Posting to the General Ledger

Whether you are posting manual or transaction-based bills, the posting process requires receivable and unbilled accounts.

The Project Account Group that is linked to the project must contain an account with a Function Code of BILLED A/R and one with a Function Code of UNBILLED_GENRL. If you are using customer product bills, the accounts are found on the Manage Customers screen. Costpoint updates the following General Ledger tables: GL_POST_SUM, FS_SUM, GL_DETL, and REF_SUM. Use the following screens to post the bills: Post Standard Bills, Post Progress Payment Bills, Post Customer Product Bills, Post Project Product Bills, Post Manual Bills, and Post Milestone Percent Complete Bills.

When you post the bill to the general ledger, the following processes occur:

Receivable

The application searches the project's project account group for the account that has been assigned a Function Code of BILLED A/R (on the Manage Project Account Groups screen). You can assign only one BILLED A/R function code per project account group; the posting process requires one such account in the project's project account group. If the application does not find a BILLED A/R function code, it displays an error message and stops the posting process. Costpoint uses this process regardless of which type of billing is being posted. The Post Customer Product Bills screen uses the account set up on the Default Accounts subtask of the Manage Customers screen as the receivable account.

• The billing is posted at the level of the project specified on the Manage Project Billing Information screen. The BILLED A/R function code must exist at this level. All the transactions at or below the billing level are summarized and posted at the level shown on the Manage Project Billing Information screen.
• The owning organization assigned to the project is used as the organization for posting. The project's owning organization is established on the Manage Project User Flow. The Post Customer Product Bills application uses the organization on the Default Accounts subtask of the Manage Customers screen.
• Costpoint posts the invoice amount net of discounts, sales tax, and shipping as the billed receivable for invoices with a status of Selected.

Sales/VAT tax

Costpoint reviews the billing record for sales tax amounts. For each sales tax amount, there is a corresponding sales tax code. These codes are maintained on the Manage Sales or Value Added Taxes screen. In that screen, the sales tax code is listed along with an account/org to be used when sales or VAT tax is posted. If a bill has multiple sales tax codes, multiple accounts/orgs are updated with sales tax amounts.

Discounts

There are two methods of recording discounts in Costpoint. Discounts can be computed when the bill is calculated or they can be calculated based on customer terms and taken when the invoice is paid. You select the discount method on the Other Info tab of the Manage Project Billing Information screen and on the Manage Revenue Information screen.

The first type of discounts compute when invoices calculate. There are seven discount methods that can be set up. They include PLC discounts, account discounts, account discounts w/burden, aggregate volume by customer, aggregate volume by customer w/burden, aggregate volume by project, and aggregate volume by project w/burden. These discounts print on the invoice and are held in the billing tables. However, the discount amount does not post to a discount account when the bill is posted.

The second type of discount are discounts that the program calculates and stores based on discount terms such as 1% net 10, and so forth.). This is different from a volume or good customer discount, because this is the discount that the customer receives if he pays the invoice promptly. However, because it is not known whether the customer will make this payment in time to take advantage of the discount, only an informational entry is made.

• Costpoint multiplies the invoice amount by the terms discount to arrive at the discount amount that the customer might take. It posts this amount to the A/R Invoice History table as a memo entry. If the discount is taken, it is reflected as part of the entry to Cash Receipts when payment is posted.
• When you post cash receipts, Costpoint updates the A/R Invoice History table with the discount taken, thus providing you with a complete history by customer of discounts offered and discounts taken.

Unbilled

The application searches the project account group that is linked to this project for the account that has been assigned a Function Code of UNBILLED - GENERL (on the Manage Account Groups screen). You can assign only one UNBILLED - GENERL function code per project account group; the posting process requires one such account in the project's project account group. If the application does not find an UNBILLED - GENERL Function Code, Costpoint displays an error message and stops the posting process. Costpoint uses this process regardless of which type of billing is being posted. The Post Customer Product Bills screen uses the account on the Default Accounts subtask of the Manage Customers screen that has been assigned a function code of REVENUE.

Costpoint reviews the Project Billing Info table for the level at which the receivable should be posted. It reviews the Basic Revenue Info table to find the project level at which revenue should be posted and compares the two. If the levels are different, Costpoint posts the unbilled amount at the higher, less detailed, of the two levels.

If retainage exists, it is debited to the account in the project's project account group with a Function Code of UNBILLED-RETAIN.

During this process, Costpoint updates the following tables: GL_DETL, GL_POST_SUM, FS_SUM, and REF_SUM.  The REF_SUM table is optional.