311695429 SAP Utilities Function in Detail

8/16/2019 311695429 SAP Utilities Function in Detail

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The utilities industry is currently evolving from a monopoly in a regulated mar-ket to a competition-based energy and service industry. In political and economicterms, this process is seen as a positive development, and it reflects an interna-tional trend. The goal of incremental deregulation of the utilities market is to openup that market to competition and to allow consumers to reap the benefits of

competition. Liberalization laws are advancing deregulation to varying degrees,depending on the political sphere of influence concerned.

In the future, therefore, the customer will be the focal point of the utilities market.Customers will be able to choose from a number of different suppliers because ina deregulated market they can buy their supply services from different compa-nies. Currently, the services associated with a given supply category are generallyprovided by the local utility company. However, deregulation will break open thefollowing value added chain:

generation and production transmission distribution customer service

The result of this unbundling is that several utility companies and service provid-ers participate in the value-added chain of any given supply category. Therefore,customers can choose from a number of suppliers for each type of service. Be-cause they are no longer dependent on ”their” utility company, such criteria asprice and service become vastly more important.



The industry is undergoing a movement toward competition between utility com-panies that, thanks to laws that apply to an entire economic zone, will not end atnational borders.

Utility companies must prepare for increased competition and globalization. Thesame criteria apply as in other competitive markets. To successfully meet this chal-lenge, utilities have to overcome such obstacles as the cumbersome nature of thestructures and organizations that have grown up over decades in a regulatedmarket. Consequently, utilities must become more flexible to adapt quickly to the

coming changes.In a deregulated market, utilities can expect to be confronted with many new de-mands. They will have to:

Offer customers better service

Service is the interface to the customer. It affects demand for the utility’s prod-ucts and services, and it defines the company’s image in the minds of customers.

Replace customer contracts with new contracts

Liberalization of the utilities market means changes for utility and service con-tracts. Customers can not only choose from a number of suppliers, they canalso choose from a variety of new rates, forms of contracts, and service levels.Therefore, utilities must be able to design flexible-content forms. In addition,

utilities must offer products that combine new services with the traditionalsupply services (for example, ”EnergyPlus” – electricity supplied at a favor-able daytime and nighttime double rate if combined with the purchase of nightstorage heating including installation).

Settle accounts for products and services and exchange data with other utilities

If a customer has contracts with more than one utility, those utilities have toexchange data with each other. Examples of such data include contract data,meter reading data, billing results, and move-in and move-out for a customer.

Support new billing scenarios

In a liberalized energy market, a utility company deals not only with conven-tional billing of supply categories, it also deals with additional scenarios:

In unbundled billing, one company bills for the basic services for a supplycategory provided by various companies – generation, transmission, dis-tribution, and customer service – in a single bill.

In convergent billing, one company bills for the supply services and othersales, such as services provided by various companies for a number of supply categories, in a single bill.

Customers give preference to companies that offer end-to-end service – those pro-viding not only their own products and services, but also administrative and bill-ing services for other companies.



Forecast customers’ consumption patterns as accurately as possible

Precise forecasting of customers’ consumption patterns is a critical successfactor for utility companies in a deregulated energy market.

Accurate forecasting is an essential element of suitably balanced procurement.It lowers the price risks in the spot market (in the energy market). For thisreason, the utility agrees on consumption profiles with its customers or de-ploys new meter technologies with time-slice-controlled consumption mea-surements.The new meter technologies, combined with remote meter reading, make con-sumption forecasting easier and new rate models possible. The customer in-formation system manages the consumption profiles and provides consump-tion forecasting.

Provide information technology support for services at the customer siteThis support enables utilities to improve productivity and customer service.In light of the new fields of business and greater customer focus, it is impor-tant to integrate supply services and on-site services in a common system.This requires integrating the customer information system with Service Man-agement for existing installations and with Work Management for work to beperformed.

Deploy new technologiesNew technologies include communication with the customer via front-officefunctions, call center systems, or the Internet. They also include communica-tion with customer installations via new meter technologies, instruments, andmeter-reading technologies.

Analyze the market and strengthen marketing activitiesMarket analysis and marketing are important ingredients in obtaining new,and retaining existing, customers. The customer information system must of-fer marketing and sales functions to do that.



The new tasks associated with a deregulated market have direct consequences forinformation management in utility companies. The increased importance of cus-tomer information, customer service, and billing is paralleled in particular by vastlyincreased demands on the customer information system. A customer informationsystem must:

Satisfy the demands of deregulation

Focus on the customer

Be very flexible

Increase the company’s productivity

Handle mass data

Deregulation

The customer information system must directly reflect changes in the market brought about by deregulation. Examples include:

New types of companies

New supply categories (divisions), rate models, and forms of contracts

New billing scenarios

Greater focus on customers, service, and competitiveness

More secure and automated data exchange with other companies

Forecasting of consumption patterns

Marketing and sales promotion activities

In the future, you will have more direct contact – in person or by phone – withcustomers. Customers expect their questions to be answered quickly and theirrequests for service to be fulfilled immediately. The purpose of a customer infor-mation system is to provide customers with the best possible support. You must

be able to access all the important data and services. The data must be up to dateand quickly available at all times. The performance capability and ease of use of such front-office functions raises productivity, reduces errors, and improves the

motivation of staff members. Users expect intuitive dialog prompts, an optimallydesigned user interface, and dialog prompts geared to business processes.

The integration of the customer information system with computer-telephone in-tegration (CTI) systems supports the rapid switching of incoming calls and imme-diately provides the call center staff with information on the customer. Outgoingmass calls are also supported, and additional touch-tone or intelligent voice re-sponse (IVR) technologies enable customers to take care of basic business process-es themselves on the phone.

Naturally, the customer information system must also allow for other forms of contact with customers. These include archiving faxes and letters and connectingto the Internet.



Many of the billing systems in utility companies are faithful reflections of an orga-nizational form that has grown up over several decades. They also reflect the rangeof services offered by the companies. Consequently, companies often cannot adaptthem quickly enough to meet changing demands. Ideally, a customer informationsystem ought to be able to respond quickly and without risky technical interven-tion to changes in business operations.

No other business-process system in a utility company is called upon to satisfysuch exacting demands for functionality as the customer information system. Thishappens for several reasons.

First, the business-related processes of a customer information system are rela-tively industry specific. Consequently, these processes undergo much greaterchanges, particularly in times of deregulation, than industry-neutral accountingprocesses.

In addition, the customer information system not only has to take into account theexisting country-specific conditions, it also has to master the consequences of deregulation. Indeed it is possible that regulated and deregulated scenarios willcoexist during a lengthy transition period.

An increased focus on competition and on customers forces utility companies tooffer new services and to develop individual strategies. The customer informa-tion system can be expected to make both possible.

Examples of the exacting demands with regard to functionality include:

Varied forms of recording consumption data

Flexibility in the design of contracts and bill forms

The multiplicity of forms and methods of payment and of clearing rules, par-ticularly for convergent billing

The differentiated handling of default of payment and the associated conse-quences

Changes to the company organization must be immediately reproduced in thecustomer information system. Examples of this include:

The division between a network-, connection-, and meter-oriented distribu-tion company and a customer-oriented energy sales company

The establishment of a front-office or back-office organization

The transition from area-based to process-based staff assignments

The organization of profit centers or business units with their own balancesheets

Billing for services from different utilities via a common or alternate servicecompany



The unremitting fast pace of development in information technology must not beallowed to pass by the customer information system, thus leading to technologi-cal obsolescence. The system must be able to incorporate new developments withinan overall evolutionary developmental process. A customer information systemmust be open and, as a component part of a business framework, it must commu-nicate with systems from different vendors.

Increased productivity means that business processes can be processed faster. Theresult is cost savings and improved service, plus increased customer satisfaction.It is precisely business processes that consist of a number of steps and in whichvarious agencies (other areas of the company, field service employees or otherservice providers) are involved that a modern customer information system canprocess more efficiently.

To do that, the customer information system needs more than the integrated func-tions to process all the individual steps. It must also coordinate the flow of a num-

ber of those steps by means of a higher-level, intelligent workflow managementsystem.

Some of these business processes occur during the course of normal business.They can happen frequently, or they can occur on a massive scale.



Examples include:

Installing new service connections

Making and terminating utility contracts

Replacing meters and devices

Processing move-in and move-out service requests

Rate changes

Processing of dunning

A workflow management system not only makes greater productivity possible, italso reduces errors. And because it monitors the flow of business processes, no

step is overlooked or unnecessarily delayed.Many of the business processes in customer service contain subprocesses fromaccounting and logistics. Where systems with entirely different functions, archi-tecture, and information technology are used, many problems occur at the inter-faces.

Mapping business processes is much easier if the customer information, account-ing, and logistics systems are supplied by a single source. The business processescan then be processed with fewer errors, greater ease of use, and faster.

The number of transactions continues to grow, not only for direct customer con-

tact, but also for background processing. Because most business processes in autility company are processed through the customer information system or in-volve functions of the customer information system, the system must handle alarge volume of transactions. The system takes care of this mass data processinglargely in the background. Examples include:

Creating meter reading documents

Handling budget billing requests

Billing or invoicing

Dunning

Exchanging data between companies in a deregulated market

Consequently, response time and throughput of the customer information system

have to meet the very highest demands for both online and background opera-tion. The transaction volume of utility companies with several thousand custom-ers, a variety of supply categories, and possibly monthly billing requires the useof such technologies as parallel executable background tasks and the distributionof the transaction load across several servers in a scalable, client-server architec-ture.



The consumption billing systems in place today do not satisfy the demands of theenergy market of the future. As a result, those demands are the basis for the spec-ifications for development of the Industry-Specific Component Utilities/CustomerCare & Service (IS-U/CCS) customer information system.

IS-U/CCS is the industry component for the utilities industry in the R/3 System.As a customer information and billing system for utility and service companies,IS-U/CCS is tailored especially to the industry-specific requirements of the utili-ties industry. Through the integration of IS-U/CCS with the industry-neutral com-ponents of the standard R/3 System and through interfaces to external systems,

SAP offers utility companies an integrated and enterprisewide total solution forprocessing business information: SAP Utilities.

SAP can look back on many years of intensive collaboration with the utilities in-dustry. Over 500 companies in the international utilities industry run R/2 and R/3 Systems. This makes SAP the market leader in business-process informationsystems in the utilities business. SAP also has many years of experience in thearea of customer information systems.

Approximately 80 utility companies in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and theNetherlands run the RIVA system in R/2, processing more than 25 million billableutility contracts in the following divisions:

Electricity

Gas

Water

Waste water





IS-U/CCS is a business process-oriented customer information system that han-dles all categories of supply and services provided by utility and service compa-nies. You can use IS-U/CCS to manage and bill residential, nonresidential, andservice customers and to manage prospective customers.

IS-U/CCS is exceptionally flexible. It supports a varied range of divisions and business partners and provides a large number of functions. Furthermore, IS-U/CCS processes all business transactions and activities with a central business part-ner jointly, and it offers account management, which integrates all of a business

partner’s payment transactions.In addition, you can take advantage of powerful customizing functions and theflexibility of the R/3 System to customize IS-U/CCS to meet your individual re-quirements. This means that you can deploy IS-U/CCS in utility companies of sizes and shapes – each with its own individual corporate and market strategy.

Utility companies can use IS-U/CCS to bill all the traditional divisions:

Electricity

Gas

District heating

Water and waste water



IS-U/CCS also handles billing for waste disposal (as of Release 1.2) and cabletelevision connections.

Because IS-U/CCS is integrated with the Service Management (PM-SMA) and Salesand Distribution (SD) application components of the R/3 System, you can also billservice orders and service contracts for services of all types, plus the sale of goods,such as meters, heat pumps, and consumption devices.

IS-U/CCS jointly invoices (if desired and appropriate in terms of time) all theservices that a utility company provides to customers. It combines them into asingle bill and processes them for accounts receivable via Contract Accounts Re-ceivable and Payable.

Moreover, using an interface you can include the billing results from external bill-ing systems in invoicing. This allows you to collectively create bills and processaccounts receivable with the billing results of IS-U/CCS (Release 2).

Of particular significance in IS-U/CCS is the collective billing of services frommore than one company. This includes convergent billing and intercompany bill-ing.

With convergent billing, a utility company can manage the services of a third par-ty and include them in its own bill. Examples include:

Waste disposal in behalf of the city sanitation department,

Cable charges for telecommunications companies

Drainage charges on behalf of the municipality.

With intercompany billing, several independent companies (each with their ownseparate balance sheets) can combine their services into a single bill. The servicesare based on contracts with different company codes.

Integrating services from more than one company provides advantages to bothconsumers and utility companies. Integration is also the foundation for futureforms of billing in a deregulated utility industry where the services of any onedivision consist of service components from more than one company.

This section briefly reviews the most important functions and features of IS-U/CCS.

With the basic functions of IS-U/CCS, you can manage the addresses and region-al structures and generate scheduled dates for meter readings, budget billings,and regular billings.

The print workbench gives you the capability for flexible layout of bills and othercustomer letters using SAPscript, the word processing system of the standard R/3System. You can either edit the data in SAPscript and pass it to the printer, or youcan make the data available for mass printing at the raw data interface (RDI).

As part of the migration process, you can transfer data from your current systemto IS-U/CCS.



Other functions allow you to:

Configure screens with tab strips

Enter nonstandardized additional information as notes

Store time-dependent data as information in a history

Maintain number ranges to assign unique sort features

Set up flexible access protection

Log changes

The master data in IS-U/CCS includes:

Business partners

Contracts and contract accounts

Connection objects (such as buildings or land) and the premises, utility instal-lations, and device locations they contain

For managing utility company devices, meters, and equipment, IS-U/CCS offersthe following functions:

The capability to divide devices into device categories

Meter and device procurement, warehousing, and stock movements usingintegration with the Materials Management (MM) component

Maintain installation structures with their existing relationships betweenmeters, devices, registers, and rate data

Maintain rate reference values and other information about the purchase of power

Installation, removal, and replacement of meters and devices

Device inspection and certification based on a sampling procedure or individ-ual certification

In addition, device management allows you to create meter-reading orders and enterconsumption and demand. In this area, IS-U/CCS offers the following functions:

Create meter reading orders and documents in printed or machine-readableform

Enter meter reading results manually or automatically

Conveniently connect external entry systems

Validate meter reading results

Correct or post-process meter reading results

Monitor meter readings

Valuate at flat rates consumption and demand on the basis of various replace-ment values (such as the number of cable television connections or the energyintake of streetlights)



Billing is the core of IS-U/CCS. It covers the billing of supply categories and ser-vices. In addition, you can incorporate the services that you processed and billedwith the Service Management and Sales and Distribution components and the meterreading results from external billing systems in IS-U/CCS invoicing (Release 1.2and Release 2).

A contract is billed as follows:

1. The necessary data is collected.

2. The data is prorated. The system accounts for price and tax changes duringthe billing period.

3. The system converts the readings into billable quantities (such as register fac-tors or thermal gas billing).

4. The quantities are valued using rates in which the utility company has storedits billing rules.

5. The meter reading results are validated and form the basis for invoicing.

IS-U/CCS supports the following forms of billing:

Periodic billing

Floating backbilling

Period-end billing

Interim billing

Final billing

Budget billing and average monthly billing or equalized billing (North America)



The most important functions of contract billing are as follows:

IS-U/CCS supports as billing cycles both annual consumption billing andmonthly billing cycles for less than a year.

The system bills nonresidential and residential customers in the same datastructures with the same functions. The two types of customer are differenti-ated only by the data.

You can reverse all forms of bills. You can initiate credit memos and backbillings.

In addition to automated billing, you can use manual billing (Release 2).

IS-U/CCS supports many division-specific types of billing. Some examplesare:

Thermal gas billing procedures

Billing of public lighting using electricity or gas

Waste disposal (Release 1.2)

Company and plant consumption of the utility

Billing for employees (Release 2)

Generates accounting documents for receivables and credit memos from bill-

ing documents Offsets accounting documents against down payments made, particularly paid

budget billings

Formats data for bill printout

Creates new budget billing plans

Supports the calculation of taxes

With bill printout you can flexibly design and display your bills according toyour needs. You can print bills using the IS-U/CCS print workbench or makethem available to external print systems for mass printing. In addition, you caninsert individual notification texts or flyers with printed documents.

Because of their large numbers of customers and generally monthly billing or

budget billing request, utility companies create large volumes of requests for pay-ment. So that you do not have to maintain this mass data under General Ledger Accounting, IS-U/CCS offers an integrated subledger called contract accounts re-ceivable and payable. Contract accounts receivable is especially designed to meetthe needs of mass processing. At specific intervals, the system transfers the accu-mulated individual postings to the general ledger of the Financial Accounting (FI)component or to the general ledger of a third-party system. You can also transfersales or service invoices from the Sales and Distribution component to contract ac-counts receivable and payable (Release 1.2).



The objective of contract accounts receivable and payable is to automate all trans-actions as far possible. You only need to manually intervene when a transactionrequires a decision.

The most important characteristics of contract accounts receivable and payableare the following:

You can individually customize account and open-item displays.

In response to certain business transactions, the system automatically createsprinted documents (such as checks, account statements, and returns corre-spondence) and correspondence with user-defined text.

Using a neutral interface, the system can transfer and automatically perform

postings that result from automated incoming payments (from front-end sys-tems, financial institutions, or agencies), from collection procedures, creditrefunds, or returns processing.

The system can process and include in invoicing down payments for energyconsumption (budget billings) and for services to be performed in the future.

You can impose payments in advance or security deposits on customers witha negative payment history or a bad credit rating.

Flexible dunning is based on dunning levels that you can define for each re-ceivables item. Every utility company can define the individual steps of thedunning proceedings itself. The system maintains all information relevant todunning in a history that is the basis for a credit rating.

You can calculate interest on debit and credit items at the line-item level. Youcan determine rates of interest individually depending on the business part-ner or transaction concerned (so far as legal requirements, for example, exist).

You can defer receivables items or transfer them to installment plans.

You can send documents relating to different accounts or business partners jointly to a collective bill recipient, for example, a housing construction com-pany).

You can identify receivables as good, doubtful, and irrecoverable and thenprocess them accordingly.

You can manage and process unallocatable incoming payments.

Receivables items are included in financial accounting.

The SAP Business Workflow component of the standard R/3 System allows you tocoordinate business-process flows across applications. Underlying the workflowsis a model of the various business processes that you define.

A workflow consists of individual steps performed by a single person, possiblytime-delayed, or by a number of different people. The system can execute certainsteps automatically, such as initiating a confirmation letter after a rate change orlogging changes (such as change in the contract, bank data, or budget billings)that result from a customer contact. The SAP Business Workflow component pro-vides technologies and tools for automatic control and processing of workflows.It allows you to adapt IS-U/CCS and the standard R/3 System to meet the needs

of your utility company.



It makes sense to map a business process as a workflow if it:

Keeps occurring in the same or in a similar form

Consists of a number of possibly cross-application processing steps that haveto be executed as a structured whole

Consists of a number of processing steps involving more than one person ordepartments or that are time delayed

IS-U/CCS contains predefined reference workflows for some of the more impor-tant business processes. These include processes for disconnecting and reconnect-ing a utility installation and installing a service connection. These workflows arediscussed in the chapter titled Business Processes.

The organizational plan of the utility company determines which staff membersare involved in a workflow. You can define this organizational plan using theOrganizational Management component of the standard R/3 System. The systemassigns tasks automatically to the appropriate staff members. The system process-es the assignment of work via the integrated inbox, which supports staff membersas they work. The workflow also ensures that required actions, such as the notifi-cation, are not overlooked. A log allows you to trace exactly the steps executed foreach process. In addition, you can trace the status of any workflow.

If deadlines are missed, the system can automatically notify a supervisor. A flexible information system allows you to analyze the runtimes of individual stepsand processes. With this data you can identify weak points in the application flowand optimize the relevant processes.



Every year, larger utility companies deal with several hundred thousand directcustomer contacts. In light of this large number, efficient processing of contacts isan important performance characteristic of IS-U/CCS. In particular, entering

business transactions places considerable demands on the user interface, serviceflow, and response time of the system.

The front office is the most important part of customer service. This is wherecustomers can obtain information on all the important data and start all the pro-cesses that are important to their work centers. Depending on the content of the

business processes, it uses R/3 workflow management to support the flow of those

processes.You can configure the front office to your requirements in Customizing. Theseconfigurations allow you to set up a work environment specifically suited to aparticular staff member and to define which data and transactions that the staff member is allowed to access.

In its customer information IS-U/CCS offers various ready-made views withwhich staff can provide customers with information on, for example, their dataand accounts. Workflow management contains predefined transactions with whichstaff can handle such jobs as:

Creating a new premise

Processing a move-in

Changing a contract Entering a fault report.



The initial step in any customer contact in the front office is the identification of the customer, which is supported by a powerful search function, the Data Finder.You define in Customizing which data the system uses as search criteria. You canautomate this step by integrating a computer telephone integration (CTI) systemand display an initial information screen that contains information on the cus-tomer.

Once the customer has been identified, your staff can call up information screensand then branch from there to additional, detailed views. If changes are required,you can make them on the spot. For example, you can change bank details orprocess a move-in.

