way, telcos could become THE social aggregator of mobile services for customers and other businesses in the new mobile age. Not much of a phone booth, right?!

Interested in mobility and/or telcos – Follow on Twitter @AHebestreit

Currently, the difference between IFRS and US GAAP is tracked on a spreadsheet. Due to increasing volume, business wants to automate this process within SAP. How can Business depreciate systematically the difference between IRFS and US GAAP? Please guide me how can this difference be loaded in the Asset Module and depreciate?

“What is the path forward in a time of rapid technological innovation, empowered customers and declining core business revenues?” That’s the question that keeps many a Telco exec up at night.  Rarely has an industry seen such dramatic change after such a long period of relative stability.  Since the dawn of the telegraph, the communications industry relied on a combination of vertical integration and a one-sided market revenue model – and it worked.  But, the rise of so-called “non-traditional” communications companies is disrupting the market.  Luckily, traditional Communications Service Providers (CSPs) have plenty of assets that they can leverage for continued success – including access to a tremendous customer base, a long history of service delivery excellence, and the network infrastructure that new services need to rely upon. 

As the industry converges for the largest Telco and mobility event of the year, Mobile World Congress (Barcelona, Spain, February 25 – 28), we’ll have a chance to hear what the world’s largest CSPs are talking about and what’s top of mind for their executives.  Looking into my crystal ball, I expect conversations around the following three trends:

1.       The Cloud - It’s not “If” it’s “How Much?”:  The concept of a shared infrastructure has been embraced by enterprises.  Now CS’s are looking at what services and applications can be delivered and hosted for their enterprise customers and for partners who can provide a strong integration story with the enterprises’ existing business processes.  This combination allows companies to incrementally move parts of these processes into the cloud while still leveraging existing on premise solutions.

2.       Business?  Consumer?  Both.:  The era of classifying customers as either a business or a consumer may be on its way out. Instead, we see a focus on delivering content and services that are targeted at an individual.  With trends like telecommuting and multiple device ownership on the rise, the lines between the business and consumer are increasingly blurred.

3.       Mobilizing Content and Services:  Customers will combine cloud services, SaaS, and remote desktop access to bring new meaning to the term “mobility.” Portability is the name of the game and customers will no longer want, or need, to be tethered to any specific location or device to get everything they need to do their job or access their information.

It’s an exciting time for the industry and I, for one, am excited to hear from the top executives and industry thought leaders next week Mobile World Congress about their take on the continue transformation of Telcos.  The story continues…..

Day one is over and wow.......what craziness.  A new home, new exhibitors, and bigger exhibits than ever.  I might be a little biased but SAP's booth is really amazing.  Approximately 700 sq mt (that's 7,500 sq ft for us Americans) and a double decker.  It's really beautiful and the "Experience Zone" concept that we are showcasing really resonates with customers. 

We started the day, and the event, off with the huge Ericsson press conference.  With close to 150 journalists and influencers in attendance, it was the perfect place to announce our new partnership to aggressively go after the burgeoning M2M market.  It was exciting to see Sanjay Poonen stream live from Hawaii to co-announce the deal with Ericsson's CEO, Hans Vestberg.  Many of the follow up questions from attendees were about the SAP partnership and how we can help drive penetration into the enterprise market - why, that's exactly what we've been saying! 

To get a sense for some of the follow on coverage, see the links below:

• SAP, Ericsson partner on mobile docs, enterprise M2M Platform: MWC - eWeek
• Ericsson works with SAP on direction for directing machines - Bloomberg
• SAP and Ericsson join forces on M2M services - NetworkWorld

Our "Live from MWC" program got off to a great start with over 10 videos being created in the first day alone.  Check out http://events.sap.com/mobile-world-congress/en/session/4391thishttp://events.sap.com/mobile-world-congress/en/session/4391 video that I conducted with Monte Hong, Managing Director Global Communications Industry at Accenture about the Consumerication of IT in the Telco industry. 

Looking forward to seeing what the next few days will hold for us!  Hope to see you there.

Today I want to talk about what we're doing in the Connected City campus area.  What a cool concept this is.  A real city street set up in the heart of Mobile World Congress - complete with a Town Hall, a Department Store, a Hotel....you name it.  The idea is to show how the Internet of Things will transform our daily lives.  SAP is proud to be a highlighted partner with both Deutsche Telekom and with Vodafone in their areas within the campus.  In DT's campus, we are showcasing a Smart Logistics scenario around a real-life deployment at the Port of Hamburg.  And, at Vodafone, we are talking about the future of the Connected Car. 

