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Vistex SAP SD With Vistex PDF
Vistex SAP SD With Vistex PDF
The implementation duration depends on the scope but for example Incentive IP module takes appx 2-
3 months in configuration( one resource). Bill back & chargeback takes same time.
Does Vistex implementation involve any Technical development efforts also along with configuration
activities OR it is only configuring vistex modules?
In SAP implementation project, Vistex consultant works in coordination with SD consultant. Is this
understanding correct?
our company is implimenting the billback module but i dont see good documents available for the
same even in config also.
do you haave any document which can be shared for specially Billback testing??
I recently read about SAP Compensation Management on a blog (sdmodule.com). Apparently it does
the same thing as Vistex but it's a standard module and doesn't require an additional license. I don't
see much documentation for it other than the enhancement package release notes. Here we
implemented the Vistex billback module but it took over 18 months to get it working and the consulting
resources were VERY expensive.
Did you know theres an SAP standard module for contract pricing and chargeback
management? It provides the same functionality as the popular Vistex add-on but there
are no license fees. Its called SAP Compensation Management and its part of the
standard Logistics / Global Trade modules. Take a look at this comparison:
Function Vistex SAP
Contract pricing
Chargeback processing
Chargeback reconciliation
Rebates
To see the menus, youll also need to activate some business function sets. Check the EHP1
EHP4 release notes (the wholesale distribution section) for the specific sets for your
implementation. I think you will need ISR_RET_COMPENSATION for the general functionality
and ISR_RET_AGENCY_3 if you want to use complaints processing.
Be sure to try this in a test system first activating the business function sets is generally
harmless, but it cannot be undone.
As for Pharma, if youre a manufacturer then I suggest using theCRM Pharma extensions for
manufacturers (inbound chargebacks). If youre a wholesaler or retailer then Compensation
Management will work better.
VISTEX
Contract pricing
Contract membership management
Chargeback processing (chargeback submission and tracking)
Chargeback reconciliation
Online processing and support for EDI (844/845/849)
Compensation Management is intended for wholesalers. For example, it
provides outbound chargeback processing (chargeback submission). If you are a
manufacturer you may want to consider SAP CRM instead, since it provides contract pricing
and inbound chargeback processing (Ill post a future series on that topic).
Even if you already have Vistex or another add-on package, SAP Compensation Management
is worth a look. The provided functionality is superb and its even possible to combine the
two: for example you can use contract pricing from Compensation Management module along
with chargebacks from Vistex, or vice-versa.
Chargeback Functions
Chargeback Creation
Outbound EDI 844 and inbound 849 support
Automatic and manual creation
Create chargebacks in batch, periodically or immediately
Combine multiple chargeback requests into a "collective chargeback request" to reduce transaction
volume
Full chargeback workbench integration (all document display and processing can be done without
leaving workbench)
Generate chargebacks when a contract is loaded retroactively
Chargeback Document
Chargeback Functions
Chargeback pricing procedure and account determination (can be used to adjust chargeback amounts,
accrue rebates, post to specific accounts, etc.)
View contract data in chargeback
Track vendors reference number
View vendor data in chargeback
Output and/or re-submit chargebacks using EDI 844, print, fax, email, etc.
Document flow including chargebacks, SD documents and contracts
Chargeback linked to all source EDI transactions
Full change log and audit history
Standard extractors for BW
Standard archiving functions
Reconciliation
All chargeback rejections, statuses and paid amounts visible on chargeback document
Track requested and paid chargeback amounts separately
Track rejection reasons
Customizable rejection processing including custom fields, validations and workflow
Reverse and reopen posted chargebacks as a result of subsequent reconciliation
Web portal for manufacturers to enter chargeback response into your SAP system
Read the rest of this series:
1. Contracts and Chargebacks with SAP Compensation Management
2. SAP Compensation Management Key Features
3. Business Process
4. SAP Process
5. Screenshots
6. Conclusion
Sep 04, 2009 | Compensation Management, Pricing, SAP Chargebacks, SAP Contract
Pricing, Vistex, Vistex Documentation | Leave A Comment
Business Process
SAP Compensation Management covers many different wholesale distribution scenarios. Any
any business that uses sophisticated pricing contracts or chargebacks (or chargeback
variants, such a price protection or bill-backs) needs a way to manage those processes.
For this series, Ill present the business process for pharmaceutical wholesalers as an
example, and show how Compensation Management can be used for contract pricing and
chargeback management.