If you cannot complete the transaction because required data is unavailable or if

detailed processing is required, you can:

Initiate a workflow

Depending on the definition of the workflow, you continue the transaction inthe back office when the necessary events have occurred

Create a follow-up for the appropriate person

In this case, you can enter customer information in a note and attach it to thefollow-up.

IS-U/CCS automatically logs the customer contact. You can enter notes (like mar-keting-relevant remarks) on a customer contact. You can quickly obtain an over-view of prior contacts and sort them according to various criteria, such as priordunning events or field service operations. The log record for the customer con-

tact references the relevant object or documents. This means that you can displaythe dunning letter sent for a dunning event, for example, directly from the log.

The efficient performance of services is increasingly important for utility compa-nies in times of growing competition and increased customer orientation. Utilitycompanies consequently plan and cost such services as work orders. Examplesinclude:

Setting up service connections

Maintaining technical equipment, performing periodic device replacement

Processing repairs and reports of damage

Creating collection and disconnection orders

Performing energy consulting

In IS-U/CCS, Work Management processes those work orders. Work Managementuses functions from the standard Plant Maintenance and Service Management com-ponent and integrates them with industry-specific functions from IS-U/CCS toform cross-component business processes.

In many cases you can bill customers for work orders. Where this is the case, thesystem executes the Inquiry Quotation Order transaction before the work or-der and the Billing Invoicing transaction after the work order. The system han-dles these transactions based on the integration of the Plant Maintenance and Ser-vice Management and the Sales and Distribution components.



You can combine the billing results for services from Sales and Distribution withthe results for energy billing from IS-U/CCS in IS-U/CCS invoicing and showthem on one bill (Release 2).

The Information System enables you to analyze the data resources underlying IS-U/CCS. Like other components of R/3, IS-U/CCS offers a variety of forms of analysis:

Statistics

The statistics are based on a statistical dataset, which the system updates con-

tinuously or monthly from dialog and batch functions. IS-U/CCS distinguishes between three different statistics applications:

Stock statisticsStock statistics reflect the current stock of all the essential objects in thedataset at a specific point in time.

Transaction statisticsTransaction statistics cover the most important processes executed duringa specific period of time. These might include move-in or move-out ordisconnection.

Sales statisticsSales statistics provide comprehensive information on quantities sold in

the various divisions and the resulting revenues.

The Logistics Information System (LO-LIS) component of the standard system en-ables you to evaluate the statistical dataset. The Logistics Information System offersmany different options for evaluating, analyzing and presenting data.

IS-U/CCS NavigatorWith the IS-U/CCS Navigator you can get a quick overview of how the datainterrelates within IS-U/CCS. Starting from any given data object, such as acustomer, you can use graphics to navigate through the entire data environ-ment of the object.

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IS-U/CCS interacts in an integrated total system with a number of the standardR/3 System components. Figure 3-1 shows how the components are integratedand the options for exchanging data with external systems.

The integration of IS-U/CCS with the Plant Maintenance (PM) and Materials Man-agement (MM) application components links the IS-U/CCS objects device catego-ry, device, device location, and connection object with the material, equipment,and functional location objects from Materials Management or Plant Maintenance.This allows the integrated use of the IS-U/CCS, Plant Maintenance, and Materials Management functions that work with those objects. A major beneficiary is Work Management. In addition, inventory management, warehouse management, andthe procurement of meters and devices are implemented using the relevant Mate-rials Management functions.

Expanding the integration of Plant Maintenance and Materials Management alsoallows you to execute work orders for a sales order.





The SAP Business Workflow component offers ideal conditions for integrating linefunctions with controlling or monitoring workflow functions.

Consumption entry can communicate with external consumption entry systemsvia a data interface. First, the meter reading orders and any other relevant instal-lation or customer-related data are made available for downloading to the exter-nal systems. These may be mobile data entry (MDE) systems or automated meterreading (AMR) systems. Then the meter or device readings are transferred back tothe meter reading database of IS-U/CCS via an upload interface.

The integration of IS-U/CCS with the standard R/3 System is described in detailin the chapter titled Scope of Business Functions, particularly in the following chap-ters:

Regional Structure and Clerk Determination

Business Partner

Device Management

Contract Accounts Receivable

Work Management

Information S ystem

Examples of the integration of external systems may be found in the followingchapters:

Device Reading: External Consumption Entry Systems

Work Management: Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

Dispatching and Scheduling Systems (CADS)

Outage Management System (OMS)

Invoicing: External Billing Systems

Print Workbench: External Print Systems

In addition, IS-U/CCS also uses some R/3 standard functions that are not de-

scribed in later chapters. Those functions are therefore discussed briefly below. IS-U/CCS employs the access and authorization concept of the R/3 System, the

User and Authorizations component (BC-CCM-USR). The following authorizationobjects are either already available or planned for IS-U/CCS:

Division

Master data

Amount

Access protection in the R/3 System adopts a two-step approach. The first step –the logon procedure – is for the general safety of the R/3 System. The second step– the authorization concept – becomes active as soon as the user logs on to the R/3System.



The logon procedure determines the following:

How many times a user can enter an incorrect password before the systemrejects any further logon attempts.

How many times a user can enter an incorrect password before the systemwill not allow that user to log on at all.

How long a password must be, and the length of time it is valid before it has to be changed.

Authorizations define the actions users may perform once they have logged on tothe R/3 System. They determine the limits of the users’ access to the followingactions:

Executing transactions

Processing data

Displaying and changing data

Authorizations are entered in the user master record.

IS-U/CCS uses the number management of the standard R/3 System. Numberranges are used to assign numbers to the database records of business objects. Thenumbers form a unique key for the database records. In the case of an externalnumber range, you assign the numbers, but with an internal number range, thesystem assigns numbers automatically.

You define the intervals of the external and internal number ranges in Customiz-ing. They consist of numbers or alphanumeric characters (only in the case of ex-

ternal number ranges) and have upper and lower limits.

The number range number identifies a number range and allows you to access thenumber interval internally. It can be numeric or alphanumeric, and is ordinarilyassigned internally by the system.

Many business objects are subject to frequent changes. Change documents allowyou to track what was changed when, how, and by whom. This makes it mucheasier for you to analyze errors. IS-U/CCS defines the objects for which changedocuments are created. This logging of changes is possible as a result of the inte-gration of the Change Management (LO-ECH) component.

Large quantities of data and documents are created in IS-U/CCS. When they areno longer needed, you can remove them from the database using the SAPAr-

chiveLink (CA-SRV-ARL) component. Archiving refers to the logical reorganiza-tion of data. The physical reorganization of the database is done using tools pro-vided by the hardware or database manufacturers.

Archiving is carried out in a two-step procedure:

The data to be archived is copied to an archive file.

The archived data is deleted from the database.

This two-step archiving procedure guarantees that no data is lost, and it also al-lows you to archive data during normal system operation.

You can archive all important IS-U/CCS entities. You set the criteria (such as re-tention period) for archiving and deleting data in Customizing. Documents (suchas bills) are archived as they are printed.

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A business process consists of a series of connected work steps. The individualsteps can be processed by a variety of people or organizational units with timedelay. This chapter discusses how IS-U/CCS handles those business processesthat are encountered most frequently in utility companies.

In most cases, you execute a business process in the front office. You can use thedata finder to identify the object you need, for example, the customer. The systemthen provides you with information views, predefined processes, front office pro-cesses, and workflows. For a detailed description of the front office, refer to the

section Customer Service.For some of the more important business processes, IS-U/CCS offers predefined

processes that provide very efficient processing in a single step:

Initial data creation for premises

Move-in

Move-out

Customer consolidation (Release 4.51)

Disconnection or reconnection

Rate maintenance

The predefined processes are parts of the Customer Service/Workflow Management

component of IS-U/CCS.Business processes in which more than one person is involved or that are driven by

certain events (such as executing a work order) can be mapped as a workflow usingthe SAP Business Workflow component. For each processing step, the system locatesthe responsible person and places an appropriate message in that person’s electronicinbox. (For more information, refer to the section Basic Functions/Clerk Assignment).

A workflow is initiated either manually by someone in the front office or by thesystem itself in response to a specific event.

The following workflows are available:

Laying a service connection

Initial data creation for a premise (currently implemented as a front office

process) Collection procedure

Disconnection or reconnection

Vacant status monitoring

Complaint about the bill

Other workflows will be implemented in future releases of IS-U/CCS. The fol-lowing section describes some of the typical business processes.



The business process for laying a service connection is implemented as a workflow.From developing a quotation and creating a service order through creating a bill,it includes all the steps required to lay a new service connection. This businessprocess uses the Work Management (IS-U-WM) component and integration withthe standard R/3 components Plant Maintenance, Service Management, Sales andDistribution, Materials Management, Controlling, and Financial Accounting. . (For moreinformation, please refer to the chapter titled Work Management.)

Figure 4-1 illustrates the process of laying a service connection. It begins when acustomer requests a quotation for laying a service connection (step ”a” in Figure4-1).

The process includes the following steps:

1. Identify customer (a)

2. Create SD quotation (b)

3. Enter the service product Lay Connection as the material in the items of thequotation (c)

4. Create the written quotation (d)

The costs to be expected are calculated in an SD quotation on the basis of technicalfactors (such as soil condition) or flat rates. The technical data for the connection isentered in the quotation as the service product is configured.



Say the customer accepts the quotation (e). The user then follows these steps:

1. If relevant, request a down payment

2. Create SD order (f)

3. Create the connection and the connection object

4. Allocate the connection to the connection object

5. If relevant, set device installation (meter )

All planned and incurred costs are managed in the SD order. The items from theSD quotation can be transferred to the SD order. A service order is automaticallycreated in the background in Plant Maintenance and Service Management (g). The

connection is stored as a piece of equipment, and the connection object as a func-tional location, in Plant Maintenance.

Next, the connection is laid at the given location, and the Plant Maintenance ser-vice order is confirmed completed (h). The user performs the following steps:

1. Complete Plant Maintenance service order

2. Initiate expense-based billing (i)

3. Create SD billing request

4. Create SD billing document (k)

5. Post SD billing document

6. Create bill

7. Execute debit entry in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable (l)The Plant Maintenance service order is settled as a flat rate or based on expense.The invoicing run that follows can be handled in IS-U/CCS instead of Sales andDistribution (as of Release 4.51). In such cases, the bill can either be printed imme-diately or included in the first consumption billing.

In the next step, the customer pays the bill (m). The user enters the posting inContract Accounts Receivable and Payable and clears the receivable.

Initial data creation for a premise is defined as a front office process. It is used to enterall technical and billing data for a new premise. IS-U/CCS provides a predefined

process for this purpose. Following initial data creation for a premise, you can pro-cess a customer move-in as an integrated part of the online processing.

For example, say the owner or the municipality that issued the construction per-mit submits information for the initial data creation of a premise. The user takesthe following steps:

1. Check to determine whether a connection already exists

2. If necessary, execute the business process Laying a Service Connection

3. Create premise and installation

4. Perform device installation and, at the same time, create device location



5. Maintain additional data relevant to billing (such as register relationships)

6. If necessary, repeat the preceding processing steps for other divisions. (Stepsone through six may in some cases be processed in parallel.)

7. If necessary, execute the business process Move-In

If, in a deregulated market, the customer has contracts with more than one com-pany (for example, for a connection to the grid and for energy supply), those con-tracts can be allocated accordingly here.

Events that may trigger device installation or removal include:

Initial data creation

Installation extension

Periodic replacement or sampling procedure

Damage or complaint

Change in consumption pattern

Installation removal

Steps:

1. Inform customer

2. Create field service order

3. Execute installation or removal



4. Enter installation or removal

5. If applicable, update rate or billing data

6. If applicable, invoice costs

7. If applicable, send confirmation letter to customer

Device installation and removal is not the same as device replacement. In the caseof device replacement, the old device is removed and the new device installed ina single step. The new device takes over the function of the old device, and theattributes of the installation and the billing data for the device are transferred tothe new device.

For handling move-ins or move-outs, the predefined transactions move-in, move-out, and move-in/out are available to help you enter all the necessary data. Thesetransactions provide for immediate and complete processing, with a bill for thecustomer moving out, and a welcome letter for the customer moving in.

The move-in/out transaction allows you to process either the move-out and move-in of two different business partners in connection with the same premise or themove-out of a business partner from a given premise and the move-in of thatsame business partner to a different premise.

You can adapt the screen displays and the process flows involved in move-in/outto meet the requirements of the utility company.

Move-in processing is used to select or create a customer and to allocate that cus-tomer to existing functional installations.



Event: A customer gives notification of a move-in.

Steps:

1. Identify customer and premise

2. Enter contact data

3. If necessary, enter and process customer moving in and his/her contract ac-count

4. Create contracts

5. If necessary, create order for meter reading at move-in and perform meterreading (if meter reading is not performed by customer)

6. Enter move-in meter reading results7. Maintain rate data

8. Determine whether the billing construct can be billed

9. If applicable, manually maintain creditworthiness or display results of auto-matic determination of creditworthiness

10. If applicable, request cash security deposit

11. If applicable, create budget billing plan

12. If applicable, create welcome letter

Move-out processing terminates the contracts that were concluded with the cus-tomer. When a customer moves out, new contracts for another customer are allo-

cated to the associated utility installations after the move-out date.

Fig. 4-4: Customer move-out



When a customer gives notification of a move-out you perform the following steps:


2. Enter contact data

3. If necessary, process customer moving out and his/her contract account

4. Terminate contracts

5. If applicable, stop budget billing collection

6. If applicable, suspend current dunning procedures

7. If applicable, change dunning procedures that affect open items

8. If applicable, create final meter reading order and perform meter reading (if reading by customer has not been submitted)

9. Enter final meter reading results

10. If applicable, execute final billing for contracts affected by the move-out, andinvoice and print final bills

11. If applicable, create move-out confirmation

When a premise is without a customer temporarily or for a longer period, youperform the following steps:

Option 1: Execute move-in of owner or landlord

Option 2: Create notification to determine owner

Option 3: Create field service order to check use of installation

Option 4: Automatic monitoring of vacant status (defined as a workflow). If apremise has no customer for a lengthy period, you can initiate a workflowthat triggers the disconnection of the installation concerned. The reconnectionof the installation is initiated as the result of a new customer move-in (see alsoDisconnection and Reconnection).

You can:

Create orders for archiving or for handing over customer documentation

Suppress the printout of the meter reading document for the final meter read-ing if a meter reading result already exists or if a meter reading is alreadyplanned for some other reason

Contrary to the normal procedure, have final meter readings performed by

the meter reader or the customer Create meter reading documents for the move-in/out meter reading, and not

use automatic data entry

Agree meter reading dates with the customers (Release 4.51)

Have implausible meter readings taken by the customer checked by a meterreader

Exclude cash security deposits from interest calculation

Defer or write off receivables created by final invoicing or convert them to aninstallment plan

Levy charges for move-in/out processing



Changes, such as those described below, may be necessary to allocate master data.The following items will be available as separate functions with Release 1.2 at theearliest.

Customer changeA customer change is required as a result of a change of landlord, an inheritance,or a gift. The customer switches to another contract account. There is no final bill.

Contract account changeA contract account change is required when alternative bank and paymentdata is agreed on for just some of the contracts in a contract account. You mustset up a new, separate contract account for the installations concerned.

A final bill is not required if the change applies to the entire unbilled period. If proration is to be applied during an as yet unbilled period, final billing must

be performed for the period through the change date.

Contract changeYou can terminate a contract with a final bill at any time and then manage theutility installation with a new contract. This capability is needed, for example,in a deregulated scenario when the energy supplier is changed.

Customer consolidationWhere two customer master records were created for a single customer, youcan consolidate them in a single master record. This function is still in the

planning stage.

A predefined process is available for rate maintenance.

Event: Change in the billing data for a customer

Because changes of this kind are often necessary when a new customer movesinto a premise, you can also start rate maintenance from move-in.

Steps:

1. Identify utility installation(s) concerned

2. Perform changes to data

3. Start overall check

4. Execute budget billing amount adjustment

5. Create written information for the customer

In rate maintenance, you can maintain all the data relevant to billing for one util-ity installation or for all installations in a given contract account.

The following functions are supported:

Maintain utility installation data

Maintain data for the installed devices (installation structure)

Adjust period consumption

After the changes have been processed, you can extrapolate the budget billingamount again.



Event: A customer complains that he/she has received a dunning notice in spite

of his/her payment.

Steps:

1. Identify customer

2. Check customer account

Event: Payment is found.

Step: Allocate payment

Event: A customer requests interim billing.Steps:


2. If applicable, block budget billing plan for adjustment

3. If applicable, create meter reading order (where no reading by customer exists)

4. Enter meter reading results

5. Execute billing

6. Execute invoicing

7. Initiate bill printout

8. If applicable, print new budget billing requests

9. Send bill

Event: A customer requests a change to the budget billing amount as a result of achange in consumption pattern.

Steps:


2. Check budget billing plan

3. Change budget billing amount

4. Notification is created automatically.

Event: A customer is unable to pay and requests deferred payment or payment byinstallments.

Steps:


2. Check customer account

Event: Payment by installments or deferral is agreed

Steps:

1. Create installment plan or defer items

2. If applicable, calculate interest on items

3. Create notification



Other receivables processing functions:

Existing credits can be paid out to the customer.

The receivable can be blocked for dunning.

The due date can be changed.

If a payment has already been made, you can reverse posted dunning costs.

Event: The utility company receives a returns tape or document

Steps:1. Execute reversal

2. Depending on the reason for the returns document, the following steps arepossible:

Pass on charges to expenses

Change payment methods

Set payment blocks (at master data or item level)

Update event record (for creditworthiness calculation)

Set deferral date

Create follow-ups for clerks

3. If applicable, create notification

The entire returns processing runs automatically. The reversal is executed as theresult of returns. All other steps are executed according to the reason for the re-turns, the creditworhtiness of the business partner, the amount and the number of the returns in a given period.

The collection procedure is implemented as a workflow.

Event: A customer has been repeatedly dunned without success and at least oneitem has reached a collection dunning level.

Step: Create collection order

Option 1: The customer makes payment directly to a field service employee.

Step: Update payment (stops the collection procedure.)

Option 2: The customer presents a payment document.

Steps:

1. Check payment

2. Payment was made: stop collection procedure

Payment was not made: continue collection procedure



Option 3: The customer does not make payment.

Option a): Disconnection and Reconnection business processIn this case, the disconnection and reconnection workflow (see also thedescription of this workflow on the following page) is initiated and em-

bedded in the collection procedure workflow (the collection procedureworkflow remains in the hold position).

The person authorized to collect performs the disconnection on site andsubsequently enters the disconnection in the system (when disconnectionon site occurs, step 3 of the disconnection workflow is executed first).

If the customer then makes payment or agrees on an installment plan, thereconnection workflow is executed and the collection procedure workflowis stopped.

Option b): Customer denies field service employee access to the installa-tion

Step: Inform legal department and sue for access

Option c): Field service employee cannot find customer

Step: Set new collection date

Option d): Installation must not be disconnected (for example, if it is locat-

ed at a hospital)Step: Inform legal department



The disconnection and reconnection of a utility installation is implemented as aworkflow.

Event: A customer does not pay even though an item has reached the collectiondunning level. The installation is therefore to be disconnected or the energy sup-ply restricted.

Steps:

1. If applicable, create disconnection document manually (unless the dunningrun automatically creates it)

2. Create disconnection order

3. Perform disconnection

4. Enter disconnection

Option 1: The customer has paid.

Steps:

1. Initiate reconnection

2. Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable creates a reconnection order as part of the workflow

3. Perform reconnection

4. Enter reconnection

Option 2: Payment is not made

Step: Hand over to legal dunning procedure (external)



Billing complaints are implemented as workflows.

Event: The customer makes a complaint about a bill that is actually incorrect.

Steps:

1. Call central customer information

2. Check bill in the system

Option 1: Correct error(s) with reversal

Steps:

1. Execute reversal

2. Execute new billing

3. Initiate bill printout

4. If applicable, print new budget billing requests

5. Send or hand over bill

6. Process incoming or outgoing payment

Option 2: Correct error with manual credit memo or backbilling

Steps:

1. Execute manual credit memo or backbilling

2. If applicable, adjust budget billing amount and print requests3. Initiate bill printout (print immediately or with the next periodic billing)

4. Send or hand over bill

5. Process incoming or outgoing payment

Option 3: Execute an interim meter reading as a check

Interim meter reading for a billing complaint is implemented as a workflow. Fol-lowing the interim reading, the meter reading result is corrected if necessary, andprocessing continues with option 1 or 2.

Event: A customer requests a copy of his/her last bill.

Steps:

1. Identify customer2. Identify bill

3. Reprint bill



Event: A customer reports a defective meter.

Steps:


2. Determine connection or device

3. Create service notification

4. If applicable, create service order

5. Execute action, for example, repair or device replacement

6. Confirm the action executed with a completion confirmation

A service notification can be processed either with or without a service order. Aservice order is not required for service processing in cases where no material,tool, or labor costs have to be calculated or none of those resources have to bescheduled.

If there is a service contract for a service order, you can create an expense-related billing request. Costs and sales revenues are then posted directly to the serviceorder, which in the case of a repair would be, for example, material and laborcosts. The system also supports expense-related billing and includes warranties,which allows certain repair activities not to be charged to the customer.

You also manage maintenance costs using a service order. Unlike a repair, mainte-

nance implies a planned service. Planning is carried out via the Maintenance Plan-ning component of Plant Maintenance, which supports both time- and activity-related maintenance work. The system automatically generates service orders fromthe maintenance plan.