At first blush, it may seem strange that Telcos would be talking about Smart Logistics or Connected Cars but think about what it takes to enable either of these.  Networks, of course, but it's much more than that and it's right up Telcos alley.  It's about collecting and analyzing truly massive amounts of data in real-time.  It's about being able to handle very complex billing scenarios.  And, it's about having a long standing tradition of running a service excellence business - something that traditional product-centric companies have not had a lot of experience doing. 

It seems that almost every vertical industry is embracing the concept of M2M of the Internet of Things.  But, I believe these companies are going to turn to their trusted service providers, Telcos, to make it actually happen for them.  And, it will be about a lot more than just providing connectivity.  It's going to way beyond that.  When Ford Motor Company starts exhibiting in a big way at a Mobility conference, that tells me that they are looking for Telco partners to help them realize the vision that they have for their business and products. 

Looking forward to what Day Three brings....

How to configure SAP CC price plan with Persistent Counters of free units, so that a client is not charged of a service even if free units are still available?

At the time of reservation, if first session empties the free units of a persistent counter without totally confirming the consumption of a service, second session running at the same time cannot use the free units of the counter, and thus, will entirely be charged. Therefore, a client will pay for the consumption of a service even if free units are still available.

--- Create Product Catalog
--- Create/Import price tables
--- Create Chargeable Item Package
--- Assign chargeable item classes to Package
--- Create Charge - price plan
--- Create Charged Item Classes or Billable item mapping
--- Create a Charge Plan
--- Create refill item class – if refill logic is needed
--- Create refill logic - if refill logic is needed
--- Create refill Plan - by setup of Plan and logic
--- Create Product - Setup by Charge Plan and Refill Plan in external system
--- Create a Provider Contract

Question:
At what step/level
-- we can configure Counters
-- we are allowed to modify the counter status to “Shared” or “Not Shared”

Please share if you have more info

or cancel

http://bit.ly/11RBe4g

Recently posted a blog on analytics blog, repeating it here. The bitly for the published blog is above.

Are you able to seamlessly access data from your switches, network or transactional systems, instantly and painlessly to make decisions? Seems like a dream, doesn’t it? But what if you did have a business intelligence (BI) architecture that enabled you to access and process large amounts of data at line-level detail and in real time? 

You might say that it isn’t possible today. The data volumes would be too large to be handled by the limitations of your current IT infrastructure. And besides, the response times would be too slow to be practical.

But that’s not true. The innovations in BI systems are moving in just that direction. Thomas Davenport is a Visiting Professor at Harvard Business School, where he teaches in the Technology and Operations Management unit. Davenport has worked with SAP to draw a distinction between “systems of record,” which are transactional systems like ERP and CRM, and “systems of engagement,” which are data warehouses/data marts used for analysis and interaction and that engage employees in collaboration, networking, exchange of information etc. With innovations in BI, this distinction is beginning to blur, making it easier for decision maker to access real-time data as it changes in transactional systems.

The business decision maker and information worker of tomorrow will have sophisticated data discovery tools and fast BI appliances, in-memory data bases capable of handling millions of rows of data and processing queries in real-time.  These will make “Data to Decision” a reality for BI, and the two systems will blur together, enabling  very fast access to data   and decision making.

In-memory databases are providing 3000 times better query performance and are handling millions of rows of data in sub-second response times. For those of you  in the Telco industry, it means that you can analyze millions of call detail records (CDRs) directly off of your switches or data off of your network before summarization to find many aspects related to customer experience like number of call attempts, dropped calls, call aborts, etc. and enhance customer experience by responding to it in real time.

Consider the example of a subscriber or number of subscribers playing an on-line game on a slow-speed line or a line that is congested. If you could analyze this information in real time and market higher bandwidth to them by reaching to the network of players while the session is still running with an offer to upgrade to a higher bandwidth for the duration of that session, you could not only improve customer experience but also generate more revenue.

If you could detect fraud as it’s happening and stop it,  or  you could combine and analyze your subscriber data with network data, segment your customer more granularly and predict their behavior with accurate predictive models that the business users can create and modify themselves, then you would achieve the promise of self-service BI. You could provide daily  monitoring of campaigns and promotions like a major US mobile operator is doing and have the mobility to modify them based on popularity and take-up by the target segments, and team up with retailers and specialty service providers to make just-in-time offers and promotions based on subscriber location and interests.

