SD/Customer prepayment process - no telco, no project, no fix monthly amount, SD invoice

[former_member1381889]

Hi All,

I am trying to find a feasible process for handling our customer advance payments/prepayments/downpayments (whichever terminology you like better), but I can not fit our process in the standard solutions I could find till now, and I am hoping that some of you have experience with a similar situation. Our process is as follows:

1)

We send an advance payment request to the customer, simply asking to pay some amount so that he can purchase what he wants. (No idea at this point what it will be, when, and in how many parts.) Let's say it is $10,000.

2)

The customer transfers the money, with the exact amount requested, so there is an incoming payment of $10,000.

3)

We issue an advance payment invoice (needs to be a VAT document and has to look similar to a final invoice), still of $10,000, but already having a product with net + VAT + gross amounts, so let's say "Advance for ... product"; net amount $8,000 + VAT amount $2,000 = Total amount $10,000. This is however not posted to FI, only the document itself is printed and sent to the customer.

4)

Customer takes some products in April, and we issue the first invoice in SD with the following data:

Product 'A' Net amount $1,000 + VAT amount $200
Product 'B' Net amount $2,000 + VAT amount $400
Total of the invoice #1 = $3,600 --> remaining amount of paid advance (to be calculated automatically by SAP and to be stated on the invoice): $6,400

5)

Customer takes some products (maybe Product 'C') in May, so invoice#2 is issued in SD with a total amount of $2,400 --> remaining amount of paid advance: $4,000

6)

Customer takes some products (maybe Product 'A' again) in August, so invoice#3 is issued in SD with a total amount of $1,800 --> remaining amount of paid advance: $2,200.

7+)

optional part: new incoming advance payment of $6,000 --> invoice#4 of $4,800 / rem.adv.: $3,400 --> etc.

There was a very similar question in 2010, but it is already archived, so I can not continue the discussion there (and also our process has some tricky details compared to that one, but for reference please find the link below):

https://archive.sap.com/discussions/message/9001060#9001060

Thank you very much for your help in advance!!!

Zsuzsa

[Lakshmipathi]

Not sure whether you already tried with the standard down payment process in which case, what exactly the issue you were facing?

[former_member1381889]

I am not sure, which standard process you mean. I have information about two possible processes:

1) SD process based on billing plans --> in this case I don't know how to use billing plans for invoices that can not be forecasted (don't know the timing, the amount of each invoice, and not even the material that will be sold).

2) FI process --> I need SD invoices for the actual sales.