If a service contract exists for a device, that service contract can be assigned morethan one maintenance service order. Costs and sales revenues are then posteddirectly to the service contract via the expense-related billing request. In the caseof expense-related billing of maintenance service, all materials, work performed,and costs are listed individually. The customer receives a billing document thatlists actual expenses plus items that do not get billed because, for example, theycome under a warranty.

Events:

A customer wants to know the probable amount of his bill.

A clerk wants to check the billing results before the actual billing is performed.

A clerk wants to check if the probable amount of a bill matches the customer’sagreed budget billing amounts.

A clerk performs energy consulting for a customer (Release 4.51).

Steps:


2. If applicable, adjust values relevant to billing (such as expected consumptionin period, rate category, or meter reading results)



3. Run billing simulation

4. Display bill

Steps 2-4 can be executed repeatedly in cycles.

Billing simulation is performed for actual master data. This means that the simu-lated contract exists as a real contract relevant to billing.

Event: Rate conversion (Release 4.51)

If you want to analyze the effects of a rate conversion in advance, you can performmass simulation.

Steps:

1. Change data (for example, rate category, rates, price key)

2. Execute mass simulation of the contracts

3. Analyze forecast results

Event: Customer requests energy consulting (Release 4.51)

Energy consulting involves the assessment and comparison of combinations of master data and rate data. You obtain the billing results that can be expected byusing billing simulations. For that purpose, you create reference contracts for whichyou simulate billing with different meter reading data combinations. The meterreading data can reflect both fictitious and real consumption and demand. Youcan combine the contract data with different rate data.

You can run a simulation for either past or future periods. You can therefore com-

pare rate quotations for a single division or rate quotations for various divisions.The system identifies simulated bills and stores them as such. You can comparethe results of different simulated bills with each other.

Steps:

1. Select reference data.

2. Create customer-specific data.

3. Create simulated bills.

4. Create notification.

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This description of the scope of business functionality delivered by the industry-specific IS-U/CCS component is organized according to the hierarchy of the com-ponents that comprise IS-U/CCS, and therefore parallels the layout of the IS-U/CCS menus. This approach will enable you to quickly locate the functions beingdiscussed in the IS-U/CCS menu. Where it is helpful, we also introduce the stan-dard R/3 System functions that are integrated with IS-U/CCS, such as the organi-zational structure of a company.

The postal regional structure divides a service territory according to postal crite-ria. The primary elements are cities and streets with their street sections. You canalso store city districts and post office boxes and the postal code for each connec-tion object.

When maintenance of the postal regional structure is complete, all the addressesof IS-U/CCS objects reference regional structure elements. Correct spelling andstructuring of addresses is ensured by the central file for city and street nameswith their corresponding postal codes. This task is handled by the Address Man-

agement (CA-GTF-ADR) component of the standard R/3 System.Country-specific algorithms simplify entering addresses. In the Netherlands, forexample, users can enter the postal code and the house number in order to fullyspecify an address. In Germany, the postal code can be derived simply from thecity in many cases.

You can store data relevant to billing, such as temperature area and air pressurearea, calorific value district, and meter reading units (see below) for specific citiesand streets. The system proposes these values when you create utility installa-tions.

The political regional structure divides the service territory according to politicaland administrative criteria. Unlike the postal regional structure, you can definethe political regional structure as you choose. First you define the hierarchy (for

example, state, county, and city), and then you assign elements, meaning the cor-responding political entities (for example, Orlando, Florida) to the hierarchicallevels.



To allow strategic planning of personnel placement and efficient control and mon-itoring of business processes, the utility company’s organizational structure must

be stored in IS-U/CCS, where it must be quickly accessible. For that reason, IS-U/CCS uses the Organizational Management (BC-BMT-OM) component from R/3 Ba-sis.

The organizational structure enables clerk determination to be performed (see Clerk Determination) in the case of a workflow, for example. This means that you canassign each task and each business process automatically to the appropriate em-

ployee or group of employees. In addition, you need the organizational structurefor setting up access authorizations and for billing employees (Release 4.51).

All company data can be stored centrally in the organizational structure and usedgraphically or as text. This data includes:

Employee data, including work center, telephone number, and address

Job descriptions, positions and their staff assignment

Organizational setup, for example, according to groups, departments, or ar-eas, including hierarchies

Tasks and responsibilities

Vacation and substitute employee information

The political regional structure is linked to the addresses of the connection objects by the postal regional structure. The elements of the political regional structureare stored for cities and streets (or street sections).





Consequently, the criteria that can be used in clerk determination include:

Company code

Division

Billing class (classification of contracts within one division, for example, resi-dential contract or nonresidential contract)

Regional allocation (for objects with an address)

The first letter of the business partner’s last name

The utility company can define other attributes for use in clerk determination.You can define the allocation of employees to those criteria.

Scheduling periodically generates dates for meter reading, billing, and budget billing plans. Before you can generate these schedule records, you must create theschedule master records for meter reading (the meter reading units) and for bill-ing (the portions).

Portions are groups of contracts that are to be billed together. A contract is allocat-ed to a portion either directly in the contract or indirectly via the meter readingunits that are specified in the utility installation belonging to the contract.

Meter reading units group together utility installations according to regional cri-teria. They contain all data relevant to meter reading scheduling. You can onlycreate meter reading units if a portion already exists.



To generate due dates for budget billing payments, you have to maintain not onlythe portion, but also the parameter record. The parameter record contains thedata either for the planned debit entry or for printing the budget billing amounts.A single parameter record can be used for more than one portion.

Master data is data in IS-U/CCS that remains unchanged over an extended peri-od of time. It is subdivided into commercial and technical master data.

The business master data consists of:

Business partner

Contract account

Utility contracts

The technical master data consists of:

Connection object

Connection

Premise

Device location

Utility installation



In R/3 a business partner can fill a number of roles simultaneously. However, a business partner’s data is stored just once in a central master record. This reduces theamount of maintenance required, saves memory, and prevents data inconsistency.

In IS-U/CCS, the business partner is classified according to the business partnercategories natural person, group, and organization. You can store different informa-tion depending on the business partner category you choose.

IS-U/CCS uses the following roles for the business partner:

Contract partner who has a contract with a utility company for delivery andpurchase of utility services. A contract partner could be a residential custom-

er, nonresidential customer, other utility company, service provider, local au-thorities, property owners, or third parties.

Prospective customer, who is the target of marketing or sales activities

Contact person for a contract partner of the utility company

Installer who is authorized by the utility company to install devices and whois issued a license for that purpose

General business partnerThe general business partner is stored as information only and is neither a contractpartner of the utility company nor a contact person or prospective customer.

When you change or create a business partner, you can create a standard customerin the Sales and Distribution application component. This customer takes advan-

tage of service and maintenance offerings.

Figure 5-5 shows the master data and illustrates how the various entities are related.



You can link business partners to one another using relationship categories. Ex-amples include linking an organization and a contact person with the relationshipcategory contact partner and the relationship categories marriage and shared livingarrangement.

The master record of a business partner contains data from the following areas:

Name

Personal data

Search terms that can be defined by the user

Address, including telephone and fax numbersYou can enter other addresses in addition to the standard address.The Address Management component manages the addresses centrally and witha uniform structure. It determines whether the address entered meets coun-try-specific rules and whether the city and street exist in the postal regionalstructure. It also allocates the business partner to the political regional struc-ture and, if applicable, to the company regional structure.

Bank detailsMore than one set of bank data can be entered (for example, one account forincoming payments and one for outgoing payments)

General data (for example, credit rating, and country-specific data) A standard customer is created in the Sales and Distribution component for a contract

partner or prospective customer in IS-U/CCS. That SD customer can:

Take advantage of service or maintenance offerings

Purchase goods

Pay fees and taxes

Be the target of marketing activities

To create a standard customer, you use a predefined reference customer. You canthen change the data of that reference customer.



A contract account groups together all of a business partner’s contracts to whichthe same payment and dunning data applies. The following payment transactiondata is stored in the contract account:

Bank details

Dunning data

Payment data

Alternative payer, payee, bill recipient, and dunning recipient

If you want to create a collective bill for more than one contract account, you cangroup the accounts together in a collective bill account. Collective bills are used,for example, for property management companies, city councils, and large com-panies. In the collective bill account, which is itself a contract account, you definethe recipient of the collective bill and the payment and dunning procedures for allthe contract accounts that belong to that collective bill. (See also the section Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable/Business Transactions.)

You can perform mass changes on the bank data (Release 4.51). This may be nec-essary if restructuring activities at banks result in changes in the bank number oraccount number. In such cases, a tape or a listing containing the relevant custom-ers and their bank data is generated.

A contract is an agreement between the utility company and a business partnerrelating to a utility service. It is the basis for billing the following contract catego-ries:

Delivery contractsYou can conclude delivery contracts for electricity, gas, water, waste water,district heating, and cable TV. You can also use other service-related divisionsif IS-U/CCS can bill them. The contracts may relate to the entire division or tobasic services for that division Basic services might be energy supply, trans-mission, distribution, meter reading, customer service or billing. (See also thesection Deregulated Utility Contracts).

Purchase contracts for small power producers, solar plants, and other cogen-

erators Plant consumption contracts for the utility company’s generation and distri-

bution installations

Company consumption contracts (the utility’s own consumption), for exam-ple, for electricity consumption in the utility company’s offices

Service contracts (for maintenance and repairs, for example) are not managed byIS-U/CCS but instead by the Sales and Distribution component in conjunction withthe Service Management component.



The contract data includes the following control data for consumption billing andcontract accounts receivable and payable:

General data (such as contract account)

Data relevant to budget billing

Account assignment data (such as account determination ID)

Data relevant to billing

Contract validity periods

Move-in and move-out data

A utility contract is allocated to one single contract account. You can allocate more

than one contract to an account and then bill those contracts together. However,only one utility installation can be allocated to one contract.

With the exception of move-in and move-out data, you can change, display, andcheck all the data of multiple contracts of a contract account simultaneously (thisapplies to those contracts that have not been terminated).

The move-in or move-out date represents the beginning or the end of energy sup-ply in the division specified in the contract or of partial service in a division. If aparticular utility service ends, the customer with that service is identified as mov-ing out, and the utility contract is classified as terminated. (See also the section Move-In/Move-Out). The possible reasons for these events include the following:

The customer is no longer interested in that utility service.

The customer changes suppliers.Immediately following move-out, a new contract goes into effect with the newsupplier (upon move-in).

The customer moves out of the premise.In this case, all the customer’s utility contracts are canceled (in move-out forall contracts).

A connection object is usually a building, but it can also be a piece of property orother entity, such as a fountain or a construction site). Since a connection object isallocated an address, it links premises, device locations, and connections with thepostal regional structure.

The connection object is a functional location from the Plant Maintenance applica-tion component. This means that you can use the functions of the Service Manage-ment component to organize move-in and move-out or the repair and mainte-nance of devices in connection objects. In addition to the general functional loca-tion data, the connection object contains industry-specific data.

A connection is the technical link between a utility company and the connectionobject. Since it is division-specific, several connections for different divisions orseveral connections for the same division can be located in one connection object.The connection is a piece of equipment from the Plant Maintenance componentwith no industry-specific enhancement in IS-U/CCS.



The term ”premise” refers to an enclosed spatial unit to be supplied with a utilityservice (such as an apartment or a factory). Several utility installations can beallocated to one premise (for different divisions, for example). The premise is there-fore not related to one specific division. It is allocated to a connection object and tothe address of that connection object. In addition, you can maintain more detaileddata about the location of the premise (for example, which floor).

You can enter an owner for a premise, who is responsible for paying outstanding bills if the premise is empty.

A deregulated scenario exists if more than one utility installation of the same divi-

sion is allocated to a premise. Because utility services are being unbundled, morethan one utility contract for the same division is allocated to the same premise viathe unique allocation of the utility installation. (See also the section DeregulatedUtility Contracts).

A device location is a place within a connection object where devices are installed.Those devices can belong to different divisions. You can allocate both the addressof the connection object and a particular premise to the device location, and youcan and enter a description to define the exact location of the device. This meansthat you can use the device location to locate an installed device.

The device location is, like the connection object, a functional location from thePlant Maintenance application component. This means that you can use the PMfunctions in the device location, too.

In IS-U/CCS, grouping a premise with the devices and contracts is referred to as a”utility installation” (or ”installation” for short). The installation contains datarelevant to the billing of the contracts, for example the reference values (see be-low).

Several devices can be installed in a utility installation, with a variety of differentrelationships existing between them. The devices can also comprise several regis-ters, each with a different rate allocation. All the information about device alloca-

tions, register relationships, and rate allocations is stored in the installation struc-ture. (See the section Device Management/Installation Structure.)

At any given time, the installation is allocated to one single contract. If the con-tracts in a deregulated scenario contain only partial services from a single divi-sion, an installation in the same premise and with the same devices exists for eachcontract. (See the section Deregulated Utility Contracts). Only in exceptional cases(for example, installation under construction, installation vacant and not allocat-ed to an owner) is an installation not allocated to a contract.

Scheduling determines the meter reading dates for the installation. These datesare governed by the meter reading unit to which the installation is allocated. Themeter reading unit also links the installation to the portion in which the billingdates are defined. You can, however, override the portion in the contract.





Deregulation results in an unbundling of the utilities value chain into:

generation transmission distribution customer service.

Various suppliers can provide each of these basic services for any given division.It is also possible for more than one supplier to deliver the same basic service. Forexample, one supplier may deliver an invariably constant quantity of energy perunit of time, while a second supplier provides all additional energy.

Consequently, one technical installation can be assigned several utility contractsthat together must be consistent. This means that only certain combinations of

utility contracts are allowed for an individual installation. You can achieve this bymaintaining the permitted combinations of basic services in a product catalog(Release 4.51).

The utility service for a specific division is subdivided into two partial servicesthat are supplied by different service providers: the basic services of energy and transmission, and distribution and customer service. The two contractsfor those basic services are therefore managed in different company codes.

Figure 5-8 shows how you define a deregulated utility service in IS-U/CCS. Foreach of the contracts, you can define the data relevant to billing in the utility in-stallation and in the installation structure. This requires that you create for eachpremise two installations for the same division. Consequently, the devices are also

assigned twice.



If both contracts are managed in the same system, one of the two companies canhandle billing and numerous customer service tasks for the other, or a third com-pany can take care of these activities for both service providers. The customerthen receives just one bill for both partial services and only needs to be in contactwith one company.

You use device management to manage technical data, installations, meter read-ings, and device inspections. By devices we mean the IS-U/CCS specific form of the equipment of the Plant Maintenance component. Devices can perform the fol-

lowing functions:

Count (for example, meters)

Control (for example, ripple-control receivers)

Process data (for example, converters)

Protect or adjust (for example, pressure regulators)

A device is identified by its device number. You can create the device number inthe Materials Management component (where it is known as a serial number) byusing the goods receipt function. The device number is physically located on thedevice.

Each device belongs to a specific device category. The device category is a groupof devices with similar technical characteristics. It contains the data common tothose devices. Examples include the description of the devices or the associatedregister group (see below). The device category is the IS-U/CCS specific form of the material in the Materials Management component.



The various device categories are, in turn, assigned to the following basic devicecategories:

Meter

Transformer

Audiofrequency ripple-control receiver

Remote meter

Counter

Corrector

Pressure regulator

Sensor

Other

A device category can also be a combination of different basic device categories.

Device movements are implemented in IS-U/CCS through the integration of the Materials Management component. It provides the following functions:

ProcurementThe procurement of devices is handled in Purchasing (MM-PUR) using thePurchase Requisition and Purchase Order components.

DeliveryThe delivery of devices is entered in Inventory Management (MM-IM) using theGoods Receipt component. Since equipment records are automatically generat-ed, you can use functions from the Plant Maintenance component, such as cre-ating preventive maintenance plans, routing, and standard order management).

Device transferTransfers are carried out in Inventory Management using the Stock Transfer/Trans- fer Posting component. You can transfer individual devices, which are identi-fied by their device numbers, or entire device stocks.

Device retirementDevices that are no longer part of the company’s device stock because theyhave been scrapped or sold are processed in Inventory Management using the

Goods Issue and Return component. The master records of those devices aresaved.

Technical device and connection data is grouped as follows:

Register groupA register group is a group of registers belonging to a device category or de-vice. Registers measure consumption and demand. A register may be an actu-al physical register or a display in an electronic device. The technical data(such as the number of digits or type of display) and the billing-related data(such as the rate usage type) of the registers are stored here.



Input/output groupAn input/output group is a group of inputs and outputs belonging to a de-vice category or device and describes the technical data. Inputs and outputsare device interfaces. For example, in the case of remote meters, this meansseveral pulse input points and a modem interface.

Command groupA command group is a group of several commands. A command is a signalsent out by a utility company that causes an audiofrequency ripple-controlreceiver to trigger a switching procedure. For example, in the case of streetlighting, a command group may consist of the commands ”switch on,” ”re-duce power,” and ”switch off.”

Winding groupA winding group is a group of windings that apply to a device or device cate-gory. Windings define the transformation ratio (for example, of transformers)and are divided into primary and secondary windings.

Key management allows you to define and manage keys and key boxes. A keyprovides access to connection objects, premises, device locations, and the installeddevices. A key box allows you to manage several keys jointly. This component isexpected to be available in Release 3.

With regard to device installation, we distinguish between technical installation,or linking to the device location, and billing-related installation, or linking to autility installation.

In the case of technical installation, a device is first installed in exactly one devicelocation. Subsequently, you can assign it to any number of installations using bill-ing-related installation. In the case of full installation, the device is linked to adevice location and an installation in a single step.

Consequently, the options available for the installation of devices are as follows:

Technical installation only where, for example, a meter is not billed (such as acontrol meter or meter for the utility company)

Technical installation followed by billing-related installation where:Meters are first mounted in a high-rise and subsequently assigned to spe-

cific apartments.The two steps are handled by different employees

One technical installation and several billing-related installations where, forexample, a pressure regulator or an audiofrequency ripple-control receiverregulates or controls several installations

Full installation, for example, in a single-family home

The functions available for installation include:

Allocation of devices (for example, transformer to meter)

Entry of period consumption

Entry of installation meter readings



With regard to removal, we also distinguish between technical, billing-related,and full removal. All rate data and relationships to other devices become invalidon the removal date although they can still be traced historically thanks to timeslices. Time slices are periods of time during which a given object is not changed.Reference values are not deleted automatically, but may be deleted manually. Youcan enter the removal meter reading when you remove a device.

Replacement means that a device is replaced with another device of the same or asimilar device category. The replacement device takes over the function of thedevice being replaced. Unlike removal and subsequent installation, a device isreplaced if the following data are to be automatically transferred to the new de-vice:

Rate data

Register relationships

Device relationships

Register-related period consumption

Disconnection status

Replacement makes sense where, for example, an installed device is damaged orneeds to be certified.

You can enter removal and installation meter readings for a replacement.

With deregulated contracts, you have to check and, where applicable, execute tech-nical and billing-related installation, removal, and replacement for all related con-

tracts. Modifying a non-installed device allows you to change the following data for that

device:

Register group

Input/output group

Command group

You can also modify an installed device. Which data may be changed depends onthe device category. In the case of installed electronic meters, modification is thesame as reprogramming.

A device group is a group of devices that make up a logical unit. Either all thedevices must be installed or they must all be non-installed.

If you want to install or remove a device belonging to a device group, the systemautomatically displays all the other devices in that group for you to process. Thiseliminates the possibility of installing or removing logically related, individualdevices by mistake.

It makes sense to form a device group if, for example,

Current and voltage transformers are combined to form transformer banks,resulting in a certain transformation ratio

Two integrated water meters are installed together as a unit, but count and are billed separately

A device group is managed with histories.



The term ”installation structure” refers to the devices installed in a utility installa-tion plus their registers and including their rate allocations. You can maintain thetechnical and billing-related data of devices and registers here.

You can maintain the following technical data:

Device allocationsDevice allocations describe the interdependencies of devices, for example, thecontrol of a meter by a ripple-control receiver or the switching of a transform-er group in front of a meter.

Register relationshipsThey describe the relationships that exist between registers. The following

relationships are accepted for the creation of a meter reading order:Allocation of reactive registers to active registers for calculating cosine phi

Serial switching of several registers (primary or secondary meter relati-onships)

Interconnection of registers of different usage types (on-peak or off-peakcheck)

Control relationships

Special relationships for allocating thermal gas factors

The registers may belong to different contracts.

Logical registersLogical registers describe the allocation of a particular function to a registerand are important primarily in device replacement. The register of the olddevice being replaced and the register of the new device must have the samelogical register number because billing-related data is transferred to the newregister and billing – particularly in the case of demand values – must recog-nize which register is taking over the role of the old register.

Billing-related data, or rate data, depends on the utility installation and can, there-fore, only be maintained if the device is allocated to an installation. The rate datayou can maintain include:

A register’s relevance to billing

A register’s rate type Price class

In deregulated scenarios, the data on the installation structure of the partial ser-vice contracts can differ. Differences can include the following:

Rental and settlement prices are entered only in the installation of the serviceprovider

Consumption-dependent rate types are only entered in the installation of theenergy supplier

Additional devices (for example, ripple-control receivers) are only installed inthe installation of the service provider



If a measuring device is inspected and found to be in compliance with prescribederror limits, it is certified for a certain period of time and can be installed or rein-stalled. You can inspect and certify a device either as part of a lot in a samplingprocedure, in the course of periodic replacement, or individually. The scope of theinspections is based on the inspection plan of the relevant material master record.

