Controls

You should allow users to edit bills as long as there is a policy in place to disallow changing transaction detail.  

Use the original source entry to make changes to any of the transaction detail.  If changes are made to the transaction detail in the Edit Standard Bills  screen (Projects\Transactions\Billing), the billing history will differ from the detail in the general ledger.  There will be no record of who made the change or why the change was made.

If you do not elect to allow users to edit the bills in the Edit Standard Bills screen, no changes can be made to anything on the bill.  This includes billing for over ceiling or retainage amounts.

Bill your project on a cash basis when you have a requirement to pay for services before you can bill your customer or when you are using Form 1443 to bill and have been designated by your contracting officer as a large business.

Select the Bill Cost Incurred on Cash Basis field to enable cash basis billing.  Only transactions originating from accounts payable will be evaluated for cash basis billing. You must run the Update Cash Basis Bills process to evaluate transactions for inclusion on the bill before you run the Calculate Bills process.  

You can select the accounts that should be evaluated by the Update Cash Basis Bills process in the Billing Accounts screen.  You can enter accounts by project in the Cash Basis subtask of this screen but you should not enter the same account in both places.

Billing cycles are useful when you have to produce bills at specific times each period. You can assign projects to specific billing cycles and when you calculate bills for that billing cycle, only those bills will be calculated and displayed in the Edit Standard Bills  screen (Projects\Transactions\Billing).

Billing groups are useful if you have many employees who are responsible for calculating groups of bills.  Individual users will be able to calculate, edit, print, and post bills by billing group.  

Use of billing groups helps to expedite the billing process when multiple employees are using the billing screens simultaneously.

You can create billing groups in the Billing User Groups screen.

Use this checkbox to regulate the billing of partial transactions.

If you select this checkbox, partial transaction billing will be allowed.  If you do not select this checkbox, no partial transactions will be allowed.

Partial transactions may exist due to a direct cost ceiling or on-hold amounts. For example, if you post a transaction to Open Billing Detail for $1000 and $400 is put on hold, a partial transaction exists in that record. The $600 that is not on hold will be included in the bill only if this checkbox is checked.  Also, if a direct cost ceiling of $200 is put on an account and the only transaction posted to that account is $1000, the $200 under the cost ceiling will be included in the bill only if this checkbox is selected because the $200 is part of the whole transaction of $1000.

If items have been partially billed, they will appear more than once on supporting schedules (once for each partial billing). To avoid confusion, remind customers of this possible duplication.  

You can use the Edit Standard Bills  screen (Projects\Transactions\Billing) to edit bills generated by the system, if you select this checkbox. By doing so, you can alter some of the amounts that Costpoint has calculated for the billings. When you post the bills, these amounts are also posted to history for future reference. If this checkbox is not selected, you cannot edit bills for this project in the Edit Standard Bills screen.

Note: The best method of changing incorrect amounts on an invoice is to make the correction using the same source as the original transaction. For example, if an incorrect PLC is used on a project, you should correct it using a correcting timesheet.

The Adjust Open Billing Detail screen (Projects\Process\Billing) also provides an efficient way to correct a billing. Changing the bill in the Edit Standard Bills screen will cause a discrepancy between the bill and the source transactions.   

If you select this checkbox, the system will bill items from Accounts Payable only if they have been paid. Transactions from Labor, Journal Entries, or Units Usage will be billed automatically regardless of their payment status.

Please note that accounts must be flagged as cash basis accounts in the Billing Accounts screen before you can select this checkbox to bill on a cash basis. You can also set up cash basis accounts by project in the Cash Basis subtask of this screen. After posting transactions to the project, you will also need to run the Update Cash Basis Bills screen (Projects\Process\Billing) before a cash basis bill can be calculated.

This checkbox is also used by the government 1443 bills to determine whether the bill should be calculated using "small-" or "large-business" calculations. Select this checkbox to compute the bill using "large-business" calculations, and use a cash basis billing. Leave this checkbox unselected to compute the bill using "small-business" calculations, and do not use a cash basis billing.

Use this checkbox to control the use of the Adjust Open Billing Detail screen (Projects\Process\Billing). If you select this checkbox, users can transfer, write off, or put transactions on hold using the Adjust Open Billing Detail utility. Journal Entries are automatically created to record the adjustments. Leave this checkbox unchecked to have users use original entry sources to make corrections to billings.

Enter, or use Lookup to select, a terms code for this project. You can set up terms in the Customer Terms screen.

The default cycle will appear in this field, if the Use Billing Cycles checkbox is selected and a default cycle is entered in the Billing Settings screen. You can enter a code or override the default code by selecting another valid billing cycle code. The system will use this code when you calculate, edit, print, and post bills. If you are not using billing cycles, this field is unavailable. You can set up billing cycles in the Billing Cycle screen.  This is only required field if the Use Billing Cycles checkbox is selected in the Billing Settings screen.

Enter, or use Lookup to select, a remittance address code for this project. This remittance address will be printed on the top of the invoice. You can enter remittance addresses in the Remittance Addresses screen (Projects\Configure\Billing).

Enter, or use Lookup to select, a valid user group code if you selected the Assign Bills to User Groups checkbox in the Billing Settings screen. The system will use this code when you calculate, edit, print, and post bills. If you are not using billing user groups, this field is unavailable. If you selected the Assign Bills to User Groups checkbox in the Billing Settings screen, this field is required.  You can set up user groups in the Billing User Groups screen.

Enter, or use Lookup to select, the state code that should be identified with the project for tax purposes. You can enter state codes in the Maintain States and Provinces screen.

The Income State field is not used by the system on any reports or in any processes.

Enter the last bill number used by this project if you selected the Enable Project Specific Bill Numbering checkbox in the Billing Settings screen. This is an alphanumeric field.

When the next bill is calculated, this number will be incremented by one. You should end the last bill number entered here with at least three numeric characters so that the system will have at least 999 bill numbers to use. Refer to the documentation for the Last Company Wide Invoice No checkbox in the Billing Settings screen for more information on how the system increments bill numbers.