The diagram below shows the pharma wholesale business process from contract negotiation
through chargeback reconciliation.
The contract pricing and chargeback process begins when a drug manufacturer negotiates a
pricing contract with one or more customers. The contract defines discounted pricing for
certain products. The Contract may be signed with an individual customer, but more often it
is an agreement with a Group Purchasing Organization (GPO) that represents multiple
customers.
The manufacturer sends the pricing contract information to wholesalers that carry its
products. The contract is sent via EDI 845, email or fax. Contracted products are identified by
NDC number. Eligible customers may be listed explicitly by DEA or HIN number, or the
contract may just indicate that some customer group is eligible (for example, a GPOs
customer membership or a particular class of trade).
When an eligible end-customer purchases a contracted product, the wholesaler invoices the
customer at the contract price. Contract prices are generally below the Wholesale Acquisition
Cost, or "WAC" (the standard price that a wholesaler pays to purchase a product from the
manufacturer). This means that the wholesaler is often in a position where it must sell
product below at a price below its own acquisition cost.
The manufacturer validates the chargeback request against its own contract pricing system. If
the request is approved, the manufacturer issues a credit to the wholesaler, or, if the
chargeback is determined to be invalid, it may be partially paid or not paid at all.
The manufacturer then sends the wholesaler a chargeback response via EDI 849, email or
fax. The response lists the payment amount for each chargeback line item. If a line item was
rejected or partially paid, the response also lists rejection reasons explaining why it was not
accepted.
Read the rest of this series:
1. Contracts and Chargebacks with SAP Compensation Management
2. SAP Compensation Management Key Features
3. Business Process
4. SAP Process
5. Screenshots
6. Conclusion
Sep 04, 2009 | Compensation Management, Pricing, SAP Chargebacks, SAP Contract
Pricing, Vistex | Leave A Comment
SAP Process
In the last post in this series I covered the general business process for contract pricing and
chargeback processing using SAP Compensation Management instead of Vistex. This time Ill
explain how the contract pricing and chargeback process is handled within Compensation
Management.
1. The process begins with the creation of a pricing contract in the Compensation
Management module. The contract is sent from the manufacturer to the wholesaler by
EDI 845, email or fax, and a Compensation Management contract is created in SAP.
The contract lists all of the customers and products that are eligible for contract
pricing. Each contract is assigned to a manufacturer. The manufacturer is represented
as a vendor in SAP. If a GPO was involved in the contract negotiation then it is also
assigned to the contract. The GPO may be stored just for reference, or to drive special
pricing or special contract prioritization.
2. When a sales order is created in the SD module the system determines for each
product whether the customer is eligible for a pricing contract. If so, the contract is
assigned to that order line and it is given a contract price. The determination logic may
be simple, such as assigning the lowest contract price from a group of contracts, or it
can be more complex, such as prioritizing certain contract types or GPOs over others.
3. Normal SD processing then continues and the order is delivered.
4. Normal SD processing continues and the customer billing document is created. For
contracted products the customer is invoiced at the contract price. The billing
document also includes several other pricing conditions that are necessary for
chargeback processing, including WAC price and expected chargeback revenue. When
the billing document is saved and released to the FI module, the expected chargeback
revenue is posted as an accrual.
5. A chargeback request document is created. This chargeback is linked to the billing
document and to the pricing contract. It contains all of the data needed to submit a
chargeback to the manufacturer.
6. Individual chargeback request documents can be combined into a "collective
chargeback request" to reduce chargeback volume with the manufacturer. The
individual or collective requests are submitted via EDI 844, email, or fax.
7. The manufacturer reviews the submitted chargebacks and responds with a
chargeback reconciliation document via EDI 849, email, or fax. The reconciliation
includes the paid amount and any rejection reasons for each chargeback line item.
8. Once the chargeback document has been reconciled, it is released to FI. The
accrual for the chargeback amount is reversed and the actual chargeback amount is
posted as a vendor credit.
Read the rest of this series:
1. Contracts and Chargebacks with SAP Compensation Management
2. SAP Compensation Management Key Features
3. Business Process
4. SAP Process
5. Screenshots
6. Conclusion
Sep 04, 2009 | Compensation Management, Pricing, SAP Chargebacks, SAP Contract
Pricing, Vistex | 1 Comment
Screenshots
In prior posts, Ive presented the business process and the SAP process for chargeback
processing and contract pricing, using the SAP standard Compensation Management module
instead of Vistex.