The types of certification available are:

External certification by a government-recognized inspection agency, regulat-ed by statutory provisions and regulations, renews the calibration validity of the device.

Internal certification governed by company guidelines concerns the inspec-tion of the device to determine its quality.

Before an installed device can be inspected, that device must generally first beremoved or replaced. This entails using the Service Management component to cre-ate a work order, which is then billed in the Sales and Distribution component. Youmust create a work order even if you can inspect the device while it is installed.

Device inspection contains the following components:

Device requirements planningDevice requirements planning (expected to be available with Release 2) helpsyou plan device requirements and work load relating to the statutorily regu-lated periodic replacement of devices.



You can use device requirements planning to obtain an overview of how manydevices of a given device category will be due for replacement next year. If thenumber arrived at is too high, you can move inspection up.

Sampling procedureThe sampling procedure is the basis for renewing the calibration validity of devices. You must first create sampling lots from the devices that have to becertified. From each lot you then draw a sample of a defined number of devic-es. The inspection results for those sample devices determine the renewal of the entire lot. If a lot fails, all the devices must be included in the periodicreplacement list and certified individually.You can create lots for devices requiring certification for electricity, gas, water,

and district heating divisions.Differentiating between external and internal sampling lots fulfils the legalrequirement and the company’s quality control requirement.

Periodic replacement

In the case of periodic replacement, devices due for certification are removedand replaced with devices with the same characteristics. The devices to bereplaced are managed in the periodic replacement list. Other devices (for ex-ample, all the devices in a given lot) can also be included in that list. The de-vices that are to be replaced at a given time are then removed from the list.

CertificationDevices can be certified not only based on the sampling procedure, but alsoindividually. If a lot fails, all the devices have to be certified individually.

Inspection results managementYou can transfer and manage inspection results using the standard Quality

Management component. However, this is not a prerequisite for certification.

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Device reading is performed either at regular intervals as part of periodic billing or atirregular intervals as, for example, in the case of control readings, and readings fordevice replacement, removal, or disconnection, or at the request of the customer.

The scheduled dates and the meter reading type are defined in Scheduling. How-ever, you can override this scheduling and create an order for a meter reader in-stead of a meter reading by the customer. In the case of irregular, or aperiodic,meter readings, you can manually prescribe the scheduled dates.

To prepare for a device reading, you first create a meter reading order. If the meter

reading results are relevant to billing, you also create a billing order that containscontrol data for billing. You cannot perform billing without this billing order.

Depending on how it is entered, the meter reading order is either printed out inthe form of meter reading documents or downloaded to an external entry system.Similarly, the meter reading results are either entered manually or uploaded, val-idated, and corrected if necessary. Finally, they are passed on to Contract Billing.

You use meter reading organization to define the sequence in which the devicesare read. This allows you to optimize the route that the meter reader must cover.You can set up a combined street route for more than meter reading unit.



A street route is defined within a meter reading unit on the basis of the followingcriteria:

City

Street

House number (connection object)

Device location

Device

A meter reading order contains register-specific data and information on theplanned meter reading, such as target reading date and meter reader. For eachregister, you create one meter reading order for a utility company meter reader,for an external meter reading company, or for a reading by the customer.

You can reverse meter reading orders. If meter reading results have already beenobtained when the order is reversed, you can either delete them or save them andthen use them with a new meter-reading order.

You can create meter-reading orders as

Individual ordersIndividual orders are generally created for billings at irregular intervals, suchas for interim and control billings or if a meter reading unit is transferred toanother utility company. However, you can also create individual orders forperiodic billings, such as if a single order has to be created again due to anerror.

Mass ordersIn the case of periodic meter readings, mass orders allow you to create orders

for more than one meter reading unit simultaneously.



You do not create a meter reading order for flat-rate installations, just a billingorder, because flat-rate installations do not contain meters counting consumption.

Meter reading results are either entered manually or uploaded to IS-U/CCS froman external entry system. The upload is handled by direct input via an intermedi-ate document interface or IDoc. IDocs are used in electronic data interchange (EDI)

between different computers and systems. A Business Application Programming

Interface (BAPI) is also available for importing meter reading results.Manual entry can be subdivided as follows:

Fast entryFast entry is used to enter the large volumes of data that occur with periodicmeter readings. Fast entry can also be subdivided as follows:

Fast entry without immediate correctionFollow-up correction and release of implausible readings may be neces-sary.

Fast entry with correctionIf implausible meter reading results are encountered, the clerk can callup a correction screen.

Individual entryYou can enter meter reading results individually in such cases as:

Control readings

Interim readings

Interim readings with billing

Service territory transfers with billing

Final readings (for move-out)

Periodic readings

Readings taken by customers

You can output the meter reading order in the following ways:

Print the meter reading documents using the print workbench

Make it available at a raw data interface (RDI)Using the raw data interface, you can transfer the meter reading order to ex-ternal entry systems, such as mobile data entry (MDE) devices and documentreaders (downloaded), or you can print it using external print systems.

You can obtain the meter reading result by a variety of methods:

A meter reader from the utility company or from an external meter readingcompany records the result on a meter reading order or enters it into the exter-nal entry system.

The customer takes the reading and reports it to the utility company. The system estimates the result.

Both the meter reading result and the method used to obtain the reading are stored.



Every meter reading result is subject to validation, regardless of whether it is en-tered manually or uploaded. There are two types of validation: fixed and variable.Fixed validation is mandatory and is performed automatically. Fixed validationchecks, for example, that the previous meter reading was plausible or that noconsumption is recorded for inactive installations. You can define your variablevalidation in Customizing. The system supports the following types of variablevalidation:

Zero consumption

Repeated readings by customers or estimatesThis allows you to limit the number of meter readings taken by customers andthe number of automated estimates.

Absolute, relative, floating tolerance limitsThis allows you to compare current consumption with a comparison period.The consumption must fall within a specific interval.

Usage hours compared with a previous period or a fixed value

Maximum or minimum approved contract demand limit

Meter overflowValidation checks whether the meter reading is less than the previous reading.



In some cases of validation, the meter reading or consumption result is comparedwith an extrapolated expected value. A meter reading result can be extrapolatedfor a predefined date based on the following information:

Meter reading resultsMeter reading results are given the highest priority with regard to extrapola-tion because they best reflect the consumption pattern of customers. The peri-od for which the customer’s meter reading results exist must be representa-tive. You define the representative period in the rate in relation to the length of the period. The representative period can be as little as one month or as muchas one year.To calculate the degree to which meter readings are representative of a period,

you consider the weighting portions valid for the time period (see below).They are determined by the weighting procedure, which is assigned to theregister operands of the rate.

Period consumptionIf no previous meter readings exist or if the time period is not representative,the system extrapolates from the period consumption. You can store the peri-od consumption on device installation or customer move-in per register in adevice and, of course, make subsequent changes to it if, for example, there is achange in the consumption pattern of the customer.

Reference valueIf neither meter reading results nor period consumption exist, the system ex-trapolates using the reference value stored in the rate.

You may use any of the following common weighting procedures: Linear weighting

Weighting of energy feeding

Weighting of degree days

General weighting

Mixed weightingMixed weighting entails adding a total of fixed or percentage portions of lin-ear weightings to the current weighting procedure. This allows you to take aminimum consumption as a basis each month.

Weighting with absolute linear portionsUnlike mixed weighting, this type of weighting allows you to define a timeperiod in addition to a fixed value.

The result of validation determines the status of the individual meterreading re-sults. Depending on the outcome of validation, the meter reading result can beused in billing or submitted for correction. However, you can also correct plausi-

ble results.

In some cases, meter reading results have to be checked on site. Where this is thecase, you create a new meter reading order, known as a rereading order, withupdated data.

If meter readings and consumption are either missing or implausible, you cancalculate the meter reading results using by means of automated mass estimation.



You can monitor the status of meter reading, billing, and entry. This allows you tocheck the number of entered, implausible, or billable meter reading results. Youcan, of course, limit the display to specific business partners, meter reading units,time periods, and so on.

The liberalization of the energy market as well as the development of new meter-ing technology have led to new requirements for the utilities industry. These newrequirements have been taken into account in the ongoing development of the IS-U/CCS System.

Utility companies today, especially industrial and service enterprises, are startingto meter consumption with electronic, programmable meters called interval meters.These meters measure different units (such as kW or kVAr) in time intervals. Aninterval is typically 5 minutes to 1 hour, but can be programmed for any period ina day. Interval meters are read by Automated Meter Reading (AMR) systems us-ing different transmission methods. AMR systems store the meter reading data as“interval data.” Such time series of energy consumption readings are also referredto as a load profile. Starting with large industrial customers, the traditional me-chanical meters or first-generation programmable meters are gradually being re-placed by interval meters.

Interval data must be supplied to systems that process the data further. Depend-

ing on the company’s role, the interval data can be forwarded to other internalsystems (such as billing systems). Alternatively, the interval data can be transmit-ted to third parties via electronic data exchange.

Meter reading data is assigned a unique code within the company, a “deliverypoint ID,” to ensure correct allocation. The delivery point is usually the custom-er’s point of receipt or a power plant’s point of delivery for the grid. The deliverypoint can also be the interchange tie point between grids.

The IS-U/CCS System is being continuously developed to cover the functionalscope outlined in the following. However, since development is ongoing, the de-scriptions below have been kept general. SAP AG reserves the right to change thefunctional scope at any time. IS-U development news and release notes containmore detailed information about release dates.

The meter reading warehouse manages not only traditional meter readings butalso interval data. According to delivery point or period, different units and inter-vals can be defined and stored. The data is stored via the delivery point ID. Sincethis process creates a large volume of data, it is important to use a data manage-ment system that optimizes storage space.



Categorized load profile data for relative periods (such as working days, week-days, or weekdays and months according to season) can be stored instead of real-time interval data. Load profiles with a certain error tolerance can also be storedfor a large number of customers using only a small amount of storage space. Thisis accomplished by assigning the load profile data category to the delivery pointID and by means of a usage factor. The usage factor is relative deviation of me-tered consumption from predefined consumption according to interval data cate-gory. In this way, load profiles can be used for residential customers as well.

The MRW not only stores the load profiles, it can also import and store data fromexternal systems or export the data to other systems.

The import function allows meter readings to be transferred from other systems.

It is currently possible to transfer meter readings from traditional meters (see thesection on Meter Reading). Automated meter reading systems retrieve the intervaldata from local interval meters. The AMR systems forward the interval data di-rectly to the MRW without making changes to the data. The MRW stores the inter-val data with the appropriate delivery point ID.

The MRW is used predominantly for data processing. Processed data can either be sent to another component of IS-U/CCS or be exported to an external systemvia electronic data exchange (such as EDIFACT). If new interval data is createdduring processing, it can be stored in the MRW. The MRW offers the followingprocessing functions:

Validation and, if necessary, correction of meter reading data

Alteration of stored interval data, such as the addition of plausible data whendata is missing. The origin of the added data can be indicated.

Conversion of meter readings into billable quantities (energy or demand) forelectricity and gas

Creation of new interval data; in order to derive interval data for a futureperiod using metered interval data. The method used to create the new inter-val data can be indicated.

Aggregation of metered interval data in different ways, such as addition, sub-traction, or averaging. For example, interval data added together may serveas a basis for billing a chain of branches of a major customer. Forecasted inter-val data can also be aggregated in order to forecast the total consumption of achain of branches, for example. The aggregation of interval data in different

ways allows for statistical analyses or load profile forecasts of different types.These analyses and forecasts can be carried out dynamically and provided tothe requesting units or they can be stored in the MRW with an indicator of creation method.

Analysis of interval data of all types according to typical criteria such as totalconsumption, maximum, minimum or average demand — according to thespecifications of the company requesting the analysis.

Provision of interval data created as above or of interval data analyses in acertain format defined by the company requesting the data (export function of the MRW).



Check to ensure that the company has authorization to access the data re-quested. The check is carried out based on authorization criteria stored in theMRW for the particular company.

Use of standard electronic data exchange formats (such as EDIFACT) for trans-mission of data as already described to the requesting unit.

The interval data managed in the MRW is processed further by other IS-U/CCScomponents or by external systems.

Interval data is processed predominantly by the IS-U billing component. The bill-

ing component requests the billing-related consumption data in a certain formatfrom the MRW. The MRW provides the billing component with the requestedmeter reading or interval data via export functions.

The following additional functions use data from the MRW. However, at this timeSAP cannot confirm that these functions will been implemented as further IS-Ucomponents.

Billing of RTP (real-time pricing) contracts. RTP contracts require interval-spe-cific evaluation of consumption values for the billing period. The conditionsof the evaluations may change from interval to interval. This especially ap-plies to prices that can be defined for each interval, such as those prices deter-mined manually or using the spot price defined by a power pool. When billingRTP contracts, entire sets of interval data are requested from the MRW. A set of

data may contain metered interval data from one delivery point, aggregatedor derived data. Interval data may be used for describing billing conditions,which are then used during settlement. Such interval data might contain loadschedules or information about maximum or minimum consumption.

Analysis of interval data for:

Calculating statistics

Marketing; to determine consumption patters of certain customer groups(market segment analyses) or customer in certain grid areas, for example.

Analyzing interval data for optimization of rates and prices or for costsanalyses.

Load forecasting to aid energy procurement or simulation of grid load orcapacity

Calculating transmission losses

Forwarding of interval data to end customers for purposes of information ordemand side management

Support of the business processes in energy trading by managing and pro-cessing the various load profiles required during those trading processes



Contract billing is the core of IS-U/CCS. It allows you to perform billing for yourcompany’s utility services and other services. The functional scope and flexibilityof IS-U/CCS enable you to bill nonresidential and residential customer contractsin a single system. IS-U/CCS also provides a range of procedures with a variety of selection and control options for billing contracts. Examples include:

Annual consumption billing and periodic monthly billing cycles

Billing for different divisions

Numerous bill forms

Simulation of billing

Validation of billing documents and bills

Due to the complexity involved, the following section discusses only the basics of billing.

Billing master data controls contract billing. This master data stores the rate struc-tures that contain the your company’s billing rules and the contractual provisions.

The most important element of billing is the rate, which contains one or more ratesteps. The system processes a variant program for each rate step. Variant pro-

grams define how billing-related quantities (such as measured consumption ordemand) are to be processed and valuated. When defining a rate, you select theappropriate variant programs and specify the sequence in which they are to run.Many predefined variant programs are available to you, including:

Multiply or divide with factors

Valuate demand or quantities with a price

Discounts on prices

IF conditions

Flat-rate billing

Rental price billing

In addition, you can create customized variant programs.

The input and output parameters for the variant programs are the operands. Val-ues, such as prices or demand, are assigned to the operands at billing programruntime.

The billing rate is obtained through rate determination and is a combination of rate category and rate type. The rate category is stored in the installation. The ratetype is generally stored in the installation structure because it defines the rateallocation of the registers. However, the rate type can also be stored in the ratecategory or the installation in the case of flat-rate installations. You can also arriveat more than one rate by combining rate category and rate type in rate determina-tion. This allows you to run comparison bills. You can use those rates to execute

best-rate billing or comparative billing.



This method of indirect rate allocation using a rate type offers a number of advantages:

When you want to access new rates using an installation’s rate types, youonly have to enter one new rate category for the installation. You do not haveto make time-consuming changes to the rate types for each individual regis-ter.

In the case of mass changes, you only have to change the rate determination –not the rate data for the installations in question.

Rate steps are processed in a particular sequence. You define that sequence in thebilling schema. The results of a rate step can be passed through operands to thenext rate steps to be processed.

You define the billing master data described above in Customizing under ratestructure.

Other types of billing master data include the following:



PricesPrices are allocated to the following four price categories:

Quantity-based prices

Time-based prices

Rental prices, for example, for rental of devices and meters

Flat rates

For any of the prices, you can specify special rounding rules and price adjust-ment clauses that control the price adjustment factor. This factor is multiplied

by the basic price or added to the basic price to arrive at the current price. Youcan also define blocks or scales for quantity-based and time-based prices. In thecase of quantity-based prices, you can adapt the blocks to the billing period.

RatesAmong other things, rates define:

How meter reading results and consumption values are extrapolated andprorated

Which reference values are billed

Which prices are used

Which constants, factors, and variables are included in the calculation

The general ledger accounts to which the results of the calculations (billingline items) are posted

How the billing line items are handled statistically

How the time portions of the periods to be billed are calculated (to the dayor month-related)

The divisions and billing classes to which the rate is allocated.

Rate categoriesRate categories contain data that controls billing for multiple rates. Rate cate-gories:

Define which billing schema is used

Control period-end billing and floating backbilling

Define the outsorting checks

May contain additional data relevant to billing (such as quantities, demandvalues, prices, or flat rates agreed on between the utility company andcustomers).

In some cases, you can override data by making individual entries in the in-stallation.



You can define discounts and surcharges as percentages or as absolute values.They can relate to a quantity, a price, a demand, or an amount. You have flexiblecontrol over the application of surcharges and the granting of discounts. Discountsand surcharges can apply to several contracts (for example, for one rate), or youcan structure them individually for individual contracts.

All discounts and surcharges appear as separate billing line items in the docu-ment and can therefore – given an appropriate bill form layout – appear separate-ly on the bill.

Companies that have concluded several contracts with a utility company for in-stallations in their local branches are interested in conditions that account for thetotal quantity of demand sold and calculate the relevant discount. These calcula-tions can be made either as each individual contract is billed or as applied to allcontracts jointly (as a collective bill).

As a result of deregulation, provisions of this kind can also be agreed on a multi-ple-territory basis for the installations of a company in the service territories of several energy distribution companies. For example, in these territories one ener-

gy dealer meets the total energy requirements and concludes corresponding trans-mission service contracts with the distribution companies.

Various procedures are available for determining discounts:

Combined blocking or scaling of consumption

Analysis of the billing documents for the contracts in question with calcu-lation of the discount using a customer report

SAP is researching other requirements in this area, and they will be implemented beginning with Release 4.51. Later releases will contain even more procedures forgranting discounts.



In standard cases, the system automatically executes billing as a background task.Manual, online billing is also possible with Release 4.51. However, a contract canonly be billed either automatically or manually within any given period.

You can reverse or change all forms of billing on the basis of manual credit memosor backbilling. In all cases, a billing document is created that, together with otherdocuments, is used in invoicing to produce the bill.

Automatic billing comprises the following stages:

1. Data collection and analysis

All data required for billing is collected and prepared for valuation.2. Proration

If changes are made during a billing period to duties, prices, or taxes, the quan-tities relevant to billing (such as consumption) must be prorated starting fromthe date on which the data was changed.

3. Quantity conversionBillable quantities are determined from the quantities read. Register factors,transformer factors and conversions for thermal gas billing, for example, aretaken into account.

4. Quantity valuationQuantity valuation is the actual contract billing. Rates with their variant pro-grams are processed based on the billing schema.

5. Validation of the billing resultsAfter valuation, the billing results are checked for plausibility.

Not only can you perform automatic billing for contracts, you can also simulateand test them. Specifically, you have the following options:

BillingTo execute billing, you must have a billing order, which is deleted followingsuccessful billing. In the event of a reversal, you can regenerate the billingorder and bill it again.

Billing simulationBilling simulation allows you to give customers information about the expect-ed amount of their bills. The prerequisites for a billing simulation are a billingorder and existing meter reading results.

SimulationYou can run a simulation for any given period without a billing order. If nometer reading results exist for the period in question, the system extrapolatesthem.



Overall checkOverall checks examine billing in a way similar to simulation. Unlike the oth-er procedures, an overall check ignores minor errors. Those errors are collect-ed in a log to be used in a comprehensive status analysis. Serious errors, onthe other hand, result in premature termination of an overall check.

You can, of course, execute these functions not only for individual contracts butalso for a large number of contracts. You can run mass billing and mass overallchecks in the background overnight, for example. You select the contracts basedon a variety of criteria, such as:

Contract accounts

Portions Billing procedure (periodic billing, period-end billing, service territory trans-

fer, and so on)

Division

Company code

With the individual bill function, you can not only execute billing for individualcontracts, you can also perform invoicing, and print or display the bill at the sametime. You can also simulate this individual bill.

Simulations allow you to perform the following extrapolations and forecasts:

Extrapolation of billing with existing meter reading results

Extrapolation of billing with the meter reading result estimated automatically

Forecast of billing for a different rate structure (later release)

The following billing procedures are supported:

Periodic billingPeriodic billing is consumption billing that is performed on a regular basis;this can be every month, every two, three, four, or six months, or annually.

Floating backbillingFloating backbilling is a form of monthly periodic billing. The past months of a billing year are recalculated month for month and backbilled with a currentvalue.

Period-end billingPeriod-end billing is performed separately following the end of a billing cy-cle. This cycle generally covers one year, but may also be for two, three, four,or six months. If necessary, the system recalculates periodic billings and per-forms backbilling.

Interim billingInterim billing is not subject to the scheduling function. You can initiate it atany time in response to a customer inquiry. The subsequent periodic billing

begins at the time of the interim billing. Interim billing is not possible forfloating backbilling or period-end billing.

