In SAP Subscription Order Management, a subscription order represents a binding agreement with a customer. To be valid and processable, it must contain certain fundamental attributes. These include the specific Subscription product (A) being ordered, the Contract Start Date (D) which defines the beginning of the service and billing period, and the Bill-to party (E), which is the business partner responsible for payment. Without these three core pieces of information—what is being sold, when it starts, and who pays for it—a legally and systemically valid subscription contract cannot be established or processed for billing.

B. Payment term: This is typically derived automatically from the master data of the Bill-to or Payer business partner and is not a mandatory manual entry on the order itself.

C. Service recipient: This partner function is not mandatory. If a separate service recipient is not specified, the system defaults to using the sold-to party.

1. SAP Help Portal

SAP S/4HANA

Subscription Order Management

"Creating Subscription Orders": The official documentation outlines the creation process

stating that users must "add one or more products to your order" (confirming A) and maintain item details where the "contract start date and the contract end date" are key fields (confirming D). The determination of business partners

including the essential Bill-to party for invoicing

is also a prerequisite (confirming E).

2. SAP Learning Hub

Course BR235 - SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management - Subscription Order Management

Unit 2: Subscription Order: This courseware details the structure of a subscription order. It emphasizes that each order item must contain a product and that contract time-slice data

including the start date

is mandatory for defining the subscription term. It also clarifies the role of mandatory partner functions

where the Bill-to party is essential for the downstream billing process.