This section provides a general step-by-step plan for producing progress payment invoices. You should incorporate this plan into your normal billing cycle. This plan assumes that you have already completed the progress payment initialization screens.
Form 1443s are usually submitted on a monthly basis. You should enter transactions and post them during the month using the various data entry screens. Be sure that the accounts payable and purchase order vouchers, entered for subcontractors, have the subcontractor data completed in the Header subtask of the Enter A/P Vouchers screen (Accounting » Accounts Payable » Vouchers) or Enter PO Vouchers screen (Accounting » Accounts Payable » Vouchers).
For projects that have been designated as "large business," execute the Update Cash Basis Information screen (Projects » Billing » Prepare Billings). This will update the Cash Basis Information subtask of the Maintain Open Billing Detail screen (Projects » Billing » Prepare Billings) with payment information from the vendor check history files.
Execute the Update Subcontractor Progress Payments screen (Projects » Billing » Prepare Billings) for all projects, large and small business. This will update the Maintain Subcontractor Progress Payments table and delete transactions that use subcontractor accounts from the Maintain Open Billing Detail screen (Projects » Billing » Prepare Billings).
If your company calculates progress payment billings using actual rates, execute the Compute & Print Pool Rates (Projects » Cost and Revenue Processing » Cost Pool Processing & Reporting), Post Pool Journal (Projects » Cost and Revenue Processing » Cost Pool Processing & Reporting), and Compute Burden Cost (Projects » Cost and Revenue Processing » Project Cost Processing) screens. If your company calculates Progress Payment Billings using target rates, you can omit this step and proceed to Step 5.
Execute the Calculate Progress Payment Billings screen (Projects » Billing » Calculate Billings). You do not have to assign special project IDs to projects that bill using 1443s. The calculation process will calculate only for projects that use the "Progress Payments" billing formula. You can use the Select Bill Group and Select Billing Cycle options to limit which bills can be calculated and by whom.
The calculate process produces one invoice per project that can be viewed and edited, if necessary, in the Edit Progress Payment Billings screen (Projects » Billing » Edit Billings). Notice that the Edit Progress Payment Billings screen has many of the same fields as the Maintain Closed Progress Billing Detail screen (Projects » Billing » Billing History). Both of these screens have been designed to simulate the actual form 1443. In the Edit Progress Payment Billings screen, you can edit only existing bills resulting from the calculation process; you cannot enter additional bills or insert additional rows into existing bills.
The method of editing the bills depends on the type of billing line. You can edit some lines on the main screen, but others must be changed from the Line Detail subtask of the Edit Progress Payment Billings screen. To edit billing lines in the Line Detail subtask, change either the Hold Amount or Write Off Amount field of a given transaction. In addition, you can edit the Billing Amount field of lines containing burdens or cost of money.
In the Line Detail subtask, you cannot edit subcontractor delivery invoices because partial billing of these transactions is not allowed. If you want to place an entire transaction "On Hold," change the Accepted field from Y (Yes) to N (No) in the Maintain Subcontractor Progress Payments screen.
After the line detail edits, you can incorporate the changes into the bill through a recalculation process, which is completed in the Line Detail subtask. Edits made directly on the main screen are automatically incorporated into later calculations on the bill by tabbing to another field. For a complete discussion of each of these billing lines, please see the "Line-By-Line Discussion of the Form 1443" section in this special topic.
If you entered the Customer Terms in the Project Billing Info screen (Projects » Billing » Billing Master or Projects » Project Setup » Revenue Setup), the system-calculated due date will appear in the Due Date field on the Edit Progress Payment Billings screen (Projects » Billing » Edit Billings); this can be edited. This is not a required field; however, if you leave it blank, the system will use the bill date as the due date in the A/R history files when you post the bill. In other words, the due date is mandatory for the A/R Aging report, which uses it to age the receivable.
On the main Edit Progress Payment Billings screen, you cannot edit the Project ID and name, Customer ID and name, and company-wide Invoice number. Leave the status to its initial setting, Unselected, until you have concluded your review process. Unselected invoices can be re-calculated or printed, but they must be in a Selected, or accepted, status before you can post them. You can change the status for an individual project in this screen or for a range of projects in the Select Bills for Posting screen (Projects » Billing » Edit Billings).
You can print the 1443s from the Print Progress Payment Bills screen (Projects » Billing » Print Billings). You can limit the bills that you want to print by using the Select Bill Group and Select Billing Cycle options. As with the Standard Bills, you can print unselected bills. However, unlike the Standard Bills, text that states that the bill is in an unselected status will not print in the header of the Progress Payment bills.
You can create the WAWF file for all selected invoices that have a record in the Maintain Project WAWF Information screen (Projects » Project Setup » Project Master) with the Invoice Type of Progress Payment selected. Before executing this process, you must have selected the bill in the Edit Progress Payment Billings screen (Projects » Billing » Edit Billings). See more information on WAWF in "Wide Area Workflow" Special Topic BL-11.
To post, use the Post Progress Payment Bills screen (Projects » Billing » Post Billings). As previously noted, you can post only selected bills.