Final billingFinal billing is initiated for a customer move-out, a service territory transfer,or manually when requested.



The billing period for which the utility company bills the customer for a servicecan be calculated for an exact number of days or on a month-related basis. In thecase of month-based periods, the system distinguishes between the following pro-cedures:

Month-based using a key date

Month-based using an interval

In the case of a move-in or move-out, you can bill for an exact number of dayseven with month-related procedures. In addition, you can control whether leapdays are taken into account.

There are certain common aspects in billing regardless of the division concerned.You can therefore use the following approaches to billing – with some restrictions– in all divisions:

Billing using energy prices

Billing using demand prices

Billing using basic and service prices

Billing using rental prices

Billing of usage hours

Best-rate billing

Billing using block prices, scale prices, or pricing quantities

Billing using seasonal values

Billing using seasonal variant programs

Decision variants

Billing supports the following divisions with special functions:

Electricity

Gas (see section on Special Functions)

Water or waste water

District heating

Public lighting (electricity or gas)The following functions apply to public lighting:

Mass management or individual management of the lights

Variable connection loads depending on operation type

Billing using energy pricesYou can measure or calculate lighting consumption. You can use a burn-ing-hour calendar for calculation. The calendar contains the daily or month-ly lighting duration of the lights.

Billing using demand pricesYou can calculate demand from the connection loads of the lights and then

use it for valuation.



IS-U/CCS supports the flat-rate procedure for billing household waste disposalcharges (Release 1.2 or 4.51). The basis for the calculation is the container, which isemptied by a waste disposal company either periodically or on request.

Flat-rate charge for a given period: A flat rate is charged for a specific period re-gardless of the actual quantity of waste and the actual number of collections (forexample, x $/year per container).

Other requirements for calculations based on actual collections, weight, or fill lev-el are modeled in Service Management.

In addition to billing, the system supports the following functions:

Service orders for the collection of containers to order

Route planning with dispatching and scheduling systems

This area is described in greater detail in the section Waste Management.

In addition to their standard services, many utility companies offer their custom-ers other services, for example:

Installation of a service connection

Maintenance and repair of technical equipment

Sales

To process these additional services, IS-U/CCS uses the Materials Management,Sales and Distribution, and Service Management components of the standard R/3System. For more information, please refer to the sections on Work Management

and Business Processes. By including the billing documents, you can invoice theadditional services in IS-U/CCS together with the utility services (Release 4.51).

IS-U/CCS provides a number of additional billing functions:

Consideration of register relationships

Consideration of duties and charges in variant programs

Employee billingEmployees can be billed on favorable conditions. These favorable conditionsmay apply, for example, to prices, flat rates, or free quantities.

Plant and company consumption (Release 4.51 at earliest)The utility service consumed by a utility can be divided into plant consump-tion and company consumption. Both types of consumption can be billed,and the amounts can be assigned to cost centers for company-internal costallocation.

Small power producers or cogeneratorsAlongside the large utility service providers, there exist a number of smallerproviders, such as water, wind, or solar plants. Those producers are subsumedunder the name of small power producers. Energy purchases by a utility com-pany are billed according to criteria similar to those that apply to energy sup-ply. You create bills for energy purchases the same way as you create bills forenergy supply.

IS-U/CCS allows you to perform convergent billing and intercompany billing.For a more detailed description, please see the section on Contract Accounts Receiv-able and Payable.



In gas billing, the measured operating volume of a gas is assessed to determinethe actual billing quantity. This is done by allocating to every register of an in-stalled gas meter a procedure defining how the assessment is made. The follow-ing gas billing types are supported:

Standard cubic metersThe measured operating cubic meters are converted to standard cubic metersusing the gas volume correction factor.

ThermalThe measured operating cubic meters are converted to a heat quantity usingthe gas volume correction factor and the calorific value.

VolumetricThe measured operating cubic meters are billed directly.

With these gas billing types, IS-U/CCS supports the major standard procedures, asdefined in national standards, for billing gases in specific states (for example, as spec-ified in DVWG sheet G 685 for Germany and the AGA standards for the US).

The system calculates the gas volume correction factor with a volume correctionfactor procedure, and it calculates the calorific value with a calorific value procedure.

The volume correction factor procedure takes into account the following factors:

Temperature

Fixed temperature

Arithmetic annual average

Weighted annual average

Arithmetic average for the billing period

Weighted average for the billing period

Air pressure

Annual air pressure

Air pressure recorded monthly

Arithmetic average air pressure for the billing period

Weighted average air pressure for the billing period

Gas law deviation factorThe gas law deviation factor is the quotient of the real gas factors in operatingconditions and in normal conditions. It can be predetermined for a device orcalculated using pressure and temperature. This procedure is similar to thesupercompressibility factor used in North America.







Invoicing links contract billing with the Contract Accounts Receivable and Payablecomponent. Invoicing:

Creates accounting documents for bill receivables or credit memos from bill-ing documents

Settles accounting documents against down payments received, in particular budget billing payments

Formats the data for bill printout

Creates new budget billing plans

Supports the calculation of taxes

Billing sends billing documents, credit memos, backbillings, and the basis for bud-get billing plans to invoicing. You can also use documents from billing in the Salesand Distribution application component as of Release 1.2 and from non-SAP bill-ing systems as of Release 4.51. Invoicing then sends accounting documents and

budget billing plans to the Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable component,which reports open items back to invoicing.



In invoicing execution, you create bills for the contracts of a contract account. Youeither invoice the billing documents of selected contracts or create bills for budget

billing amounts (debit entries). You can combine the contracts that belong to acontract account to form invoicing units according to the following criteria:

Contracts whose documents must be invoiced together. (They share a com-mon budget billing plan.)The billings for these contracts should always appear together on a single bill(for example, the contracts of a residential customer for electricity, gas andwater).

Contracts whose documents can be invoiced together and for which budget billing payments can be requested together.

Contracts whose documents must be invoiced individually or for which bud-get billing payments are requested on separate bills.

The goal is to create a bill that includes as many of the customer’s contracts aspossible.

When budget billing payments are requested, you can create debit entries inContract Accounts Receivable and Payable, or you can process budget billing pay-ments that have no effect in the general ledger (statistical postings).





A utility company does not always bill its services until the end of a supply peri-od, as is the case in annual consumption billing, for example. Therefore, through-out the current period it charges budget billing amounts instead of the amount thecustomer is expected to owe, so that the utility’s liquidity is maintained. The bud-get billing plan sets the due dates and the budget billing amounts and is, there-fore, the basis for budget billing collection.

Generally, the system automatically creates budget billing plans during invoicingor move-in processing. However, you can create them manually.

Contracts that have to be invoiced together are assigned a common budget billing

plan. All other contracts in the contract account can have their own separate bud-get billing plan.

Budget billing amounts can be stored either as down payments (statistical receiv-ables) or as partial bills (debit entries) in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payableand are therefore subject to all dunning and payment procedures.

IS-U/CCS also supports average monthly billing and budget billing as special budget billing procedures applicable to North America. They are discussed morefully below.



In budget billing, an average amount is determined either through simulation ormanually. The customer pays that average amount for a period of 12 months. Atthe same time, the customer’s actual consumption is billed, and the results areprinted on the bill. In addition, the difference between the customer’s actual con-sumption and the average amount is calculated, updated monthly, and printed onthe bill. In the last month of the meter reading period, the actual amount and theaccumulated difference are billed.

In average monthly billing or equalized billing, the customer is charged an aver-age amount based on billings over the last x months (you define the number of months, including minimum and maximum number of months, in Customizing).In addition, the customer’s actual consumption is billed, and the results are print-

ed on the bill. The amounts due for later months are calculated using the averageof the previous monthly bills, the current bill and the accumulated difference.That difference is updated monthly and is printed on the bill.

The due dates for the budget billing amounts are calculated directly from the por-tion applicable to the contract and from the parameter record. The following datais defined:

The length of the budget billing period (a number of months or a year)

The budget billing cycle, meaning the equal distribution of dates over the pe-riod (one or more months)

However, you can override the preset values from the portion either in the budget billing plan itself or in a contract. While changes made in the budget billing plantake effect immediately, entries made in the contract do not take effect until the

budget billing plan is created again.

The system calculates the budget billing amount on the basis of the expected meterreading results. The section Device Reading describes the extrapolation of meterreading results. Extrapolation can be based on the following information:

Amounts from the last billThe extrapolation lines for the budget billing amounts are generated automat-ically during periodic billing.

Periodic consumption

Reference value in the rate

Manual specification of the budget billing amounts

The following functions are also available for calculating the budget billing amount: In the case of an interim billing, you can specify whether the remaining bud-

get billing amounts are to be adjusted.

In the case of budget billing, you can also perform mass changes. Mass chang-es are necessary when there are changes to prices, fees, or taxes.



You can invoice billing documents from IS-U/CCS together with documents fromthe billing component of the Sales and Distribution component, and in Release 4.51you will be able to invoice billing documents together with documents from non-SAP systems, such as heating costs billing or telecommunications. To transfer

billing documents from non-SAP systems, you need a suitable interface program.The purpose of that interface program is to create standardized IS-U/CCS billingdocuments from the billing documents of the non-SAP system so that they canthen be processed in IS-U/CCS invoicing.

Direct debit customers receive budget billing requests as a notification about whenthe amounts due will be debited. Cash payers receive budget billing requests aspayment forms, which can be sent out in a variety of ways (for example, all pay-ment forms included with the bill or one separate payment form on each due date).



Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable (FI-CA) is a form of subledger accountingdesigned for industries that typically deal with large numbers of business part-ners and large volumes of documents. In IS-U/CCS, the large numbers of post-ings from billings and budget billing requests are managed in Contract AccountsReceivable and Payable instead of in the general ledger. Each individual businesstransaction, that is, each posting and each document for a given customer, is storedin order to guarantee itemization. These FI-CA documents are cumulated and trans-ferred at certain intervals to the general ledger of the Financial Accounting compo-nent or to a non-SAP system.

When an FI-CA document is posted, general ledger account determination auto-matically occurs for the General Ledger Accounting (FI-GL) component. The systemautomatically determines all receivables, payables, revenue, and expense accounts

based on account assignment details in the line items.

A standard interface between Sales and Distribution and FI-CA ensures the com-plete integration of service invoices in FI-CA. This means that you can combineconsumption and service billings into a single bill, invoice them jointly, post themto a customer account, and print them out.

Postings are always stored as documents. The document, the smallest unit in fi-nancial accounting, constitutes the proof of a business transaction. It can only beposted if the balance of the items contained in it is zero.

In FI-CA, a document consists of a header and various line items:

The document header contains data that is applicable to all the document lines,such as document date, posting date, and document type. The document typeclassifies documents according to specific business transactions.

Receivables lines (reconciliation lines) contain all the data relevant to pay-ment transactions, dunning, and the receivables account (reconciliation ac-count) to which debits and credits are posted.

Revenue lines contain the data for the profit and loss statement and the salestax data.

Budget billing plans and installment plans are stored as repetition items inorder to save memory. However, in a contract account display, repetition itemsappear as normal items and can be processed as such.

A document does not have to contain all these lines. For example, with normalpayments that result in the complete clearing of the receivables lines concerned,the system only creates a new document header for the payment because it canderive the data relevant to account assignment from the receivables lines.

In addition to line items that are created in association with bills, payments, orcredit memos and are updated in the general ledger, you can also post statisticalline items, which are merely recorded in the contract account, or subledger. Youcan use statistical postings to post budget billing requests or dunning costs. Statis-tical postings can serve as noted items or, in the case of a payment, they can beconverted to actual postings.



In addition, documents can be posted to multiple company codes. This enablesyou to perform convergent billing. For more information on this topic, please re-fer to the section titled Business Services for Other Utilities.

Budget billings can be stored in FI-CA either as down payments (statistical post-ings) or as partial billings (debit positions) and are therefore subject to all dunningand payment procedures. Budget billing requests are shown in the document asrepetition lines. For more information on budget billings, please refer to the sec-tion titled Budget Billing Plan under Invoicing.

You can reverse documents if a customer complains about a bill. You can executea reversal for a document or for a collective bill. The system generates a reversaldocument, which together with the reversed document has a zero balance. Dur-

ing reversal these two documents are linked to each other.

You can use reversals with the following posting transactions:

Incoming or outgoing paymentsWhen reversing payments, the allocated item (meaning the receivable or cred-it memo) is identified as open again. This means that, in terms of its due dates,and payment and dunning data, it is returned to the status it had before theincoming or outgoing payment.

Receivables or creditsWith regard to receivables or credits, the system distinguishes between thereversal of consumption billing documents and the reversal of other items. Inthe case of billing documents, the system distinguishes between a full reversaland an invoicing reversal. Full reversal reverses the billing documents in ad-dition to the invoicing document.

Settlement or write off The reversal process for settlement and write off is similar to the reversal pro-cess for payments.

InterestThe original receivables on which interest was calculated are also adjusted inaddition to the reversal of the actual interest item.

In most cases, the system automatically enters documents. However, you can alsoenter receivables and credit memos manually. You do this by entering a predefinedprocess for each business transaction. This predefined process then automaticallydetermines the general ledger accounts or tax accounts and notes them in the

receivables and revenue lines.The documents are classified based on the document type entered. The systemautomatically determines the due date using the payment conditions in the contractaccount. Receivables and credit memos can be cleared immediately or in incre-ments over time.

By specifying a start date, receivables lines with different due dates can be repeat-ed at monthly or daily intervals, for example in the case of budget billing or in-stallment plans.



Open items are uncompleted transactions. An unpaid billing line item, for exam-ple, is managed as an open item in the contract account until it has been paid andcleared. This allows you to check which receivables or payables are still outstand-ing. The open items in an account can be cleared immediately or in incrementsover time. With incremental clearing, the item is divided into a cleared item in theamount of the cleared part and an open item containing the remaining amount.

Open items can be cleared in the following ways:

Posting documents

Account maintenance

Posting payment lots

Payment programs

Reversing documents

Clearing budget billing payments made as part of annual consumption billing

The system can automatically create correspondence for a business transaction.Examples include documents for automatic payment settlement (checks and banktransfers) and customer notifications. The following notifications can be createdautomatically or manually depending on the business transaction involved:

Account statements contain a list of a customer’s open items and the totalreceivables amount.

Dunning notices contain a list of a customer’s overdue open items and theirtotal amount.

Notifications about agreements for payment by installment contain the in-dividual installment amounts for the installment agreement entered into withthe customer, including the amounts and due dates.

Notifications about budget billing requests contain information on set bud-get billing amounts and due dates in the event that a new budget billing planwas created or an existing one was altered.

Notifications about deferral agreements contain information on payment de-ferral agreements.

Returns notifications contain information on the event initiating a return anda listing of the items affected.

Mutual help requests, which are sent to another utility company, contain arequest for mutual help (see section titled M utual Help ).

Interest notifications contain a listing of the items on which interest has beencalculated and an overview of interest calculation.



The processing of business transactions in FI-CA is largely automated. You definehow processing is controlled in Customizing. The business transactions are de-scribed briefly below.

In most cases, the system settles payments automatically. However, you can alsoenter them manually, for example, for individual incoming or outgoing paymentsmade at the cash desk.

Automatic payment settlement refers to the automated execution of postings for

incoming payments, outgoing payments, and settlements. It is used in the follow-ing cases:

Automatic incoming paymentsIn this case, incoming payment data from legacy systems, financial institu-tions, or agencies is processed. The system creates a payment posting for therelevant business partner and allocates the payments to one or more receiv-ables items. Any credit items that have been released for settlement are alsotaken into account.In exceptional cases it may not be possible to allocate an incoming payment toan item. That payment may then be posted on account at the contract accountlevel and subsequently processed manually.

Collection procedure

Payments via collection or direct debiting by financial institutions are pro-cessed and the corresponding output media are created.

Credit refundsCredits via check, bank transfer, or postal remittance are refunded automati-cally, and the corresponding output media are created.

Payment settlement can be executed at the following levels:

Business partner

Contract account

Item

Collective bill



Depending on the type of payment, payments may be processed via the cash deskor by means of payment lots. In the case of cash desk processing, the cash pay-ment made by a customer is entered in the system and processed individually.

Payment lots group together payments to be processed jointly. You create them bymanually entering data from checks or payment orders or automatically transfer-ring the data from account statements using data medium exchange (DME).

Payments are allocated to the open items according to industry-specific rules. Thesystem then automatically clears the allocated items. Overpayments can be post-ed on account, and underpayments can be posted as partial payment.

You can create incoming and outgoing payments using the payment program.

The payment program executes the following steps:1. It determines the open items to be settled using the selection criteria that were

entered for the payment run and the due dates of the open items.

2. It combines the due items as payments or debit memos in accordance withindustry-specific or customer-specific rules.

Credits and receivables are settled if no payment methods are set at the documentlevel.

3. It selects payment methods and bank details.

4. It posts payment documents and clears open items.

5. It provides data for the payment media.

6. It creates the data media (currently for the Austrian DME format only).



The system supports the most common payment procedures – direct debit, debit memocollection, bank transfer, and check – as well as internal direct debit from a depositaccount. With minimum amount limits, you can avoid settling very small amounts.

Returns may occur as:

Payments returned by financial institutions as a part of the debit memo andcollection procedure

Incoming checks returned due to insufficient funds or incorrect data

Undeliverable postal remittances

Returns are combined to form returns lots. You can create these lots manuallyusing returns slips, or the system can create them automatically by using the re-

turns data from the financial institution.

The system automatically processes returns in the following manner:

Payment settlement is canceled. The receivables or payables cleared by thedebit memo revert to being managed as open items.

A return document is created containing the offsetting entries for the items inthe payment document.

Other postings required in relation to taxes, expenses, or charges are created.The system automatically calculates bank charges and posts them to the gen-eral ledger. You can bill the business partner for the bank charges and yourown charges. This may be a statistical posting or a posting to general ledger.

Follow-up actions are initiated. Examples include customer notification, the

setting of a deferral date, and a payment or dunning block.Follow-up actions depend on the creditworthiness of the business partner andthe frequency of returns. Returns can, in turn, affect the creditworthiness of the business partner.



A down payment is made in anticipation of a bill that has not yet been invoiced.Down payments may be either budget billing payments for energy consumptionor down payments for services, such as the installation of a service connection.

For certain services, the system uses a workflow link for incoming payments thatresult from a down payment request, for example, for notifications to field serviceemployees.

When they are made, all down payments are initially payables with respect to thecustomer. They are automatically processed when the bill is invoiced, meaningthey are transferred and offset.

You can apply special conditions to customers with bad payment histories or bad

creditworthiness: Advance payments as part of a budget billing plan

Advance payments can be requested only as part of a budget billing plan. The budget billing requests are due before or at the beginning of the actual con-sumption period instead of in the middle or toward the end of the period. The

budget billing payment is thus made before the energy is consumed.

Security depositsThe system distinguishes between cash deposits and noncash deposits:

Cash security depositsCash deposits are usually requested at the beginning of a utility servicerelationship and can be charged automatically when a customer move-inis processed. You agree upon the amount of cash deposit with the custo-

mer, or you calculate it according to an extrapolation formula, which youcan define.Cash deposit requests and payments are posted for a contract account orfor a specific contract.Cash deposit payments are retained until the customer has developed apositive payment history over an extended period of time or until the con-tractual relationship with the customer comes to an end. They are refun-ded as part of a final billing.Cash deposits or interest on cash deposits can also be refunded, settled oroffset for periods of less than one year. The system calculates interest forthe entire period if desired or if required by law.

Noncash security deposits

Noncash deposits may, for example, include savings books or guaranteesof payment. You enter a business partner as the guarantor.

Payment reminders, or dunning notices, remind business partners of overduepayables. The dunning program monitors the payment history of the customerand, where appropriate, automatically initiates a dunning run. The dunning pro-cedure concerned plays a central role. The utility company defines the number of dunning levels for each dunning procedure and how they are determined. Thedunning level is stored in each open item and incremented with each dunningnotice.



You can combine the items in freely definable dunning groups and group them by business partner, contract, or division. This allows you to send a business partnera separate dunning notice for each division.

A dunning activity is initiated relative to the highest dunning level of all the itemsin the dunning group. The dunning history, such as the last dunning date, is alsotaken into account. You can also define dunning activities. A dunning letter isprinted in most cases. However, you can also create a workflow for a device dis-connection or for starting legal dunning proceedings.

A dunning run determines the following:

The contract account to be dunned and its open items

The dunning level of the items in a dunning group The dunning activities based on the dunning level concerned

In addition, dunning offers the following functions: Dunning charges

The system can calculate dunning charges for each dunning notice, subject tothe dunning level of the open items and the creditworthiness of the businesspartner. You can elect to post dunning charges to general ledger or as a statis-tical document.

Dunning of budget billing requests

Dunning of installment plansYou can define that the system automatically deactivates an installment planor initiates an alternative dunning procedure (such as immediate disconnec-tion) when a certain dunning level is reached.



Interest calculationYou can call interest calculation for the items subject to dunning from the dun-ning run.

ReversalYou can reverse the last dunning. You can reverse either a complete dunningrun (for example, if the dunning notices have not yet been printed) or individ-ual dunning notices (for example, if a business partner submits a complaint).

Dunning historyThe dunning history contains the dunning data for each dunned item, such asthe dunning level of the processed items and the dunning amount. This en-sures that you have a log of the dunning activities that were carried out.

