Processing Service Contracts

You can use this process to create service contracts for concluding long-term service agreements with your customers. In the service contract you can define, for example, which services are guaranteed and to what extent they are covered, meaning the scope and timeframe.
The customer pays a regular service fee, regardless of whether or not they draw on the contract.
As a dealership, service contracts provide you with the following benefits:

• You can build long-term business relationships with your customers.
• You can offer your customers a complete package of services when they buy a vehicle, including an extended warranty.
• You can sell an extended warranty separately.
• You can base your forecast for service business on your service history.

When a customer comes to the workshop for vehicle service, you create a service contract release order and assign the appropriate service contract to it. With this process, you can bill the costs to the service contract as well as to the service contract release order. The entire process is integrated in Financial Accounting (FI) and Controlling (CO).

Prerequisites

• In Customizing for Sales and Distribution under Sales > Sales Documents > Sales Document Header > Define Sales Document Types, you have made the required settings for using service contracts.
• In Customizing for Vehicle Sales and Service(VSS) under Service > Service Contract > Specify Sales Document Types as VSS-Relevant, you have entered the sales document types that you use for service contracts.
• In Customizing for Vehicle Sales and Service(VSS) under Order > Order Type > Define Order Type, you have made sure that order types Service Contract Release Order (2003) and Serv. Cont. Rel. Ord. Returns (2103) exist.
• In Customizing for Vehicle Management System (VMS) under Control Data > Define Actions, you have made sure that the vehicle actions Create Assignment of Vehicle to Contract (QCVA) and Delete Assignment of Vehicle to Contract (QDVA) exist.
• In Customizing for Vehicle Management System (VMS) under Control Data > Define Action Controls and Define Action Matrices, you have made sure that the vehicle actions QCVA and QDVA have been entered in a matrix.
• If you want to configure the value flow between the service contract release order and the service contract without internal billing, make sure the internal billing checkbox is not selected for the order types Service Contract Release Order (2003) and Serv. Cont. Rel. Ord. Returns (2103) in Customizing under Order > Basic Functions > Account Assignment > Internal Order for Bill-To Party > Define Internal Order Type for Bill-to Party.
• If you want to specify the coverage details of the service contract at item level, make the settings in the following Customizing activities for Vehicle Sales and Service(VSS) under Service > Service Contract:
  • Activate Covered Service for Item Categories
  • Define Hierarchy Level for Service Item Group
  • Define Service Item Group
• You have created a material with material type Service (DIEN) for the service contract.
• You have created vehicles and customers in VSS. For the vehicles, you used models that contain both vehicle actions QCVA and QDVA in secondary action control. You can check which secondary action control is used for a model in transaction VELOS.
• If you want to specify the tolerance for mileage checking in service contract, make the setting in the following Customizing activities for Vehicle Sales and Service (VSS) under Vehicle > Define Control Values > Define Control Values for service. Define control value for Control Object /DBE/V_CNT_MIL_TOL, value of this parameter can be maintained as follows: 
  1. Number (without any unit)
     • It means how many km/mil vehicle mileage can exceed the upper limit of the contact to be allowed
     • Only positive integer values are supported
     • Example:
       1. Parameter value: 150
       2. Contract validity: 1500 KM – 3000 KM
       3. Vehicle with up to 3150 km mileage can be assigned
  2. Percentage (number followed by ‘%’ sign)
     • Used to calculate the tolerance of the upper limit of the contract validity
     • Only positive integer values are supported
     • Example:
       1. Parameter value: 10%
       2. Contract validity: 10.000 KM – 30.000 KM
       3. Vehicle up to 33.000 km can be assigned

Process

1. Create a service contract (see Creating Service Contracts for Vehicles).
2. Create a service contract release order (see Creating Service Contract Release Orders).