For internal SAP and partner use only
FAQ – Incident Billing for VAR
April 2017
What is the reason for incident
billing?
Incident billing is not intended as a revenue generating activity, and is purely to
cover the additional operating costs incurred by SAP in the event of VARdelivered support partners not performing their support duties.
SAP’s auditors require that measures are taken to mitigate the risk posed to our
revenue recognition, caused by delivering services which should be provided by
the partner.
Additional business reasons:
•
Customers pay their partners for providing Level 1 and Level 2 support and
therefore are entitled to receiving the full scope of such services.
•
Partners who invested in their support and do perform their Level 1 and 2
support duties expect fair treatment from SAP - incident billing creates a fair
playing field for all partners.
What is level 1 and level 2
support?
For SAP solutions excluding SAP Business One, check SAP note 1921400.
For which SAP solutions is
incident billing applicable?
Incident billing is applicable to:
For SAP Business One, check the SAP Business One maintenance policy.

SAP Business One

SAP Business All-in-One solutions

SAP HANA solutions

SAP Mobile solutions

SAP Database & Technology solutions (including SAP HANA and former
Sybase database solutions)

Analytics solutions from SAP

SAP Hybris Commerce solution
What is the contractual basis
for incident billing?
For SAP solutions excluding SAP Business One, see:
SAP PartnerEdge VAR Delivered Support Specific Terms and Conditions
 Part 1 Article 6.3 Fee per Incident
For SAP Business One, see:
SAP PartnerEdge Terms and Conditions for VAR Delivered Support for SAP
Business One
 Article 5.4 Fee per Incident
The abovementioned SAP agreements can be found at:
https://www.sap.com/about/agreements/leveled-partneragreements.html?tag=agreements:leveled-partner-agreements-silver-goldplatinum/sell-partner
Which incidents will be billed?
For SAP Solutions excluding SAP BusinessOne:
If an Incident is forwarded to SAP, and it does not meet the criteria below in a), b)
and c), Partner must pay to SAP a fee per Incident as further outlined in the Price
List (“Payment for non-standard and/or other maintenance services”).
SAP will not invoice Partner:
a) for Incidents that were processed by SAP Development Support
b) for Priority 1 Incidents for Supported End Users that have purchased
SAP Enterprise Support; or
c) if the number of Incidents eligible for invoicing is five or fewer Incidents
per quarter.
Invoices will only include Incidents that are closed (with status “Confirmed” by
Partner/Supported End User or with status “Confirmed Automatically” by SAP).
For SAP BusinessOne:
All billable incidents have note 1167635 attached. By confirming the incident
either manually or automatically, you are agreeing that the incident is billable.
Why is there a threshold of 5
incidents?
This is a preemptive strategy to save time and administrative effort on the part of
SAP as well as partners. The 5 „free“ incidents per quarter is intended to cover
any incidents where the partner may disagree with the billing.
If in one quarter I have fewer
than five billable incidents, can
I transfer the remaining credit
to the next quarter?
No. It is always a threshold of five incidents per quarter, they cannot be
transferred.
Will new partners also be
invoiced?
Yes
What can I do to minimize the
numbers of billable incidents?
1.
Ensure that your customers are not sending incidents directly to SAP by
requesting them to be blocked in the SAP Support Launchpad. See SAP
Note 1285423
2.
Ensure that all support employees are using the tools and resources
available to help them solve 1st and 2nd level incidents. See Tools for
Providing High Quality Support
For SAP Business One, see guidelines to avoid generating billable incidents.
How much is billed per
incident?
The charge per billable incident may vary based on local contractual practices,
taxes and currency rate. Please refer to your local price list.
In general all countries are requested to reflect a charge equivalent to 80 € per
incident for SAP Business One and 200 € per incident for other supported SAP
solutions.
When does SAP bill for the
incidents?
The billing process will happen once a quarter. The invoices will contain at most
two quarters of data.
In order not to conflict with quarter end processes, we have set up the following
billing time frame:
What is the process if I don’t
agree with the invoicing?
•
March invoice: covers billable incidents of February, January, and December
(of previous year)
•
June invoice: covers billable incidents of May, April, March
•
Etc.
Process for SAP Solutions excluding SAP BusinessOne:
The invoice will contain a list of all billable incidents. The fee for 5 of these
incidents will be deducted from the total invoice amount.
As the list of billable incidents is generated by automated reporting, it could
happen that some incidents have circumstances that could not be automatically
identified but yet should be excluded from billing. For example, if an incident was
logged to notify SAP of a mistake in the product documentation.
If you find more than 5 incidents in the list of billable incidents that you deem
questionable, please contact your partner business manager. If there are 5 or
fewer questionable incidents in the list, these are already covered by the 5incident waiver.
Process for SAP BusinessOne:
By confirming an incident that has the note 1167635 attached, you accept the
billing. Therefore, when receiving an incident from SAP with this note, you should
immediately check if you agree with the billing. If not, and only if Level 1 and 2
support has been provided by you, resend the incident to SAP support to ask for
the reason. Once the incident has been confirmed (closed), the billing decision
cannot be challenged anymore.
Copyright/Trademark