The possibilities are endless and the technical capabilities to make it happen exist today. To learn more about how SAP can enable your vision of the future with innovations available today, visit www.sap.com/BI.

hello , export

Can anyone advise me on invoice printer?

it's standard program in CI " FPCOPARA"  , I had input CA No., Correspondence type but the results I got as below :

thanks!

Originally posted by Mika Sissonen in SAP Social Software

GENBAND is a telecommunications provider based in Frisco, Texas, that delivers its solutions to more than 700 customers in 80 countries. It has a global employee base, with staff in more than 50 countries.

Darrin Whitney, GENBAND’s chief information officer, recently spoke to SAP in a video about how his organization has implemented SAP Jam to ensure that its employees can collaborate and exchange ideas freely, regardless of where they may be.

In the video, Whitney says the impetus was to enable innovation. “We have a global workforce, and we had no single place for those people to come together and collaborate. If you had software developers in Turkey and U.S.-based resources trying to work together, there was really nowhere to share, and it took a long time.”

With SAP Jam, GENBAND found a solution that eliminated the need to develop an in-house tool. “We were looking for a strategic partner,” Whitney says, “where we would have the ability and the content to bring it all together as a single solution.”

GENBAND is using SAP Jam to improve knowledge management, Whitney says. One benefit is that veteran employees around the world can now easily share their knowledge with new hires. “We have a lot of people that have 25 or 30 years in the telecom business.  When we bring in new people, it gives us the ability to have that 25 years of experience spread across a larger user base.”

The solution enables GENBAND employees to create forums for faster, better communication. “The thing users like the most about SAP Jam is the ability to make our large company intimate,” Whitney says.

It also provides channel partners and service contractors with a single repository for asking questions and finding technical information. “It’s actually allowed us to bring a lot of stuff that was happening outside of our organization back into our organization.”

The management team at GENBAND immediately saw the value of SAP Jam. “It’s a collaboration suite that we’re actually using,” Whitney says. “From an IT standpoint, the flexibility and scalability that the cloud provides is instrumental for our success. It’s a strategic enabler for us – from a business standpoint internally, and externally to our customers.”

Follow SAP Social Software on Twitter: @SAPSocial

Throughout the world, the competition for consumer spending is intensifying – if that’s even possible.

One of the latest weapons in this battle is mobile payments in the form of mobile wallets and near-field communication payments. The key players vying for a piece of this opportunity include banks, retailers, Internet service providers and yes, even your mobile phone company.

Implementation of mobile payment systems varies widely, and with the major players relying on their strengths and attempting to overcome their weaknesses, there is not yet a single business model that dominates across the globe.

Developing economies are leading the way

The use of mobile payments is already well underway in emerging economies such as Africa, where there are plenty of largely cash-based communities. Transactions are often small, making service fees from banks and credit cards prohibitively high.

However, prepaid mobile phones are prolific, which has allowed communications service providers to turn phones into a payment network for simple transactions such as transferring money, remittances, micro-finance and sending or receiving payments.

The more developed the country, the more complicated it becomes

It’s a different story in the developed world. In these economies, many people already have one or more bank accounts or credit cards. In addition, there are stricter banking, telecom and government regulations, so there are more challenges to overcome.

Banks and retailers typically have the advantage, but who’s leading the way varies from country to country. For instance, in Canada where there are highly regulated banking and telecom markets, there is a cohesive effort between these industries and the government. Consequently, Canada is now a highly wired society that has pin-enabled payment terminals and contactless cards all set up, with prepaid cards available for transactions of $100 or less. CSPs are capitalizing on this and are putting mobile wallets on phones to enable these kinds of services. To gain an even bigger advantage, one CSP has gone through a lengthy process to actually get a banking license.

In the U.S., however, there is no one industry taking the lead – yet. However, a few of the major mobile operators teamed up with some of the leading merchants and banks to create the Isis Wallet, a free app that enables payments from phones. Yet another mobile operator has built an open platform for mobile commerce, enabling other wallets such as Google’s. To mobilize the acceptance of traditional credit cards, a few merchants now offer mobile point-of-sale terminals.

The inconsistent presence of contact-less or pin-enabled card terminals, along with the fact that smaller stores don’t accepts card payments at all, makes for a complex environment to launch mobile payments.

