Billing Documents and Invoice Creation
From delivery to invoice
A billing document is created with reference to a delivery (the normal case) or with reference to an order (order-related billing, typical for services or for order types configured without a delivery). The billing document type controls the number range, the billing date rule (goods issue date, invoice date, delivery date), the copy control, the output, the account assignment, and whether items can be collected into an invoice list for periodic settlement.
Items reach the billing due list (VF04) only when they are billing-relevant, not blocked, and have reached the relevant date. Billing plans allow periodic or milestone invoicing. Cancellation (VF11) creates a reversal document that references the original; the original invoice is never deleted. Revenue account determination uses the condition technique (VKOA), keyed by chart of accounts, sales organization, customer account assignment group, material account assignment group and the account key from the pricing procedure.
Traps
- The invoice date is not cosmetic: it drives the FI posting date and, if configured, the pricing date used to select condition records.
- A billing block can sit on the order item or on the delivery header; either one keeps the item out of the due list.
- Values that look stale in an invoice usually came from the order, because the pricing type in copy control copied the conditions instead of repricing.
- A cancellation document does not modify the original; corrections use debit memos, credit memos or an invoice correction request.
Rule of thumb
Debug a wrong invoice by walking backwards: FI document → billing document → reference document → sales order. The step where the value first becomes wrong is where the configuration problem lives.