Maximum and minimum amountsWith maximum and minimum amounts, you avoid dunning for very smallamounts.

Dunning blockYou can exclude individual items or contract accounts from dunning. Withregard to the contract account, you can also impose a time limit on that block.

You can calculate interest on individual items – both debit and credit items – forthe contract accounts of a business partner. This allows you to assess debit interestfor bad payment patterns and to reward good payment patterns with credit inter-est.

During the interest run, the system calculates and posts interest, and the data

required for a customer notification is made available. The system can only calcu-late interest if it can identify an interest key. The interest key controls interest cal-culation and can be assigned to contract accounts, individual items, or dunninglevels.

You can calculate interest on the following items:

Open or cleared debit items and budget billing requests

Installment plans

Cash security deposits

Credit items, such as credit memos

Yearly advance payments on a budget billing plan

You can credit a business partner with a yearly advance payment bonus for pay-ing in advance the total amount due under a budget billing plan (Release 4.51).That bonus is calculated as part of interest calculation.

You can calculate interest on debit items using the following functions:

Individual processingInterest is calculated on the items of a business partner or of a contract ac-count.

Initiation from invoicing or dunning runInterest calculation for cash security deposits in particular can be initiatedfrom invoicing. The interest is printed on the bill or the dunning notice.

Mass interest calculationAs of Release 4.51, you can call interest calculation from a mass run. In this

case, interest notifications are created.





Collective bills enable you to send documents relating to different contract ac-counts or business partners jointly to a single collective bill recipient, who is re-sponsible for making payments. The individual documents are grouped togetherunder a collective bill document number, which is used to identify all the individ-ual documents. Collective bills are used, for example, for property managementcompanies, municipal authorities, and large companies.

Collective bills may be used for the following functions:

Invoicing or joint bills (cover sheet) Payment settlement

Dunning

Reversal

Returns

In the collective bill contract account, the recipient and the payment and dunningprocedures are defined for all contract accounts that belong to that collective bill.You can display not only the collective billing documents, but also the individualdocuments. You can view individual items in the contract accounts of the relevant

business partner, and the total amount of a collective bill in the collective billcontract account.

In a later release, two utility companies will be able to establish a mutual helpservice, which will allow them to demand payment of outstanding bills by cus-tomers who have relocated to the service area of the other utility.

If a utility company requests mutual help, a letter to the partner utility containingan account statement for the relevant customer account is created. This processdoes not change the actual items in the customer account.

If a utility company provides mutual help, a corresponding contract account hasto be created. A statistical item equal to the amount being requested can be postedto that contract account. A subsequent incoming payment is then posted as anopen credit and can be transferred to the requesting utility as an outgoing pay-

ment. In intercompany invoicing, one company is responsible for billing and collecting

payments for other independent companies. These companies generally presentthemselves to the customer as a single unit. The customer receives a bill withgeneral ledger account assignments affecting more than one company code.

Intercompany invoicing requires that the contracts be allocated to the relevantindependent accounting units (company codes). You must specify a managingcompany code for any shared accounts, such as cash clearing accounts.

Additionally, you can automatically write off credits and receivables of little valueas small amounts. You can define separate amount limits for writing off smallamounts for debits and credits.



Intercompany invoicing has an effect in the following cases:

Consolidated balance sheetsA corporate group bills its subsidiaries using various company codes. Thosecompany codes are then consolidated in the balance sheet.

Convergent billingConvergent billing allows a utility to manage the services of other utility com-panies and to include the billing amounts on its own bill. Examples includewaste disposal charges for city sanitation departments, cable charges for tele-communications companies, and drainage charges for local-government wa-ter alliances. Convergent billing is employed, in particular in deregulated util-ity scenarios, when a company (generally the distribution company, the ener-

gy sales company, or a billing service company) invoices individual billingline items (in addition to its own) or all the billing line items and carries outcollection for a third party.

The customer receives a joint bill for orders to the utility company, serviceprovider, and third party. The utility company handles open-item processingfor the services of the third party and forwards information and payments tothe appropriate third party.

The contract being processed for a third party is managed under a separatecompany code, which is not reflected in the utility company’s balance sheet.The postings managed in that company code are of an informational naturewith regard to the third party.

Because of the large volume of documents, posting in FI-CA does not entail imme-diate updating of transaction figures in the general ledger. The FI-CA documentsare instead transferred in summary form to the general ledger of the Financial Accounting component or to a non-SAP system. This improves performance andlimits the volume of documents in the general ledger.

As a result, when FI-CA documents are posted, special FI-CA documents, knownas totals records, are updated. The totals records are formed from the individualFI-CA documents if permitted by the account assignment and posting data. Allthe usual account assignments can be used in the FI-CA line item, for example,

from: G/L accounting (company code, business area, and G/L account number)

Overhead cost management

Profitability analysis (for example, cost center, order, and project)

The totals records are allocated to a user-defined reconciliation key. You must spec-ify the reconciliation key if you are posting manually. In mass processing, the sys-tem creates it automatically and stores it in the document header of the FI-CAdocument.



When a reconciliation key is closed, it is blocked for further postings. This means

that no other FI-CA documents can be entered in the totals records. A closed totalsrecord can be transferred to general ledger and posted there as an accountingdocument. Since the reconciliation key is recorded in those Financial Accountingdocuments, a link is created between FI-CA documents and FI documents. Conse-quently, you can itemize the totals posted in general ledger and reconcile FI-CAand the general ledger.

If a document is posted for a customer in FI-CA, automatic account determinationdetermines the reconciliation account, the associated offsetting account, and oneor more tax accounts, and enters them in the document. These accounts corre-spond to the G/L accounts to be posted in the general ledger.

During year-end closing, it is necessary to create an itemized list at the customerlevel for the G/L accounts to which postings were made from FI-CA. This list is

created as notes to the balance sheet, which provide an explanation of the balanc-es on the basis of the associated individual documents. The balances for the gen-eral ledger accounts therefore need to be reconciled regularly with the balancesfrom the individual documents in FI-CA. Reconciliation between FI-CA and thegeneral ledger analyzes all the open item documents that belong to a totals recordand forms the corresponding totals. Any differences are logged and must be in-vestigated.

A posting in FI-CA causes an immediate (synchronous) posting in R/3 Treasury’sCash Management (TR-CM) component. The liquidity forecast and the cash posi-tion of the cash management function are therefore always current.



Documents that are generated in General Ledger Accounting when totals records areposted are not different from normal Financial Accounting documents, and, therefore,also result automatically in the updating of other ledgers and of Controlling.

Foreign currency valuation recalculates the value of the current assets and payables

that were posted in a foreign currency. This means that the receivables and payablesaccounts are corrected for balance sheet preparation.

Generally, foreign currency valuation operates on the items open on the key date,that is, it uses single valuation. If this is not possible, the account balance is valuated.You can run foreign currency valuation in the local currency and in any parallel cur-rencies being maintained, such as the group currency or hard currency.

Receivables valuation is an accounting procedure designed to recognize that theposted value of a receivable may be different from the actual value of that receiv-able. This function is planned for Release 4.51.

Receivables are divided into three groups:

Correct receivablesValuation adjustment is not necessary for correct receivables.

Doubtful receivablesDoubtful receivables are entered in accounting as doubtful and, if necessary,are adjusted individually by the probable lost amount of the receivable. Nodocument is created. Instead, the open item is identified as doubtful in IS-U/CCS and the posting is forwarded to the general ledger. You can access infor-mation on doubtful receivables and individual valuation adjustments viacontract account information.

If the valuation of an item is adjusted individually first, then the full amountis automatically classified as doubtful.

Uncollectible receivables (see also Business Transactions/Write Offs)Uncollectible receivables are written off in their full amounts. Any sales tax isautomatically adjusted. Statistical items, such as dunning costs, can also bewritten off.



Account display gives the user an overview of the debit and credit items for a business partner or contract account. Selection criteria (for example, cleared itemsonly or statistical items only) allow you to limit the selection of items to be dis-played.

The following configuration variants control how the items are displayed:

Variants for open items determine which information is displayed.

Totals variants determine the criteria for the cumulation of individual items.

Sorting variants determine the sequence in which the items are displayed.

From the account display you can branch to the following areas:

Business partner, contract account, and contract

Dunning, returns, and clearing histories

Payment usage

Installment and budget billing plans

Original receivable of an installment plan

The following analyses in FI-CA are planned for Release 4.51:

Lists for notes on the balance sheet:

List of open items based on key dateOpen items are calculated and shown by customer and G/L account for akey date (end of month, quarter, or fiscal year). The system also displays

the balance carried forward as of the last key date.



Document aging structure listA list of items open on the key date is created based on the due date. Thislist is the basis for write offs and valuation adjustments as of the balancesheet key date.

Customers with credit balancesCustomers with credit balances are identified for each receivables account.This list is the basis for transfer postings to the payables account.

Analyses of the day’s businessIt is important for the day’s business in FI-CA to analyze the document vol-ume of the open items according to special criteria (such as overdue receiv-ables). This allows you to initiate additional actions with regard to the cus-tomer (such as manual disconnection).

As energy markets undergo liberalization, the fast and efficient processing of cus-tomer inquiries becomes a decisive competitive advantage. The essential ingredi-ents here are quick access to all the important customer data and an efficient userinterface that incorporates the latest technologies.

The most important component of customer service is the Customer InteractionCenter (CIC), the work environment in IS-U/CCS for employees in the front of-fice or call center.

You can control all the business processes in the front office via the CIC of IS-U/CCS. The CIC gives you the capability to access almost all the important businessdata and processes of your utility company, in particular the data and processesthat you manage in direct contact with the customer.

From the CIC you can carry out the following processes of customer contact man-agement:

IdentificationFor example, searching for a customer, prospective customer, connection ob-

ject, or premise

Information or consultingFor example, information about payments, billing dates, contacts, and orders

Immediate execution of simple business processesFor example, creating an installment plan, entering a fault report

Start of a workflowFor example, setting up a service connection, including the creation of a quotation

Because front-office employees usually handle customer contact by phone, youincrease their efficiency in customer contact management enormously by inte-grating telephone functions. Using an interactive user interface designed special-ly for call center operations, CIC serves in IS-U/CCS as a router to all informationand process handling functions.

CIC also has an HTML-based customer overview, which you can configure freely

according to your own requirements within the preset categories.



IS-U/CCS/CCS is shipped with several standard configurations, which you canalso configure according to your own needs.

The Call State component displays the current status of each caller. This gives youconstant control over which caller is active, which caller is participating in a con-ference call, and which caller is on hold.

It can also identify the number called (for example, the technical fault report orenergy consulting department). If the CTI middleware provides the caller ’s num-

ber, the system can identify the caller, and display information (like the name) inthe Call State display.

Occasionally, the system cannot identify the caller because the caller may be call-ing from a different phone than the one listed in the system or because the caller is

a new customer who has not yet been entered into the customer file. In thesecases, you can use the Data Finder component. The Data Finder is a tool for search-ing for IS-U data objects, such as business partners and connection objects.

The Data Finder uses powerful search functions across a large number of selectionfields to identify objects.

Consequently, you can search according to the following criteria:

Name and address of the customer

Address of the connection object or premise

Customer number

Social security number



In addition, you can:

Add any number of fields to the Data Finder (such as for a device number)

Combine search criteria as needed

Search with incomplete criteria (for instance, all names beginning with ”Ma”)

Limit the search to specific objects (such as just the electricity division)

Conduct the search according to a search log

The Data Finder allows you, for example, to search for all customers who:

Live on Main Street in a specific city and have a nonresidential contract

Live at 32 Schiller Street on the third floor and receive water service

The Business Data Display is the memory area for managing all the business objects(the caller ’s customer or reporting data, service reports, sales order) and data thathas already been collected during the current customer contact. The Business DataDisplay allows you to display at any time the details of various objects or to usethose objects to execute further actions.

The customer overview currently provides you with information about a custom-er’s data at the following levels:

Customer

Contract account

Premises

Contracts

Below those levels, you can decide yourself which detailed information you need,and you can make the corresponding settings in Customizing. Depending on thesettings you make in Customizing, you can obtain information on the following:

Bills

Rates

Balances

Budget billing plans

Consumption history

Customer contacts

Service reports or service orders

This new customer overview provides extremely flexible options for tailoring thepresentation of the relevant data on a customer to your needs. Your individuallydesigned HTML pages can be stored in the R/3 Web Repository and then en-riched with current R/3 data at runtime. The finished pages are displayed in anHTML browser control. This allows you to use all the design options provided byHTML 4.0 for creating your own screens.

In addition, all the displayable R/3 data from the customer environment are avail-able as JavaScript objects. You can therefore embed active components (like Javaapplets and ActiveX controls) in an HTML page and supply them with R/3 data.The JavaScript library shipped with CIC offers tools that display internal R/3tables as HTML tables and implement HTML hyperlinks, which allow you to nav-

igate in R/3 business object methods. You can, of course, also construct links toany other links to any Web pages in an intranet or the Internet.



The action box gives you access to all the transactions you need for your dailywork. This may be in the form of either information views, change actions, front-office processes, or workflows that are executed or initiated from CIC. (For moreinformation, see the section on Front-Office Processes and Workflows).

You add the data for the customer or other object to the action. You do this either by searching for a new object or by selecting an object that has already been editedfrom the business data display. You can also configure an action in such a way thatyou process data from the fields of the Data Finder. This capability is particularlyuseful if you have added your own fields to the Data Finder.

The actions are organized by means of a register; you assign actions to differentregisters in Customizing, for example, the ”information” or ”change” register.

Front-office processes allow you to model all the most common business process-es. Front-office processes are tailored exactly to the processing of specific businesstransactions. All the important information and entry fields are displayed in just afew screens.

A front-office process is a freely definable sequence of individual actions in whichdata is passed on from step to step. These processes also accommodate a certaindegree of repetition and conditional processing.

Among the front-office processes and workflows covering the most common business processes that are shipped in the standard configuration are:

Change customer data

Move-in and move-out

Interim bill

Technical initial data creation

Budget billing adjustment

Complaint about a bill (workflow)

Laying a service connection (a workflow with optional quotation creation)

Disconnection or reconnection (a workflow at request of customer)

More complex business processes that are run with time delay or are subsequent-ly processed by more than one employee in the back office can be controlled withSAP business workflows. Using the standard R/3 System’s Workflow Management(BC-BEW-WFM), you can apply and create workflows. Depending on the

workflow, the process is executed with time delay (after the necessary events haveoccurred) and by various employees.

For more information on these workflows, please refer to the section titled BusinessProcesses. Future releases of IS-U/CCS will support additional workflows.

The major differences between front-office processes and workflows are:

Front-office processes are not persistent, that is, their lifetime is limited to thelife of the calling front-office session. This reduces administration overheadand improves runtime performance.

All the steps in a front-office process are executed by precisely one employee –the owner of the calling front-office session. This removes the need for theclerk determination that is normal in the case of a workflow step.



However, a front-office process can also initiate a workflow to take over the sub-sequent processing of the business transaction. If an employee is not responsiblefor processing a particular customer request, the employee can also generate afollow-up for the appropriate clerk, taking information that is then passed on asreference information.

Integration with external systems allows call center functions to be supported inCIC. The following functionality is available in addition to the CIC functionality:

Computer telephony integration (CTI)The connection to appropriate CTI middleware allows not only incoming cus-tomer calls, but also calls from the computer to be made

Intelligent voice response (IVR)Through the use of IVR software, you can either answer inquiries directly, orconnect the customer to the appropriate person.

Automatic number identification (ANI) and caller line identification (CLI)The connection to CTI middleware allows you to identify incoming calls auto-matically.

These call center functions are considerably enhanced when implemented togeth-er with SAPphone, which enables conference calls, call forwarding, consultationcalls, and call back.

You can use Customizing to integrate additional information views in CIC and todefine your own front-office processes and workflows. You can combine the stepsshipped by SAP and the steps that you develop in-house.

You can adapt the CIC with a variety of configurations to the usage site concerned,such as a different CIC for customer window and field service. This means thatyou can handle a business transaction in the front office – or the back office whereenhanced processing options may be available. Depending on the organizational



structure of your company, various scenarios can be implemented for processing business transactions:

Parking in the front office, processing in the back office

Entering and processing simple transactions in the front office, processing largetransactions in the back office

Entering and processing in the back office

You can use the CIC action box to call up a graphical display of the environment

for a particular customer.Overviews provide you with all the data on a customer or a connection object.Environments show which installations, contracts, budget-billing plans, and soon are allocated to a customer, connection object, or device. You can branch fromthose information screens to other views that give detailed information about in-dividual subareas.

With the IS-U/CCS Navigator (see section titled Information System), you can cre-ate environments for additional objects and determine how finely segmented thedisplays for any given environment will be.



Predefined business processes allow you to process with a high level efficiencythose customer-related actions that occur most frequently in a utility company.The following business processes can be integrated in the front office and calledfrom there:

Initial data creation for a premise


Customer consolidation

Disconnection and reconnection

Rate maintenance

For a detailed description, please refer to the section titled Business Processes.

IS-U/CCS can automatically log customer contacts. This applies equally to con-tacts originated by the customer – like phone calls – and to contacts initiated bythe utility company – like written notifications or dunning notices. The genera-tion of customer contacts usually takes place automatically within an action.

While dealing with a customer, you can create a reference to data objects. Forexample, a complaint about a bill can contain a reference to that bill. You can usethe note function to enter notes on a customer contact, such as the reason for a

budget-billing adjustment.



In order to classify customer contacts, you can define various contact classes (suchas complaints or service) in Customizing. You can also assign various contact typesto those classes to define actual processes, such as budget billing changed, install-ment plan created, or information provided.

Customer contacts can be listed according to contact class and time period. Anal-ysis of customer contacts provides information about the efficiency of the businessprocesses and the capacity utilization of the customer service representative.

Starting with Release 4.51, IS-U/CCS will offer marketing functions in connection

with the integration of functions from the standard R/3 System. These functionsare based on the storage of customer or prospective customer (customer with nocontract accounts or contracts) information that is relevant to marketing. This in-formation can be collected during customer contacts in customer service offices orduring field service work (for example, for customers with outdated heating sys-tems) or derived from existing contracts (for all customers in gas service territo-ries who do not use that type of service). SAP also plans to connect IS-U/CCS tothe SAP Marketing component.

The important characteristics of this system support for marketing are:

Additional fields in business dataInformation on the targeted market segment of a company is often very in-dustry specific. Therefore, a system that is supposed to support a market strat-

egy must be very flexible when collecting and organizing market data.

In addition to the designated information and attributes for sales support,you can also collect customer-specific data in the following relevant entities of IS-U/CCS:

Business partner

Contract account

Premise

Individual rate category

Customer contact management

Customer contact management supports marketing by collecting and analyz-ing customer-specific information that may be relevant to expansion of the

business relationship. Relevant information about a potential need for supplyor other services can be recorded in sales call reports and analyzed specificallyaccording to various criteria.

Active marketingMarketing activities are actively supported by the system starting with Re-lease 4.51. This is largely achieved by utilizing the Sales Support (SD-CAS) com-ponent in IS-U/CCS. As a result, you can execute mailing and telemarketingcampaigns for selected target customers or prospects. You can also monitorthe response to mailing campaigns.





Internal work orders relate to the utility company itself and are modeled usingmaintenance orders from the Maintenance Order Management (PM-WOC) compo-nent. Examples include:

Internal maintenance tasks

Repairs

Installation, modification, or removal of technical equipment belonging to autility company (for example, a warehouse)

Both types of work orders are referred to below simply as ”orders.”

To create an order efficiently, IS-U/CCS uses

The following components from the standard system are used in work manage-ment:

Plant Maintenance and Service Management Planning, control, and processing of preventive maintenance and inspec-

tion

Maintenance and service management of technical systems and installati-ons delivered to customers

Sales and Distribution

Sales activities through flexible functions for pricing, quotation processing,order processing, and on-time delivery

Direct link to profitability analysis



Project System (PS)Coordination and control of all phases of a project – from quotation to plan-ning and approval, to resource management and billing – in conjunction withPurchasing and Controlling

Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable

Subledger accounting for managing the large number of customer accounts

Periodic transfer of posting transactions to the general ledger

Asset AccountingIntegrated system of planning, controlling, and monitoring instruments ap-

plied to a company’s internal processes and capital investment measures

The openness of the R/3 System also enables you to incorporate non-SAP systemsinto the business processes:

An interface in the Plant Maintenance and Service Management component enablesyou to exchange data between a geographical information system (GIS) and tech-nical objects (equipment and functional locations). Business and technical data ismanaged in the Plant Maintenance component, while graphical and geographical

data is managed in the GIS.This means that in the area of energy distribution you can couple connection ob-

jects and connections with a GIS. In the area of energy transmission, transformerplants, transformer stations or line segments, for example, can be linked to anobject in a GIS.

You can find a list of the GIS providers and GIS systems currently authorized forthese interfaces in SAPNet.

You can use non-SAP systems to schedule large numbers of short-term orders(such as aperiodic meter reading, disconnection, or meter replacement). These

external systems – computer-aided dispatching and scheduling systems or CADSsystems – schedule the orders and allocate them to work groups. Orders are oftendownloaded to mobile data appliances, such as handheld devices or laptops).

