SAP Knowledge Base Article - Public

3645380 - Approval workflow for Billing Documents before release to accounting in S/4HANA Public Cloud

Symptom

Approval workflow for billing documents is required before posting to accounting.

Environment

SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition

Cause

In SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud, approval workflows are designed to function only for preliminary billing documents. There is no standard workflow for final billing documents before posting to accounting.

Approval can instead be implemented by:

  • Using Billing Document Requests (BDRs), with approvals managed in the Manage Billing Document Requests (F2960) app, or
  • Using Preliminary Billing Documents, with approvals managed through the Manage Preliminary Billing Documents (F2875) app.

Resolution

A workaround for this requirement would be turn off automatic posting to accounting, so that new billing documents remain unposted until explicitly released.

Also, can use one of the following alternative approaches to introduce an approval step before financial posting: 

  1. Billing Document Requests (BDRs): 
    • BDRs act as intermediary objects that collect itemized, billable data from various sources before final billing.
    • They appear in the billing due list alongside other billable SD documents and can be converted into customer invoices or other billing documents.
    • With the Manage Billing Document Requests (F0797) app, you can display, filter, sort, and group a list of all billing document requests (BDRs) in the system. For more details, refer to: Billing Document Requests | SAP Help Portal.
  2. Preliminary Billing Documents:
    • Preliminary billing documents serve as intermediary documents between the billed reference document (e.g., debit memo request) and the final billing document (usually an invoice).
    • They facilitate negotiations with customers and are relevant for output but not for posting to financial accounting.
    • Changes can be made using the Change Preliminary Billing Documents (VFP2) app, and final billing documents can be created using the Manage Preliminary Billing Documents(F2875) app. For more details, refer to: Preliminary Billing Documents | SAP Help Portal.
    • With the app Manage Preliminary Billing Document Workflows (F4274), as a configuration expert can configure workflows to establish and optimize approval process for preliminary billing documents. Designated approvers receive the preliminary billing documents for approval in the My Inbox app and as notifications. For more details, refer to: Manage Preliminary Billing Document Workflows | SAP Help Portal

See Also

Keywords

approval workflow, billing documents, preliminary billing document, final billing document, sap s/4hana cloud public edition, accounting, workflow configuration, manual release, automatic posting, sales billing, billing document request, preliminary billing document , KBA , SD-BIL-2CL , Billing (Public Cloud) , Problem

Product

SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition all versions