Six invoices instead of one: separating a split analysis from a header difference
Customer 1000456 receives about twelve deliveries a month from two plants, 1010 and 1710. Deliveries are billed delivery-related, and the billing type is set up as a collective invoice so that the customer should receive one document per month. In March the collective billing run produced six invoices instead of one: the four deliveries from plant 1010 were combined, but the two deliveries from plant 1710 each produced a separate invoice. On 12 March the customer's bill-to party was also changed in the business partner master, and every delivery goods-issued from that date was invoiced on its own. Payer, terms of payment, currency and incoterms are identical across all deliveries, and the same pricing procedure applies throughout. The customer's accounts payable department has queried the number of invoices.
1. Give the two distinct split causes and say how you confirm each one.
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Two different mechanisms are at work, and confusing them leads to the wrong change.
1. The plant-based split (deliveries from 1710). Collective billing only merges documents whose header data match. Beyond that, the billing type references an invoice split analysis that can force a split on fields such as plant or order type. A clean 4-versus-2 pattern is the signature of a field-level split, not a header difference. Confirm it by comparing the header data of a plant 1010 invoice with a plant 1710 invoice: if payer, currency, terms, incoterms and billing date match, only a split analysis can explain the separation.
2. The bill-to change (12 March). The bill-to party is header data of the billing document. Once the master changed, documents created after 12 March could no longer be merged with documents created before it - by design, not by defect.
Also re-run the due list with the collective indicator and read the log rather than assuming which of the two caused a given document.
2. The business wants one invoice per customer per month, no exceptions. What do you change, what do you refuse to change, and why?
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What you can change: the invoice split analysis, if plant is genuinely irrelevant to invoicing. It is usually there for a reason - different tax jurisdictions, plant-specific freight, plant-specific output. Removing a split criterion is a transportable customizing change and must be tested with a full month of live deliveries in quality, not with one document.
What you should refuse: merging documents with different bill-to parties. The bill-to party is what appears on the invoice; forcing a merge would address a document to an entity that did not buy the goods. The tax and dunning consequences land on you, not on the person raising the request.
What to offer instead: a period cut-off rule - bill-to changes take effect from the first day of the following period, so a month is invoiced to one party. That meets the business intent (fewer invoices) without falsifying documents. Write the rule into the master data change process, because the BP team will not know on their own that a bill-to change has an invoicing consequence.
3. The customer asks for a single document summarising March. What are the options and their consequences?
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Distinguish a billing document from a summary of billing documents.
- Invoice list: a separate billing type listing several invoices, used for settlement and, if configured, for payment. It gives the customer one piece of paper without altering the underlying invoices. It requires configuration, a number range and a decision on whether payment is made against the list or against each invoice; it also changes dunning and payment behaviour, so finance must agree before you build it.
- Re-issue: cancelling the March invoices and creating one new document is viable only if no follow-on documents exist. With FI postings already made, this means reversal documents and considerable noise for a cosmetic gain. Rarely justified.
- Explain and leave it: for six invoices a month, the cost of an exception process may exceed the customer's cost of processing them. Quantify both sides before you build anything.
In all three cases, first fix the customs split cause - otherwise April produces six invoices again.