The CADS system carries out detailed planning and distribution of orders on the basis of certain criteria. These criteria include:

Required skills

Distance between the location of the employee and the site

Priorities

Fixed deadlines







You can estimate the costs of a sales order. First, you create a customer quotation.Then the system calculates the costs of the service order and transfers them to thecustomer quotation.

In customer quotation costing, a quotation for the relevant service is created forthe customer. The system can derive the quotation price from the configuration of the product (flat-rate processing). Alternatively, it can calculate the price by indi-vidual costing of the work order and then transfer it to the quotation.

The system determines the default values for the account assignment of an orderand enters them in the order. Examples of account determination keys include:

Order type

Technical reference object

Service territory

Division

The following options are supported for order creation:

Order with customer referenceYou can directly enter an order for a sales order item. The system uses theconfiguration in the sales order item to create the order automatically. In thisprocess, you can use all the functions of the Sales Order (SD-SLS-SO) compo-nent. This makes it possible to create several orders simultaneously for a giv-en customer.

Technical reference objectsYou can assign a technical reference object to certain orders. The system canuse the configuration data of the technical object to describe the order. You canalso create a new technical object via an order.

Order hierarchiesThe system can generate order hierarchies in order to model more complexorders. This can be done by using a multilevel configuration to evaluate ”nest-ed” compatible units and to incorporate them into the orders.

The Task Lists (PM-PRM-TL) component primarily supports orders with relative-ly long runtimes, such as laying a service connection, or installation extension of an installation. The worklist of preplanned orders is scheduled for work groupsor individuals. To do this, the work scheduler uses the planning board, which is inthe form of a table or graphic. The flexible layout of the planning table allows you

to display the contents in detailed or compressed form and to enter additionaldata for each user.

Scheduling for the large numbers of short-term orders is handled via a link tonon-SAP systems. (For more information, see Interfaces).

Once the work is completed, you can bill the customer. You can create the billeither in reference to the sales order or to the quotation (flat-rate processing) or, toreflect actual expenses, on the basis of the consumed resources in the work order.The functions used are those from billing in the Sales and Distribution component.



Work M anagement supports the subsequent allocation of construction cost subsi-dies to the customer. Construction cost subsidies are shown on quotations and billsand posted to the relevant accounts when payment is received. To process subse-quent allocations, the system stores the awarded construction cost subsidies for agiven supply area and takes account of them when creating new connections.

In the utilities industry, a number of processes must be handled separately. Subse-quent processes cannot be executed without them. Such processes include:

ApprovalsBefore an order can be executed, it may be necessary to obtain approvals from

authorities or other institutions or companies. As soon as all the approvalshave been obtained, work can begin.

Traffic flow operationsCertain orders require temporary changes in traffic flow operations. In suchcases, not only do approvals have to be obtained from the appropriate author-ities, but additional work, such as closing a road, is also required.

Mark-outsWhen work is done on a section of street, digging may affect the transmissionlines of other companies. Those lines are marked on the surface of the street.

Mark-outs may be carried out by the utility company itself or requested byother companies.

The data for these processes is once again provided by the compatible units andservice territory data.

A waste disposal company provides various types of waste management services.The spectrum of services includes periodic services, such as the regular collectionof waste from containers, and also aperiodic services, such as on-call collectionrequests.

These business processes are implemented in the R/3 System using the Waste Management (IS-U-WA) component of IS-U/CCS. This component also uses func-tions from the Service Management component. For a detailed description of thosefunctions, refer to the brochures for Service Management and Plant Maintenance.

All aperiodic services are modeled by service orders.

Examples include:

On-call collection of waste from a container

Delivery of an empty container and the simultaneous removal of a full con-tainer

Delivery of a new container

Removal of a container when service is terminated



Once an order has been created, the necessary resources, such as vehicles, driversand containers, can be transferred to an external scheduling and dispatching sys-tem. This is a non-SAP system that is linked by interfaces to Waste Management,and that enables the assignment of orders to vehicles, plus scheduling and routeplanning for those orders. Since geographical factors play an important role incost optimization, a link to an external geographical information system is alsoprovided for as of Release 4.51.

The following standard R/3 components are used in Waste Management: Service Management

Planning and processing services

Maintenance and service management for special purpose containers

Sales and Distribution

Sales activities through flexible functions for pricing, order processing, andon-time delivery

Direct link to Profitability Analysis

Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable

Subledger accounting for the management of a large number of customeraccounts

Periodic transfer of posting transactions to the general ledger

Periodic services for commercial customers are modeled by service contracts. Ex-amples include:

Periodic collection on fixed dates of waste from a container

Periodic replacement of a full container with an empty container

The service contract data relevant to planning, such as service, service address,

and service day, is transferred to an external route planning program that createsan optimum route.



You can combine service contracts with aperiodic services from service orders.The resulting order data is forwarded via interfaces to external route planningand scheduling systems.

Periodic services for residential customers are modeled by IS-U/CCS contracts.An example of this is periodic collection on fixed dates of waste from a container.

The IS-U/CCS contract and its associated objects are particularly well suited tomodeling simple contract conditions as a result of the lean data storage in the R/3 System. This means that high-performance processing is possible even with large

amounts of customer master data.As of Release 4.51 you can forward the resulting order data via interfaces to exter-nal route planning and scheduling systems.

To achieve efficient route planning, it is necessary to link to external geographicalinformation systems and planning systems (Release 4.51).

Geographical information systemsA waste management interface allows service address data to be forwarded toan external GIS. The scheduling and dispatching system uses the geo-coordi-nates to determine the routes.

Scheduling and dispatching systemsThese non-SAP systems are used to plan aperiodic orders and to execute routeplanning for periodic orders. Orders are scheduled according to criteria andresources, including the following

Available resources, such as vehicles, drivers, and containers

Required skills

Distance between service address, garbage dump address, and vehicle lo-cation

Priorities

Fixed deadlines

The resources necessary for the optimization process are stored in the R/3 Sys-tem. Examples of container data include:

Maximum load volume and weight

Dimensions

Compaction factor of compactor

You can integrate company-specific data by using a simple extension concept.

The resources necessary for the optimization process are stored in the R/3 Sys-tem. Vehicle data constitutes a particular restriction with regard to the ability to

meet the deadlines of an order.



Examples of vehicle data include:

Use

Maximum load weight and volume

Dimensions

You can integrate company-specific data by using a simple extension concept.

A person can be defined as a driver or co-driver. Using skills data, the system canautomatically identify suitable individuals for specific orders. The scheduling anddispatching system actually selects and assigns individuals to vehicles. Examplesof personal data include:

Working hours Skills

Identification data

The term ”service frequency” refers to the regularity with which a service (such ascollection of waste from a container) takes place. SAP has developed a new trans-action that allows management of the service data at the container level so youcan model service dates for the containers.

You can maintain the service frequency either for an installation of the divisioncategory waste management or for a service order from the Sales and Distributionand Plant Maintenance and Service Management application components. Before youcan create the service frequency, you must allocate containers either to the instal-lation or to the service contract.

You can transfer the dates resulting from the various service frequencies to the sched-uling and dispatching system for optimal resource and route planning purposes.

Service products describe a service that is offered to the customer. A material masterrecord is defined, which describes the service and also contains price information.

Typical services are, for example, waste collection from a certain type of containeror from a specific container. The service product describes the actual service. If that service references a specific object, such as a special purpose container, thatreference object is specified separately in the order.

For aperiodic service requests, you enter individual orders. The service to be pro-vided is assigned as a material, and appropriate vehicles can be assigned in theorder. Once the order data has been entered, it is forwarded directly or at regularintervals to the external scheduling and dispatching system. The external systemdetermines the available resources from the R/3 System and executes the sched-uling of the order.

Periodic service requests are modeled in the R/3 System as service contracts or IS-U/CCS contracts. The service to be provided is also assigned to the contract as amaterial or reference value. At the same time, service days are assigned to theservice product. This data is forwarded at regular intervals to the scheduling anddispatching system.

The external system determines the available resources from the R/3 System and

executes the route planning for identical service requests.



IS-U/CCS maintains statistics on the master data and the most important pro-cesses and therefore provides fast access to all the relevant data of a utility compa-ny. This data can be analyzed and displayed graphically.

IS-U/CCS provides you with stock statistics, transaction statistics, and sales sta-tistics. The data needed for the individual statistical analyses is stored in separatefiles; the sales statistics are integrated with the Logistics Information System (LIS)component.

You can use LIS analysis tools in the evaluation of any of the three types of statis-tics. You can even use non-SAP programs (such as Microsoft Excel) for analysispurposes. In addition, user exits are available for enriching the statistics with in-formation from other applications and data editing operations in the utility com-pany. Integration with the SAP Business Warehouse (SAP BW) component is plannedfor a later release.

Stock statistics reflect the current stock of master data in IS-U/CCS. The systemalso maintains other statistics (for example, devices or reference values). In thecase of master data managed with histories, the current time slices are alwaysdeterminative.

You can list the current stock of utility installations with a given installation status

for a company code and division. You can also list stock according to politicalareas of the regional structure.

Transaction statistics are updated on a monthly basis, with the execution date(current date) of the transaction or process being the determining date. Statisticsare managed for such activities as:

Master data


Initial data creation

Bank and dunning data

Installation and removal

Billing

You can determine the number of move-ins entered in a given month differentiat-ed according to company code, billing class, rate category, and political regionalstructure.

You use sales statistics to create the necessary analyses, required statistics, andstatements for associations and organizations, showing the quantities sold andthe resulting sales revenues. These statistics are based on the billing documentsthat are created in billing and then invoiced.

The following information is covered:

Billed quantities and amounts

Discounts



Surcharges

Price components that are not posted separately (for example, franchise feesin Germany)

Original quantities (for example, before conversion from operating cubic metersto standard cubic meters for gas)

This ensures that the quantities and amounts used in billing are also included inthe sales statistics.

The data is reduced to its statistically relevant parts and transferred to the Logis-tics Information System. From this data, the relevant information is compiled andsummarized for the analyses in question.

Since requirements vary from utility company to utility company, IS-U/CCS con-tains a number of sample statistical reports. Additional statistical analyses areeasy to design to meet individual company needs.

The analyses are based on, for example, the following key fields or characteristics:

Company code

Division

Rate

Price

Industry

Planning is expected to be available with Release 4.51. It contains functions forforecasting and unbilled revenue reporting.

Unbilled revenue reporting determines expected sales revenue for a closing bal-ance period. In addition to quantities and sales revenues already billed, you cancalculate quantities and sales revenues that have not yet been billed. This kind of reporting is very important, especially in rolling annual billing.

IS-U/CCS reporting provides standard reports in ready-made format for all func-tional areas. Availability of this function is planned for Release 4.51. The reports

are based on selection parameters that retrieve the data in a predefined sequenceand with specific information content according to the functional area or relatedtopics. The system supports further selections made on the basis of these dataextracts.

A number of standard reports are already available. These include monitoring billing orders, an open item list (with the option of sorting by due date), and aperiodic replacement list.

However, you can also create customized reports, queries, and ad hoc reports inIS-U/CCS using ABAP/Query and Report Writer.

For information on ABAP/Query and Report Writer, refer to the documentationfor the R/3 Basis Services/Communication Interfaces (BC-SRV) component.



FERC reporting simplifies the reporting process in the US for reports to the Feder-al Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

The IS-U/CCS Navigator allows you to obtain a quick overview of the data envi-ronment of any given IS-U/CCS object by graphically displaying the interrela-tionships between the individual data objects. To review an example, refer to thesection Customer Service/Customer Information.

Among other things, the Navigator can display: All the contract accounts, contracts, utility installations, and devices belong-

ing to a customer

All the premises in a connection object, with the associated installations andcustomers

You can use each data object displayed as a starting point to navigate further. As aresult, you obtain an overview of the data object’s environment. This means thatyou can start from a customer associated with a specific premise and determinewhat other premises that customer has. Starting from any given entry point, youcan navigate through the entire data environment.

The Print Workbench enables you to print not only letters that have a simple logicalstructure, but also forms constructed on the basis of a complex data hierarchy. Onthe one hand, it is very flexible and meets a wide range of needs. But on the otherhand, it is also a high-performance tool that supports the mass printing of forms.

The flexibility of the Print Workbench is based on the following elements:

Form classesForm classes are data structures that are preset for specific applications. Theycontain all the data that can be used in the application forms that are associat-

ed with them. Bills, welcome letters, and meter reading documents are exam-ples of form classes.Form classes are shipped as a part of IS-U/CCS. However, you can also createyour own form classes if you have experience with ABAP and relational data-

base technology.

Application formsApplication forms are created on the basis of form classes. You can definemore than one application form for each form class, for example, different

bills for residential customers, nonresidential customers, and employees. IS-U/CCS contains a number of sample forms that you can use as models foryour own application forms. User exits allow you to adapt application formsto meet your needs.



Print action recordsYou can use print action records to add to your notifications without havingto make changes to the application forms. If you want to send additional in-formation to certain customers, or if you want to insert flyers as part of apromotion, you can use print action records. They contain information speci-fying which text or which flyer is to be printed and how many times.

The Print Workbench uses the word processing functions of SAPscript to print ap-plication forms. SAPscript either edits the data itself and sends it to the printer, orit transfers the data to the raw data interface. In that case, a non-SAP system han-dles layout and printing.

The print manager is used to manage (combine, delay, and cancel) print requests.

It should be fully available with Release 4.51.

The first-time transfer of master and transaction data, that is, migration, fromyour old system to IS-U/CCS takes place via an open interface. Migration is per-formed according to the requirements of IS-U/CCS, which means that neither thedata model nor the functional concept of the old system are needed or used.

To guarantee data consistency following migration, the data is grouped accordingto business process criteria to form migration objects and then transferred to IS-U/CCS. Object-oriented transfer of data is made possible by the service functionmodules of the IS-U/CCS business objects. These are modules that use direct in-

put, thereby avoiding the performance disadvantages of batch input.



Structures are assigned to a migration object. The structural organization of themigration objects is defined in IS-U/CCS. Since the structures are located in theData Dictionary, customer enhancements can be processed.

Because IS-U/CCS does not understand the data model of your old system, youneed a program to extract data from the legacy system. That program does nothave to edit the data in accordance with the IS-U/CCS data model; it simply needsto make it available with the correct type parameters (for example, INT with length10). You define the layout of the data records in the migration workbench. SAPprograms are available for extracting data from RIVA.

The following functions support migration:

Test functionsTransferred data is first tested using a small number of data records. To dothis, you create new data records so that you do not need any data from yourold system. As soon as the data has been transferred with no errors, you de-velop the program for extracting the data from your old system.

DocumentationThe structural form of the migration objects is documented in detail and canalso be displayed as a list. You can print out the list and the documentationand export it to other programs, like Microsoft Excel.

In addition to the normal field documentation, there is migration-related doc-umentation of the fields in the migration objects. This documentation tellsyou, for example, which fields must be supplied with data and which fields

do not require data. Status information

You can obtain information about the status of the migration and find out, forexample, which data has already been successfully transferred.

Tabs simplify screen configuration. They allow you to define which entry fieldsyou want to display on the screen and in what sequence. There are tabs for suchobjects as the following:

Contract

Device category

Meter reading order

Move-in

A tab contains a number of pages that themselves contain field groups. You canassemble different pages together to make views. You can then easily switch fromone view to another.



Notes are used to record non-standardized additional information on individualIS-U/CCS entities, such as utility installation, contract, or premise. In notes youcan record actions that have to be performed for a future event or information thathas to be transferred to the next employee.

Notes are edited using SAPscript. You can define the number and type of notesper entity in Customizing.

You can use the history function to maintain various statuses of certain IS-U/CCS

entities (such as installations) in the system. These statuses are valid for a certaintime slice so that you can recover the status of a given entity at a selected time.This way, you can enter changes to entities that will apply in the future. The histo-ry function also enables you to correctly manage in the system information that

became known late.

In order to manage historical data for entities, the system stores the date as of which and the date until which the stored status is valid. The change date is alsostored for information purposes.

However, a new time slice is not created for every change. For each entity type,the system specifies which field changes generate new time slices. However, chang-es made to entities or fields can be recorded in change documents even if thosechanges do not result in a new time slice.

The assignment of the input fields to the field groups is preset. You can set any-thing else either in Customizing or via the IS-U/CCS menu.



IS-U/CCS distinguishes between errors that occur in individual processing andthose that occur in mass processing. If an error occurs in individual processing,the procedure is terminated, and the system displays an error message. If an erroroccurs in mass processing, the procedure is only terminated if the error is serious.In all other cases, the entity with the error is skipped and the next entity is pro-cessed. The errors that occur are logged.

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Record containing all data necessary for notificati-ons to the municipality.

The action record is generated for the water divisi-on and given to the municipality so that it can levywaste water fees.

Component of apparent energy which is actuallyused to do work.

Component of apparent power which is actuallyused to create power.

It is used to convert electric power into mechanicalor thermal power.

Budget billing amount specified in the budget bil-ling plan. It is paid before the utility company hasrendered services.

Month that determines the starting point for thereading of data required for thermal gas billing (such

as calorific value, temperature, and gas law devia-tion factor).

Total electrical power of a reference value.

It is usually measured in kilovolt amperes (kVA).

Time period in which periodic meter readings areperformed.

This period serves as the basis for extrapolation andupdating of annual consumption.

Grouping together of devices of the same category.

Examples include meters, transformers, and audio-frequency ripple control receivers.

Determination of the most favorable rate for thecustomer using several alternatives.

Classification of contracts within one division, forexample, residential contracts or nonresidentialcontracts.

Data record created during the meter reading ordercreation relevant to billing. A billing order is crea-ted for each contract.

Structure that defines the order in which variantprograms for rates to be billed must be executed.

Allocation of a device to a utility installation.

Upon billing-related installation, meter reading or-ders can be created for the registers of the device,and the device is included in billing of the utilityinstallation.

Termination of the allocation of a device to a utilityinstallation. The device remains technically installed,meaning it remains installed in the device location.

Certain sequential quantity areas (for demand orenergy) where specific prices apply for each area.

This is to prevent higher consumption from being

cheaper than lower consumption.

Fixed partial payment on the expected bill, whichis charged in advance.

These partial payments are charged on budget bil-ling due dates. For the utility company, budget bil-ling payments are down payments on the bill, whichis charged later.

Fixed partial payment on the expected bill, whichis charged in advance.

These partial payments are charged on budget bil-ling amount due dates. For the utility company,

budget billing payments are down payments on the bill, which is charged later.

Time difference in months between two budget bil-ling amount due dates.

Basis for the budget billing request. It is used formanaging all budget billing plan items for a con-tract in a billing period.



Process in which customers are requested to paytheir budget billing amounts.

Budget billing requests are entered in the system asstatistical line items. According to country, they canserve as the basis for a bill (actual debit entry).

Statutory time period that determines when an ex-ternally certified device must be recertified.

Conversion factor indicating how many kWh of energy are obtained from one cubic meter of gas.

The calorific value is calculated using several influ-ence parameters.

Part of the gas supply grid in which the calorificvalue of the gas is the same.

Amount of money a utility company requires fromcustomers with poor credit standing or expected badpayment behavior before services are rendered.

There are several ways in which cash deposits can be paid back.

Check number

Random number generated for each order duringmeter reading order creation.

It checks that the allocation of meter reading datato the corresponding registers is correct.

Signal sent out by a utility company that triggerscertain actions in ripple-control receivers.

Grouping together of several commands in a logi-cal way.

Example: for street lighting, the command group ismade up of the commands turn on, diminish power,and turn off .

Factor by which the waste volume is reduced whenthe waste is compacted.

Waste is compacted using either a compactor or adevice attached to the vehicle.

Energy that a utility company uses for its own pur-poses, such as for lighting its own building.

This is different from the energy it uses during theproduction of energy (plant consumption).

Link between the supply grid and the installations

being supplied.

The connection is represented as an equipmentmaster record in the Plant Maintenance (PM) appli-cation component.

Link between installation and postal regionalstructure.

This is usually a building, but can also be a piece of property or other facility, such as a fountain or con-

struction site. The connection object corresponds tothe functional location in the Plant Maintenance (PM)application component.

Information about the physical links between no-des of a supply grid.

This information states whether or not the supplymedium is transmitted between two nodes. It is usual-ly derived from a network information system (NIS)or from a geographical information system (GIS).

First summarization level in the classification of de-vice categories.

Several similar device categories can be groupedinto one construction class.

Agreement between business partner and utilitycompany that applies to a single division.



The contract contains control data for billing pur-poses, for creation of the budget billing plan, andfor contract accounts receivable and payable.

Contracts for services (for example, maintenancecontracts) are managed by the Sales and Distribution(SD) application component.

Upper limit on the demand of a connection.

Register relationship in which one register opera-

tes simultaneously with another in order to controlthe other register’s readings.

Billing procedure in which one utility companyincludes the billing amounts for the services of athird party together with its own on one bill.

In contrast to intercompany billing, postings in con-tract accounts receivable and payable are managedusing the gross procedure (that is, including tax) andtransferred to general ledger as transitory items.

Date on which the master data was created. Function which gives a utility company a quick andcomprehensive overview of a customer’s data. Thismay include information on the customer’s utilityservice, bill, or account.

This information allows a clerk to handle questionsdirectly while talking to a customer.

Division of billing values caused by data changeswithin the billing period. Example: on the date whena duty is changed, the calculated consumption andthe settlement price must be split up.

