VF01 — Create a billing document
VF01 creates a billing document from a reference such as an outbound delivery or a sales order. It is the invoicing step of order-to-cash: quantities and conditions are copied by copy control, the document is priced, and posting it releases the values to accounting where receivables and revenue are recognised.
Billing document creation: what can be billed, how copy control and pricing decide the values, and why invoices fail to post.
Reviewed by an ERPClimb SAP consultant on 13 Sept 2026· 627 words
What VF01 is for
VF01 turns a completed sales or shipping step into a commercial invoice. The billing document is created with reference to a preceding document, and copy control decides which data is carried across, how quantities are determined and whether one invoice may cover several references. Once created, the document is passed to accounting, which is where the customer receivable and the revenue postings appear. For a consultant this transaction is where sales configuration, pricing and finance meet, so problems raised here are frequently not billing problems at all but configuration or master-data problems that only become visible at invoicing.
When it is used in order-to-cash
Billing is the last step of the standard cycle. Delivery-related billing waits for goods issue, order-related billing does not, and which one applies is a configuration decision rather than a user choice. Individual invoices are created here for exceptions, corrections and testing, while routine invoicing runs from the billing due list so that hundreds of documents are processed together. Support teams use it when a specific document must be produced or explained, and project teams use it in every test cycle because an invoice that posts correctly proves that pricing, account determination and the finance interface all agree.
How it is used in practice
You enter the reference document to be billed, usually a delivery number or a sales order number, together with a billing date and the billing type when it is not proposed. The system copies eligible items, determines pricing and shows the values before saving. Review the net value and the tax result against expectation, and check for any billing block. Saving creates the billing document and, in most configurations, immediately creates the accounting document; where a release step is configured, the accounting posting happens separately. Output such as the printed or emailed invoice is issued through output determination, not by this transaction, so a missing invoice document and a missing invoice print are two different investigations.
Fields and objects that matter
- Reference document, the delivery or order the invoice is created from
- Billing date, which drives the posting period and often the exchange rate and pricing date
- Billing type, which controls copy control, account determination and whether the document is a credit or debit memo
- Billing block at header or item level, the most common single reason nothing can be billed
- Conditions and tax result, which determine the values sent to accounting
- Billing header VBRK and billing items VBRP, plus the accounting document the posting creates
Common pitfalls and how they show up
- Trying to bill a delivery before goods issue is posted in a delivery-related billing design
- A billing block on the order, the customer or the item that excludes the document from the due list
- Copy control settings that prevent the reference type from being billed at all, reported by users as a missing document
- Account determination gaps, where the invoice is created but the accounting document cannot be produced
- A closed or wrong posting period, which blocks the finance posting rather than the invoice
- Tax determination that depends on master data nobody maintained for a new customer or country
- Assuming the customer received the invoice because the document exists, when output determination never issued it
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