This time Ill cover the process in more detail and work through an example in an SAP system.
Ill reference the diagram below and provide some screenshots for each step (note that you
can click on the thumbnails to see a full-size image).
One thing you may notice immediately from the diagram is that all contract pricing and
chargeback data is available in SAP BW. SAP provides standard BW extractors and key figures
for detailed contract and chargeback reporting.
Step 1. Condition Contract
The first step in the process is to create a pricing contract. Figure 1 shows the SAP
Compensation Management contract entry screen. In this example the contract was received
from vendor 3818 and it represents an agreement to sell material "MS" to customer
CMS0000031 for $90.00 per piece.
Ill also enter a comment about how this contract was received and attach a spreadsheet
received from the manufacturer. The texts are fully customizable and a separate "attachment"
button allows source documents such as spreadsheets, emails, and so on to be attached
directly to the contract.
Figure 2: Contract Comments and Attachments
(click for larger image)
Switching to the pricing conditions for the line item, we can see that SAP determined the WAC
(condition ZWAC), contract price (condition PCHB) and expected chargeback amount
(condition CHBK). The conditions are configurable, so its easy to create additional condition
types such as discounts, surcharges or rebates.
In this example, the normal price for the item is $110.00 but the contract price is $90.00 so
the sale is made at $90.00. WAC is $100.00, so the expected chargeback amount is the
difference between WAC and contract price, or $10.00.
Figure 4: Sales Order Contract Pricing
(click for larger image)
Like the sales order, the billing document has a Compensation Management tab at the line
level for contracted items, but it also has a Compensation Management tab at the header
level. This tab provides an overview of all chargeback "PPF actions" (outputs) generated for
the billing document. Here we can see that the system automatically created a chargeback
request when the billing document was saved.
Figure 5: Billing Header Contracts Tab
(click for larger image)
The second sub-tab "chargeback overview" shows information about all chargeback
documents related to this billing document. Its possible to "drill-in" to any chargeback
document directly from this screen.
Figure 6: Billing Document Header Chargeback Overview
(click for larger image)
SAP calls a chargeback request a "remuneration request". Its represented in the system as
an Agency Business document of type "CHBK".
The "chargeback workbench" transaction is used to monitor and control chargebacks at any
point in the process. The standard workbench settings allow users to perform all document
processing without ever leaving the workbench.
In Figure 8 Ive listed some chargeback documents and selected the header and item data
for the chargeback I created previously.
The chargeback request looks a lot like an SD billing document: it has header data, item data,
texts, outputs, pricing conditions, and so on. Figure 9 shows a chargeback request.
The "invoicing party" is the vendor to whom were submitting the chargeback (3818) and the
"payment reference" field is used to store the chargeback reference number received from
the vendor in the chargeback response document (see below). Since I havent submitted the
chargeback to the vendor yet, this field is blank.
The chargeback document has its own pricing procedure along with configurable rules for
copying pricing conditions from the source billing document. This is a very powerful feature
because it allows all kinds of new pricing in the chargeback. For example, the chargeback
pricing procedure can be used to adjust chargeback amounts by vendor or product, to
automatically post payment differences to a write-off account, or to post additional conditions
such as rebate accruals.
For each line item the vendor will approve it and pay it, or specify a partial payment amount
along with one or more rejection reasons.
For this example, well assume the item was partially paid with a rejection reason code "WAC
incorrect". The vendor expected WAC to be $99.95, but the WAC on the chargeback request
was $100.00. Based on a $90.00 contract price, the vendor expected a chargeback request
for $9.95 rather than the $10.00 that was submitted.
The system behavior for each type of rejection is fully configurable. In this example, the
system has been set to automatically post the chargeback difference to a write-off account.
Rejections are recorded on the chargeback document as a "complaint", which links the
chargeback to a "complaint document". Complaint processing is completely configurable: for
each reason code additional fields, validations, triggers, and workflows can be defined.
If youd like to know more, I encourage you to check out the key features post to get an idea
about what other functionality is available (at a high level). Then let me know what youd like
to see in future posts.
And of course: if you would like consulting or training help, please contact me.
Read the rest of this series:
1. Contracts and Chargebacks with SAP Compensation Management
2. SAP Compensation Management Key Features
3. Business Process
4. SAP Process
5. Screenshots
6. Conclusion