So in the push to capture the revenue for this market, how will CSPs fare? They have a good fighting chance and here’s why.

The opportunity is there for the taking

When it comes to serving customers in the digital mobile world, banks are a bit behind from a technology viewpoint, and will continue to lag until they revamp their infrastructures to be more customer-centric.

This leads the door wide open for others to step in, which Walmart and other retailers, along with Google and Apple, recognize. But they too have a few challenges before they can master this market.

So while banks, retailers, and other players try to figure this out, how can CSPs edge forward? Here are a few key steps they should take:

–Create a compelling customer experience. With all the payment options consumers have, CSPs will only gain their mobile payment business if there is a compelling reason to switch. Certainly, the convenience of using an ever-present phone is one, but CSPs will need to do more, whether it’s added value, loyalty programs, or some other unique motivation.

–Unify customer billing. CSPs are not built to be banks, but they do know how to be a biller of services. The technology is now available for them to bring mobile payments and telecommunication charges together in one bill. This makes it easy to offer such things as family mobile wallets, much like the family calling plans that CSPs offer in North America.

–Learn from the wins. There are lots of lessons CSPs can learn from the success of the M-Pesa service and how it’s helping billions of people around the world without bank accounts.

–Look at other industries. Retailers, consumer package goods companies and even brand market agencies are experts on consumer spending patterns as well as loyalty and merchandising programs. And banks certainly know how to provide financial services, so CSPs can learn what platforms these industries are using and capitalize on a bit of cross-industry pollination.

–Be willing to collaborate. For mobile payments to be effective, CSPs will need the cooperation of the other industries. For instance, there needs to be a retail infrastructure for mobile payments if a customer wants to pay with a phone in a store. Canada has already made terminals pin-enabled, but this may be a big challenge for CSPs in other countries.

–Leverage inherent strengths. CSPs typically have a good brand reputation, as they protect customers’ personal information with watertight security and stringent data privacy policies. Consequently, CSPs can securely guarantee the identity of a person and protect his or her personal data as they enable mobile wallets.

–Work with the right partners. There are technology vendors that are already working with the world’s leading banks, retailers, and telcos to build an efficient mobile payment business model. Their expertise and existing relationships offer CSPs an opportunity to interconnect with the best from each stakeholder industry.

Originally posted in RCR Wireless

By Christina Giraud, SAP Telecommunications

Telcos around the world are developing a passionate love-(and-hate) relationship with Big Data.

The Digital Revolution - and with it Big Data -  is here, it’s big, and telcos are either wholeheartedly tapping into ways to take advantage of this opportunity, or they’re swimming in a sea of terrabytes trying to figure out what their next step is.

To assist those that are diligently exploring how to master Big Data, we’re going to tackle this challenge head on over the course of the next couple of blogs.

Today, we’re starting the conversation with an overview of just how big this market is. Then, in future blogs, we’re going to discuss how telcos can build new business models that not only embrace Big Data, but make it a core part of their business strategy.

The reality check: Just how big is Big Data?

To provide a sense of the enormity of this market, here’s a quick look at the opportunity that the digital society will present to the telco industry as almost everyone and everything becomes connected.

Let’s start first with a recent article published by McKinsey & Company on Big Data on its Telecom, Media & High Tech extranet that quantified the opportunity for telcos. The article says that telcos are uniquely positioned to use Big Data and advance analytics to capture a potential opportunity worth $300 million by the year 2020.

What’s driving this opportunity? An annual Digital Universe study from IDC notes that the amount of data in the world is set to grow 10-fold in the next six years to 44 zettabytes or 44 trillion gigabytes.  Another way to look at that is that data is doubling every two years, or growing at approximately 40% a year.

Research on the Internet of Things (IoT) also provides a perspective on how big Big Data is:

•Connected things.According to the IDC study above, there are already nearly 200 billion things computerized, with 20 billion of them wired and communicating via the Internet. And there are more than 50 billion sensors that track, monitor, or feed data to those connected things.

• Connected people. Another massive source of Big Data is, of course, the social networks that are part of the fabric of every connected person’s life.  According to a recent infographic on Forbes.com, Facebook has 1.3 billion monthly active users – and with 382,000 likes happening every minute, while Twitter has 271 million active users per month and 350,000 tweets per minute.

• The connected world. A 2014 report from Frost and Sullivan on the world’s top mega trends gives yet another perspective on connected things. One of the mega trends in this report is connectivity and convergence. This mega trend is creating a connected life in home, work, and city environments that represents an ecosystem the research firm says will have a value of $731.70 billion by 2020.