Meter for measuring demand.

The maximum demand in a certain time period(such as every 15 minutes) is measured.

Price per unit of demand to be billed for a certainperiod (such as one year).

Validation of meter reading data.

This check applies to several registers in one device,installation or contract.

Individual, physical object that is to be maintainedas an autonomous unit. Devices can be:

Counting devices (meters)

Controlling devices (ripple control receivers)

Data processing devices (converters) Devices with protective or adjustive functions

(pressure controllers)

A device corresponds to a piece of equipment in thePlant Maintenance (PM) application component.

Grouping together of devices with the same techni-cal characteristics (data). Examples include single-rate meters and double-rate meters.

The device category corresponds to material in the Materials Management (MM) application component.

Description of device category.

This can be either the manufacturer’s name for thedevice or any name you give the device category.

Grouping of devices into a logical unit. This faci-litates data entry. For example, if you enter the num-

ber of a device in a group during installation, all of the other devices in that group are automaticallydisplayed for processing.

Example:

In the device group integrated water meter there aretwo separate water meters that are installed toge-ther (as a unit), but meter separately and are billedindividually.

Function that cancels an erroneous installation of adevice.



Location within a connection object where devicesare installed. Device locations correspond to functio-nal locations in the Plant Maintenance (PM) applica-tion component.

Change in the following parameters for devices:

Device category

Register group

Input/output group

Command group

In the case of installed electronic meters, modifica-tion refers to reprogramming.

Replacement of a device with another device fromthe same or similar category.

Tool for planning the expected need for devices andthe work associated with their periodic replacement.

This tool gives the user an overview of how many

devices of a device category must be replaced everyyear.

Costs which arise as a result of disconnection of autility service.

Document which aids a field service employee incollecting a payment from a customer or disconnec-ting a customer’s utility service.

Contractual or rate regulation concerning a reduc-

tion in the amount charged to a customer.Company-internal key for the division categorythat is predefined by the Utilities Industry (IS-U)component.

One or more divisions are allocated to the divisioncategory.

For example, a utility company might divide thedivision category water into drinking water andwaste water.

Type of supply or service which is predefined inthe Utilities Industry (IS-U) component.

Examples of division categories are: 01 electricity,02 gas, 03 water.

The process of customer and internal notificationsto ensure collection of unpaid bills.

Duty on the net amount of a bill, differing from re-gion to region. Examples: compensation tax, Biggesurcharge.

Billing for employees of utility companies.

Employees receive more favorable terms for somedivisions.

Unit price for electricity, such as cents/kWh.

Recording of meter reading results.

There are three ways of entering data: Fast entry

Single entry

Data transfer from non-SAP systems

Positive difference of the demand actually used andthe demand agreed upon in the contract.

Technical inspection and renewal of a measuringdevice by a licensed technician.

The measuring accuracy of the device is inspectedaccording to legal requirements.

Procedure that can be used for forecasting the follo-wing:

Meter readings

Budget billings

Simulation values

Period consumption



Concrete values (such as 100 kW) or keys (for pri-ces, for example) that are allocated to operands andare valid for a specific period.

According to the level on which the facts are alloca-ted, they can refer to installation facts, rate categoryfacts or rate facts.

Billing triggered when a customer moves out orwhen the service territory is transferred to another

supplier. Billing record that is used when a certain valuecannot be measured, for example, if using a meterwould be uneconomical.

Flat rates break down as follows:

Flat-rate consumption

Flat-rate amounts

Plausibility check of meter reading data.

This check applies mainly to tables and fixed values. Contract between a utility company and the muni-cipality about payment of a franchise fee. The fran-chise contract applies to only one division.

Payment by the utility company to municipalitieswhereby the utility company obtains the right tosupply energy directly to customers in these regi-ons. This allows the utility company to use publictraffic routes for the laying and operation of lines.

The franchise fee is determined for each division in

a separate franchise contract.

Company’s own grouping of business partners thatare subject to the same franchise fee conditions, suchas major customers.

Technical and billing-related installation performedin one step. The device is installed in a device loca-tion and allocated to a premise.

Billing-related and technical removal performed inone step.

Second summarization level in the classification of device categories.

Several device categories or construction classes(each containing several device categories) can begrouped into one function class.

Type of gas billing in which the gas quantity supp-lied to the customer is billed based on the gas volu-me correction factor.

Classification for gas billing.

There are three gas billing types:

Thermal gas billing

Gas billing according to standard cubic meters

Volumetric gas billing

Quotient of the compressibility factors of a gas innormal and operating conditions.

Conversion factor used for converting an operatingvolume (measured gas quantity) into a standardvolume.

Validation of meter reading data based on validati-on parameters and tolerance limits dependent onconsumption.

This validation applies to one specific register.

Name for the branch of industry to which an instal-lation belongs, such as trade or construction.

Initial access to the random number table duringthe sampling procedure.

Start access consists of a starting line and severalstarting columns.

Function aiding the creation of one premise and allthe installations belonging to it.



Group of interfaces of one or more device catego-ries or devices.

Example: a group of several pulse input points anda modem interface in the case of remote meters.

Group of all devices, registers and flat rate billingvalues that are:

Specific to a division

Allocated to a premise

Grouped together for billing purposes

One premise can have several installations. Theseinstallations can refer to the same or different divi-sions.

Permanent dismantling of an installation, wherebyenergy supply is stopped completely.

Temporary dismantling of all meter devices, whe-reby no energy is supplied to the installation for a

limited period. Description of devices built into an installation.

It mainly contains data necessary for billing the con-tract associated with the installation.

Person authorized by the utility company to per-form installations.

The utility company determines the installers andthe service territories for which they are authorized.

List of authorized installers in a service territory andof other companies of interest to a utility company(for example, architects).

Billing procedure in which one utility company crea-tes a single bill for the end customer, including ser-vices of several companies all having separate ba-lance sheets. This one company also maintains jointcontract accounts receivable and payable for thecustomer for all other companies.

Contract accounts receivable and payable containthe information specific to company codes andtransfer the data to separate general ledgers.

Technical inspection and renewal of a measuringdevice by the utility company itself.

The measuring accuracy of the device is tested usingcompany standards.

Period defined by the utility company that deter-

mines when an externally or internally certifieddevice must be recertified.

Automatic extrapolation of a meter reading resultfrom another meter reading result within the entryinterval. The entry interval is entered in the meterreading unit.

Example:

Periodic meter reading: April 15

Move-out: April 18

Entry interval: April 01 to 30

The meter reading order for the final meter reading(to take place on April 18) is suppressed. The meterreading result is extrapolated from the meter rea-ding result of the periodic meter reading.

Interface between billing and contract accounts re-ceivable and payable.

It is used for the following functions:

Posting to a customer account

Creating the collective document for thegeneral ledger

Supplying information for statistics

Printing the bill

Number of devices in a sampling lot used in a sam-pling procedure.



Payment for the services of a meter reader or distri-

butor.

These persons are compensated according to theservice rendered.

Example:

The meter reader is paid according to the numberof registers read, and the distributor according tothe number of customer newsletters distributed.

Register reading displayed by a device.

Meter readings are stored in the system as meterreading results.

Notification to the customer indicating the meterreading date and the installations to be read.

Classification of meter readings.

The following predetermined meter reading cate-gories exist:

Meter reading by the utility company Meter reading by the customer

Automatic estimation

Interpolated meter reading

Data record which is the basis for meter readingorders and meter reading results .

Meter reading documents first exist as meter rea-ding orders in the system. Documents become me-ter reading results as soon as specific meter readingdata (such as readings or notes from the meter rea-

der) is available to the system.

Period in which only one meter reading and the re-lated billing are to be carried out.

If the system establishes in meter reading order pro-cessing that a meter reading order was already crea-ted within the relevant period, or that a meter rea-ding result already exists, the meter reading orderwith lower priority is suppressed on the basis of the priority of the meter reading reasons.

Data record created during meter reading ordercreation. It contains data specific to the register andinformation for the meter reader.

Procedure for creating meter reading documentsand preparing for entry of meter reading results.

This procedure also includes preparation for billing,depending on the meter reading reason indicated

by the user. This applies to the following meter rea-

ding reasons: Periodic meter reading

Interim meter reading with billing

Final meter reading with move-in/out

Service territory handover with billing

Meter reading that has been taken or estimated andthat is stored in the system for a certain date.

Time (e.g. hours) required to read a meter reading

unit. Customer-defined meter reading category.

Each meter reading type is allocated to one of thefollowing meter reading categories:

Meter reading by the utility company

Mete reading by the customer


A utility might, for example, divide the meter rea-ding category Meter reading by the customer into themeter reading types Entry via telephone and Entry

via internet.

Installations grouped together according to region,consisting of built-in devices and their registers.Installations are grouped this way for purposes of meter reading and device management.

The meter reading unit is the basis for the meterreader’s work list.



Portable data entry system employed by utility com-panies, for example for entry of meter readings.

Registration for utility service by the customer.

This is different from moving into the residence.

Date on which the billing-related aspects of the con-tract with the customer begin.

The move-in date serves the following functions: It is the scheduled date for the meter reading

at move-in

It is the start of the next billing period

Notification to the municipality regarding the in-stallation of a water installation.

The utility company uses this notification to informthe municipality of new customers (for waste wa-ter billing).

Function whereby the move-out of one customerand possibly the move-in of another customer can

be entered for one or more contracts of a contractaccount.

Cancellation of utility service by the customer.

This is different from moving out of the premise.

Date on which the billing-related aspects of the con-tract with the customer end.

The move-out date serves the following functions:

It is the scheduled final meter reading date

It is the key date for the final billing

Order creation which enables you to enter more thanone meter reading in a certain period.

Simultaneous maintenance of all contracts of a con-tract account that have not been terminated.

With the exception of move-in and move-out data,all data for the contracts of a contract account can

be changed and checked for consistency using thisfunction.

Service mutually agreed upon by utility companiesthat allows a utility company to demand paymenton an outstanding bill from customers who havemoved into the service territory of another utilitycompany.

Explanatory text for master data or transaction data.

Notes can be subdivided into themes for individu-al business entities. These are called note types.

Example: contract

Note type 1: general terms and conditions

Note type 2: contract notes

Note type 3: special agreements

Note type 4: general processing notes

Information from the meter reader for entry of me-ter reading results.

In conjunction with the control note, the note fromthe meter reader initiates certain processes or follow-up actions in recording of meter reading results.

Information the meter reader needs in preparationfor the meter reading (such as “get key first”) or forthe meter reading itself (that the device was readseveral times by the customer, for example).

Time span between creation of notifications andnormal entry of meter reading data.

Individually determined symbolic name for the as-signed values that are used as input and outputparameters in variant programs.

One or more operands are allocated to an operandcategory.



Volume of a gas quantity under current physicalconditions.

Procedure whereby a document is placed on an ex-ception list if it has failed validation during billingor invoicing. The clerk must check and, if necessa-ry, release each outsorted document.

Outsorting check group

General term for a group of checks to be performed

for the purpose of outsorting bills.

Data record which contains control data for gene-rating schedule records.

Consumption or demand for a register that is rele-vant to meter reading in a period with a maximumof 365 days.

Period consumption is used for extrapolating me-ter reading results if no representative meter rea-ding result is available.

Statutory time period which guarantees that thecustomer is informed of a budget billing amount orof a bill amount at least two weeks prior to the duedate.

Value that, in conjunction with the period catego-ry, controls the length of a billing or meter readingperiod.

Additional billing at the end of a period whereby

the customer is billed for the closed period, for ex-ample, by means of backbilling.

Schema containing the steps required for period-end billing.

Consumption billing performed in regular intervals.

The time sequence of this billing process is definedin scheduling.

Examples:

Annual consumption billing

Monthly billing

Bimonthly billing

Replacement of devices that must be replaced asrequired by law or other rules.

Energy that a utility company uses during the pro-duction and distribution of energy.

Element of the political regional structure, such as acounty.

Division of a service territory according to political oradministrative criteria, such as states and counties.

Group of contracts that are to be billed together.

Enclosed spatial unit which is supplied with energy,such as an apartment or factory.

Control for the price adjustment factor, which ismultiplied by a basic price to obtain a current price.

Classification of device categories that are treated

the same with respect to price.In conjunction with the price level, the price class isused to determine the rental price.

Date used when:

The budget billing request run generates theprint document for the budget billing planitem

The partial bill run posts the budget billingplan item as a debit



Division of a billing period due to changes in data.

Example:

A rate changes in the middle of the month. Con-sumption is calculated using the old rate for the firsthalf of the month and the new rate for the secondhalf of the month.

Agreement between a utility company and a custo-mer. The customer (for example, a small power pro-

ducer) provides the utility company with services,usually power.

Price that has a quantity reference but no time refe-rence, such as an energy price ($/kWh).

Billing rule for a register or a reference value thatrefers to all the billing-related steps executed during

billing.

A rate consists of one or more variant programs,which are part of the billing schema.

Classification of an installation for billing purposes.

In conjunction with rate type, the rate category isused to determine the rate.

Grouping of individual facts that are allocated to arate.

Several rate fact groups can be allocated to one rate.Rate fact groups enable you to use the same rate

but apply different operand values.

Example:

Rate fact group X contains the rate facts minimumdemand = 20 kW and discount rate = 10%. If a custo-mer uses 20 kW, a discount of 10% is granted.

Classification of a register, flat rate or reference va-lue for billing purposes.

In conjunction with rate category, the rate type isused to determine the rate.

Costs of resuming utility service after a disconnection.

Component of apparent energy that does not yieldenergy.

It arises when electromagnetic fields are built upor broken down (in transformers or motors, forexample) in connection with alternating voltage.

Component of apparent power that does not yieldwork.

It arises when electromagnetic fields are built upor broken down (in transformers or motors, forexample) in connection with alternating voltage.

Procedure whereby a disconnected installation isreconnected when the reason for disconnection nolonger applies.

Value not measured by registers that is used for cal-culating charges.

This is normally a charge for the provision of ener-gy or water.

Examples:

Number of households for calculating the service charge

Connection load of a lighting unit for calcu-lating the energy price in conjunction with the

burning hour calendar

Role-specific grouping of regional structure groups.

The regional structure area can be used, for example,for meter reading order creation in order to determi-ne maintenance planning plants.

Device that measures consumption, energy, etc.

This can refer to an actual register or a display in anelectronic device.

Register attribute used for interpreting meter rea-ding results.



The attribute specifies whether it is a cumulating ora balancing register. It also determines whether it isa watt register, an energy, or consumption register.In the cumulative register category, the differencein register readings is considered. In the balancingregister category, the absolute quantity is conside-red.

Example:

meter reading result = 10 (previous meter readings = 5)

-> absolute quantity = 10

-> difference = 10 - 5 = 5

Group of registers that belong to one or more de-vices or device categories.

Description of the function of a register.

Examples:

Reactive power

Apparent power

Reactive energy

Standard cubic meters of gas

Relationship of registers to each other. The registerscan also belong to devices in different installations.

Examples:

Serial switching

Control relationships

Allocation of reactive to active registers

Indicator for the rate time zone to which a register

is allocated.This does not necessarily mean that this time zonemust be identical to the time zone used in billing.

Price for supplying the customer with a measuringdevice (such as a meter) for a certain period of time.

For the electricity division, the rental price also inclu-des the charges for meter reading, settlement andcollection.

Function which aids marketing by selecting groupsof customers according to certain criteria.

Device which is randomly pulled out of a samplelot of devices for a spot check.

This device is then dismantled and inspected in or-der to evaluate the quality of the entire sample lot.

Any number of devices grouped together to performa sampling inspection for the following purposes:

To extend the calibration validity of thesedevices (official sample lot)

To inspect the quality of these devicesinternally (internal sample lot)

Procedure whereby any number of devices is grou-ped together to perform a sampling inspection forthe following purposes:

To extend the calibration validity of thesedevices officially (official sample lot)

To inspect the quality of these devicesinternally (internal sample lot)

Certain sequential quantity areas for demand orenergy. When one quantity area is exceeded, a dif-ferent price applies to the total quantity. In this way,higher consumption can be cheaper than lower con-sumption.

Data record in which individual dates are mana-ged, such as meter reading dates, billing dates, and

budget billing amount due dates. Classification of a scheduled meter reading.

The following predetermined scheduled meter rea-ding categories exist:

Meter reading by the utility company

Meter reading by the customer




Planning and controlling of the following functions:

Meter reading order creation

Billing

Determination of budget billing amountdue dates

Structure that defines the sequence in which vari-ant programs (calculation/processing steps) must

be executed.

Single component (variant program) of a schema.

Division of a year into fixed periods that do notoverlap and that add up to exactly one year. Sepa-rate conditions apply to each period, which are ta-ken into account in billing.

Example:

Different prices apply to the winter and summerseasons:

Winter season, 10/1 - 3/31: $0.21 per kWh Summer season, 4/1 - 9/30: $0.15 per kWh

Deposit which a business partner must give the uti-lity company as a new business partner or businesspartner with bad credit standing.

The following types of securities exist:

cash deposits

noncash deposits

Deposit which a business partner must give the uti-lity company as a new business partner or as a busi-ness partner with poor creditworthiness.

The following types of security deposits exist:

Cash security deposit

Noncash security deposit

When a business partner relocates, a link is esta-

blished between the old contract for the old addressand the new contract for the new address. At thesame time, any cash or noncash security depositsare automatically transferred from the old contractto the new contract.

Register relationship in which one or more registersare connected in a series.

The demand of all the registers in a series is measu-red by the first register in the series.

Frequency with which a service (such as emptying)takes place for a container in waste management.

The service frequency is only valid for a certain timeslice. The external scheduling and dispatching sy-stem uses the specified frequency and time slice todetermine the exact dates.

Example:

The service frequency is specified as every first Tu-

esday of the month. The time slice is from 01/01/99 to 03/31/99. On the basis of this data, the exter-nal system determines the following dates:

Tuesday 01/05/99

Tuesday 02/02/99

Tuesday 03/02/99

Unit price per reference value for providing electricpower for a certain period of time.

Specified period of time in which a waste manage-

ment service is to take place, for example, only bet-ween 09:00 and 11:00.

Additional device selected in the process of drawingdevices for inspection.

This device is used when a device selected for inspec-tion is not suitable (due to damage, for example).



Volume of the gas quantity under the following stan-dard physical conditions:

Standard temperature (Ts) = 273.15 K

Standard pressure (Ps) = 1.01325 bars

Electrical power that a utility company keeps on re-serve for customers who produce their own energy.

This power is used in case there is a temporary fullor partial power outage caused by a malfunction,or if there is a shutdown due to an inspection.

Sequence for reading the registers in a meter readingunit.

Electric power that a utility company supplies tocustomers who produce their own energy. This co-vers the customer’s power need that surpasses in-plant generation.

Amount established in the contract or rate that isincluded in the customer’s bill amount.

Surcharges do not refer to amounts that a utilitycompany collects only for forwarding to anotherentity, such as taxes and duties.

Physical installation of a device in a device locati-on. Relationships with other registers and devicecan be defined upon technical installation. Techni-cal installation is a prerequisite for billing-relateddevice installation.

Physical removal of a device from a device location.Technical removal cannot be performed until bil-ling-related removal has been performed, that is,the device must no longer be allocated to the utilityinstallation.

Division-related unit installed in a premise.

The technical installation is modeled for the utili-ties industry as a piece of equipment in the Plant Maintenance (PM) application component. If you donot wish to create this unit (for example, a flat-rateinstallation) as a device, you can create it as a tech-nical installation for the Plant Maintenance and Ser-vice Management components.

Examples of technical installations are:

Night storage heating stove with cable

Night storage heating stove without cable

Fuse box Distribution cabinet

Electrical outlet

Type of gas billing in which the operating volume(measured gas quantity) is converted into a heatquantity using the gas volume correction factor andthe calorific value. This heat quantity is then billed.

Time interval within which a specified object wasnot changed.

Price that has both a time and quantity reference,such as a demand price ($/kW/365 days).

A group of transformers.

There are certain inspections regarding the permis-sible combination of transformers and the compa-tibility of their windings.

Price that has both a time and quantity reference,such as a demand price ($/kW/365 days).

A set of transformers that must meet certain requi-rements regarding the permissible combination of transformers and the compatibility of their win-dings.

Consumption proration used for determining andvaluating quantities sold and billed for the balancesheet of the closing balance period.



Key for the rate time zone to which a register is al-located with respect to installation and billing.

Status of a contract or installation if a move-in doesnot occur directly after a move-out.

During vacant status, the customer-related fields inthe contract or installation are deleted, as are themeter reading notes about the customer. A contractor installation remains in vacant status until another

move-in is registered.Test of meter reading data for plausibility before itis entered into the system.

Validations can be divided into the following threecategories:

Formal

Independent

Dependent

Grouping of independent validations, that is, vali-dations for individual registers. The validation classis entered in the rate.

Type of gas billing in which the recorded gas quan-tity, measured as a volume (for example, in cubicmeters), is billed.

The recorded operating cubic meters are not con-verted to standard pressure and temperature con-ditions.

Waste amount

Amount of waste per time unit.

Service in the Waste Management component, suchas a container service, container delivery, or contai-ner removal.

Specification of the level to which a container is filled.

Procedure for determining expected values whenmaking extrapolations.

Group of windings which applies to one or moredevices or device categories.

This group contains at least one primary and onesecondary winding.