Budget billing again

Question

Hello,
i'm course of implementing a budget billing plan for a gas company. Because i'm a beginner in SAP, even i have a lot of knowledge in other technologies, i can't figure it out how can i do it.
My SAP version is 4.6. I read that after SAP 4.7, Budget Billing is a FI-CA job. But now, this is my job (Billing and Invoicing). So, i'm here not for disturbing or spaming but for asking some pro's about: "Budget Billing, how did they do it".
After some time i've been doing some FI configurations and Billing stuff, but no specifications are telling what happends after actually make the plan.
Did the customer receives every month a fix bill?
Or he receives every month a bill with all the plan lines.
How i actually see the plan in the account.
Do you now more? If not, pls, somebody tell me to stop asking.

Answer 1

In simple terms, a budget bill plan is a billing arrangement in which a customer will be charged a fixed amount in every billing cycle. Every plan is valid for one year and at the end of the year, they will settle and a new plan is automatically created.
Now the dollars side of it. Say the plan preiodic amount is $50 and the customer's usage charges for that billing period are $70, then the $20 will sit in a staging area called cumulative difference (or accumulator).  Let us say the customer had usage charges of $30 in the next billing period, so now the accumulator will 20-20 = 0 and this adjustment goes on until settlement time. Note that the accumulator amount will always have a clearing restriction till the settlement.
When the plan is getting billed for the last period, the customer will receive a settlement bill for the usage amount of that month, plus the credit or debit in the accumulator. Of course, there will be other things added or subtracted when the bill is generated such as taxes/customer charges/non-utility FICA charges/credits etc.