At the very core of all this data: Telcos

What these statistics show from various perspectives is that there is a lot of information that needs to be managed, both here and now, and in the future. And managing every byte of data is an opportunity for telcos as they move up the value chain of Big Data and take on a different role.

With telcos at the very core of this massive amount of data, there is a critical and pressing need for new business models that can turn all this information into smart data the generates while generating revenue to all involved parties. Enabling businesses, organizations, cities, and people with intelligent insights so they can take action on it – in the moment; at the right time, place, and social context – and even predict the future – is what’s next for telcos.

In a survey SAP conducted earlier this year, 71% of telcos recognize that Big Data management is key to their success and 60% have a strategy in place to take advantage of it.

So for those telcos that see the opportunity and are ready to go after it – stay tuned. As mentioned above, the next blogs in this series will help define new business models and strategies turning Big Data into big revenue opportunities.

Is it possible to customize or to force invoicing process to calculate amount of statistical tax on invoice item even if total amount of invoice is 0?

Thanks in advance,

Mario

Functionality

In this event it's possible to change following structures and fields during invoicing process:

- Header of invoice posting document

    FKKKO_SI - Industry Fields of Posting document header

        SI_FKKKOV - Insurance Include Document Header

            GSFNR    Business Transaction Number

            BELNR    Transfer Document Number

            RBART    Legal Relationship Type

            RBZNR    Number of Legal Relationship

        SI_FKKKOP - Public Sector: Header Data for Contract Account Document

            PSVERSN    Version of Plan Document in Contract A/R and A/P

    FKKKO_2645_CF - Event 2645: Posting Document Header: Modifiable Fields

        BLART    Document Type

        XEIBH    Create Separate Document in General Ledger

        HBBLA    Document Type for Transfer to General Ledger

- Items of invoice posting document

    FKKOP_CI - Customer Fields of FKKOP

        CI_FKKOP - Enhancement for FKKOP

            PPACC    Prepaid Account

            PPRSN    Reason for Balance Change on Prepaid Account

            PPRND    Rounding Amount for Change of Prepaid Balance      

    FKKOP_SI - Industry fields of FKKOP

        SI_FKKOPR - Include: OI for Utility Companies: IS-U

            DEAKTIV    Deactivation of Budget Billing Plan via Invoicing

            SGRKEY    Grouping key for document items

            SOLLDAT    Print date for BB requests or generation of partial bill

            RECPT    Business Partner That is to Receive the Amount

            TOCOLLECT    ID:

            EINMALANF    One-time request from budget billing plan

            VORAUSZAHL    Budget Billing Plan Item Is Advance Payment

            APERIODIC    Non-Periodic Posting

            ABRABS    Combine Budget Billing Amount Due Date and Bill

            GRBBP    Budget Billing: Grouping Key for Tax Determination Code

            ASMETH    Tax Determination Procedure

            INT_CROSSREFNO    IDE: internal cross reference number

            ETHPPM    Payment Process for Billing on Behalf of Third Parties

            PAYFREQID    Payment Frequency

            INVOICING_PARTY    Service Provider That Invoices the Contract

            PPMST    Status of Prepayment Meter Items (UK only)

            LOGNO    Line Number of Budget Billing

        SI_FKKOPV - Include OI for Insurance

            PRGRP    Product Group

            VSARL_VX    Insurance Type

            RBART    Legal Relationship Type

            BUGRD    Posting Reason

            PNTYP    Item Category

            VKTYP    Contract Account Category

            VTRE3    Reference Specifications from Contract

            XINTE    Indicator: Document is a Deposit Interest Document

            CINEED    Info Identifier when Clearing Items

            VGPART2    Business Partner Number

            VGPART3    Business Partner Number

            REFCLAIM    Reference to Payment in Claims Management System

            INSTAXS    Insurance Tax Schedule

            TXPOS    Tax Referemce (Tax Reporting)

        SI_FKKOPT - IS-T: Include open items for telecommunications companies

            APERIODICT    Non-Periodic Posting

            ADD_REFOBJ    Additional Reference Object

            ADD_REFOBJID    Additional Reference Object ID

            ADD_SERVICE    Type of Service

        SI_FKKOPS - FI-CA Extended: Include OI

            APERD    Non-Periodic Posting

        SI_FKKOPM - Include OI for IS-Media

            POSEX_ISM    External Item Number (Purchase Order Item)

