SAP Convergent Charging: Chargeable Item Class

Chargeable item class is the fundamental building block in convergent charging. This is the first point of integration between the external usage records and the SAP system. External usage record data is mapped to the fields of the chargeable item class. The chargeable items are then processed, and price plans are applied to them to determine the final amount which is basically the revenue earned with respect to a given usage event.

Further, the charging plan determines the master data to which this amount is to be posted in SAP Convergent Invoicing.

Recurring charges do not require the creation of a chargeable item class and can be calculated directly from price plans. To calculate the usage based prices, chargeable item class must be set up in the system.

Consider the example of a Telecom service provider, it can map the services of voice, data and SMS to three different chargeable item classes. Since the usage records of each of these services have different characteristics and since consumption is recorded in quite a dissimilar manner for the three services, it makes sense to represent them in SAP system with three different chargeable item class.

To create the chargeable item class in SAP convergent charging core tool,

1. From the menu bar in the main window, select File –> New –> Chargeable Item Class. The Choose Owner window opens.
2. In the Owner drop-down menu, select the owner of the chargeable item class.
3. Click OK. The New Chargeable Item Class window opens.
4. Set up the chargeable item class.
5. Verify the chargeable item class structure by clicking the Verify icon  on the main window toolbar. Correct all elements underlined in red.
6. Save and release your new chargeable item class.

Properties of a chargeable item class:

A chargeable item class has two sets of properties: Default and User defined.

Each chargeable item class contains the same default properties:

• Consumption Date: this property describes the date and time when the service is consumed by the end customer.
• Service Identifier: this property describes the identifier of the service consumed by the end customer
• User Identifier: this property describes the identifier of the end customer consuming the service

User defined properties are freely definable. Data relevant to rating (calculation of prices) and charging (identification of the account to be charged) from the external usage record must be mapped to the fields of the chargeable item class. These fields are defined in the usage properties section of the chargeable item class.