            POSNR_ISM    Sales Order Item

            CYCLENR_ISM    IS-M/SD: Billing Cycle Number

            DRERZ_ISM    Publication

            ADDPAYMENT_TYPE    IS-M/SD: Additional Payment Type

            REFUNDTYPE    IS-M/SD: Refund Type

        SI_FKKOPP - Public Sector: Fields for Business Partner Items

            SI_FKKRW_PS - Public Sector: Interface to Accounting

                PSOBTYP    Contract Object Type

                VKTYP_PS    Contract Account Category

                ABTYP_PS    Revenue Type

            SI_GTR_FKKOP - Public Sector: Include for Grantor Management (OI)

                REFDOC_ID    Transaction

                REFDOC_OBJTYPE    Object Type for CRM Transaction Type/Item Category

                CRMOBJ    GUID of a CRM Order Object

                BRI_GUID    GUID of a CRM Order Object

            SI_CMAC_FKKOP - Student Accounting: Business Partner Item Fields

                PSRECPT    Beneficiary

                PSGRANT    Grant      

    FKKOP_2645_CF - Event 2645: Business Partner Items: Modifiable Fields

        OPTXT    Item text

        PERSL    Key for Period Assignment

        ABRZU    Lower Limit of Settlement Period

        ABRZO    Upper Limit of the Billing Period

        VERKZ    Item Can Only Be Cleared

        GRKEY    Grouping Key for Displaying Open Items

        XEIPH    Create Line Item in General Ledger

        VTREF    Reference Specifications from Contract

        SUBAP    Subapplication in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable

- Tax items of invoice posting document

    FKKOPK_CI - Customer Fields of FKKOPK

        CI_FKKOPK - Enhancement for FKKOPK

    FKKOPK_SI - Industry Fields of FKKOPK

        SI_FKKOPKR - IS-U Additional Fields for Table DFKKOPK

            SGRKEY    Grouping key for document items

            APERIODIC    Non-Periodic Posting

        SI_FKKOPKV - Insurance-Specific Include for Offsetting Items

            VSARL_VX    Insurance Type

            LNDSL    Country Key

            BEWAR    Transaction Type

            BUGRD    Posting Reason

            SCITEM    Number of a scheduling document

            TXPOS    Tax Referemce (Tax Reporting)

            COINS_CODE    Coinsurance Key

            COINS_CAT    Category for Coinsurance-Relevant Document

        SI_FKKOPKS - FI-CA Extended: Include OPK

            APERD    Non-Periodic Posting

       SI_FKKOPKP - Public Sector: Fields for General Ledger Items

            SI_GTR_FKKOPK - Public Sector: Include for Grantor Management (OPC)

                CRMOBJ    GUID of a CRM Order Object   

    FKKOPK_2645_CF - Event 2645: General Ledger Items: Modifiable Fields

        SGTXT    Item Text for G/L Document

        XEIPH    Create Line Item in General Ledger

- Invoicing document header

   FKKINVDOC_H_CI - Customer Fields of Invoicing Document Header

       CI_FKKINVDOC_H - Customer include for expanse sheets

            SUBINV_INVDOCNO    Number of Invoicing Document        

   FKKINVDOC_H_SI - Industry Fields of Invoicing Document Header

    FKKINVDOC_H_2645_CF - Event 2645: Invoicing Document Header: Changeable Fields

        INVPERCAT    Category of Invoicing Period

        INVPERIOD    Invoicing Period

        INVPERIOD_FROM    Start of Invoicing Period

        FORMKEY    Application form

        PRINTLOCK    Invoicing Document Locked for Printing

        DOCTYPE    Document Type

- Invoicing document items

   FKKINVDOC_I_CI - Customer Fields of Invoicing Document Item

        CI_FKKINVDOC_I - additional fields

            GSBER    Business Area

            FKKINVDOC_I_ENH_PPACC - Include Structure for Inv. Doc. Item for Prepaid Scenario

                PPACC    Prepaid Account              

        FKKINVDOC_I_SI - Industry Fields of Invoicing Document Item

                SI_FKKINVDOC_I_T

                SI_FKKINVDOC_I_P

Example

Notes

Further information

Programming Restrictions

To ensure the consistency of the system, note that you must not use the following language elements in events, unless they were explicitly declared to be allowed for the given event:

COMMIT WORK

ROLLBACK WORK

CALL FUNCTION 'DEQUEUE ALL'

Deletion of locks that you have not set yourself

Implicit database commits triggered by RFC calls or by a WAIT statement

If you update additional data in an event and use the construction PERFORM commit routine ON COMMIT, note that:

At the end of the commit routine, all internal tables from which data was updated must be initialized again to prevent a duplicate update in the next call.

A PERFORM rollback routine ON ROLLBACK must also be called.

In the rollback routine, initialize the same data that is initialized at the end of the commit routine.

If you want to carry out checks in an event, when you issue messages, note that warning messages cause background processing of the process to terminate. You should therefore avoid issuing warning messages if possible. At the most, issue warning messages if the value of SY-BATCH is initial.

Also avoid messages of type A (termination). In the course of background processing, such messages can be captured and processing can continue. However, at the same time the message triggers an implicit ROLLBACK WORK, which can cause data inconsistencies.

I noticed there are a numbers of undocumented FQEVENTS in IS-T.

It's a pity not to have it since those evens can be very useful.

Intention of this document is to be used as central place with link on SCN documents which contains text structured as FQEVENTs documentation.

I will update this document as I encounter and document undocumented event during everyday work.

Of course, if anyone else creates this type of document here in SCN and want to include it in this list, just put link in comments section - I will add those documents to.

LIST OF DOCUMENTS FOR FQEVENTS in IS-T:

- FQEvent 2638 INV: Enrich Invoicing Item for Invoicing List, current functionality

     when applied SAP Note 1948056 - FKKBIX: Enrich invoicing list in event 2638additional fields became modifiable based on business logic implemented in the event (BUKRS - Company code, SPART - Division, VTREF - Provider contract, SUBAP - Subapplication)

- FQEvent 2645 INV: Fill Customer/Industry Fields in Invoicing Document, current functionality

Hi,export

I encountered another issue when I did payment run (Tcode FPY1 )  with Media format from SAP standard program. after payment ran successful,

I tired to check spool but there always showed " Customer unit ID not maintain for Direct debit ."even I had add one field in global parameter already.  can anyone help me on it?

Hello,

I was setting dunning lock to some documents through document mass change transaction(FPE2M). There the system gives the possibility to put from - to validity date, I put it and saved. However when I check the validity of the locks in documents it is not the same with that which I placed but it takes the validity of the lock which was placed at the moment the lock is configured.

Can anybody help?

Thanks in advance.

Br,

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) held its annual conference, Telecom World 2014, in Doha, Qatar from December 7 – 10th.  The ITU is the leading United Nations agency for information and communication technology.  More than 3,500 attendees from across the world attended, with representatives from carriers, government agencies, NGOs and suppliers on hand.

SAP’s Lise Tcheng, Global Vice President and Head of Services for Telecoms, spoke as part of a panel session on Tuesday, December 9^th.  The session, Innovation for Telcos – A Practical Guide, focused on providing practical advice to help telcos stay relevant in a rapidly changing market.  Lise focused her remarks on illustrating principles that can help large companies remain innovative.  Using SAP as an example, she identified three principles to help encourage creativity – Leadership, Sustainability and Purpose.  The top leadership must be truly focused on driving internal innovation, encouraging and rewarding new ideas.  Sustainability is vital, because innovation cannot be seen as a single event. Programs must be put into place that encourage entrepreneurism, provide a framework of support, and allow for new ideas to be tried out quickly to either “fail fast” or move on to the next step.  SAP’s purpose – making the world run better and improving people’s lives – provides a sense of mission and focus, challenging participants to think creatively about how we can give back to the world around us.

As an industry conference, ITU Telecom World is unique, in that it brings together carriers, vendors, regulators, NGOs and government agencies to discuss the promise and challenges of connecting the unconnected across the globe.  The ITU has a strong focus on sustainable development and youth, and one of the highlights of the show is their Youth Innovation program.  During the conference, key topics of discussion were universal broadband access, spectrum allocation, regulatory and
financing solutions, big data monetization and Internet of Things.

Recaps of many sessions from the show can be found here. For the French speakers among us, this video from BEUR TV (which serves French-speaking North Africa) provides a good overview of the meeting and includes an interview with Lise (starting at the 3:45 mark).

For more information on SAP’s participation in this event, contact Kate McNeel (k.mcneel@sap.com) or Lise Tcheng (lise.tcheng@sap.com).