Actions Bar of the Interactive Billing Form

Use the actions bar to select billing session options, print, submit, approve, and accept an invoice, and perform other actions for an invoice.

These actions apply for the invoice for the project that you currently have open on the Interactive Billing form.

Commonly Used Actions

Field	Description
Billing Session Options	Click this action to open the Billing Session Options dialog box and select options for the current billing session, such as the invoice date for the invoice, the dates that determine the possible transactions to bill, and invoice processing information.
Print	Click this action at any time to preview and print the invoice that you are currently creating. This is helpful when you want to preview an invoice and its additional documents (if any) before you final accept the invoice. If you use pre-invoices, make sure the Process Pre-Invoices check box on the Pre-Invoice tab in billing terms for the project is cleared before you click Print. If not, you will preview and print a draft pre-invoice instead of a regular invoice. (You specify billing terms in Hubs > Projects > Billing Terms.) If the billing terms for the project have the Print Backup Report option or one of the Print Supporting Documents options (AP Vouchers and Disbursements, Journal Entries, Expense Reports, or Units) selected, the Additional Documentation dialog box displays when you click the Print action. On the dialog box, select whether or not you want to view the Backup report and supporting documents. When you click Continue on the dialog box, the invoice and additional documents (if you selected them) display. If you are previewing and printing only the invoice with no additional documents, the invoice displays in a preview screen. Click the print and save icons on the toolbar at the top of the screen to print the invoice or save it in a separate file, such as a Microsoft Word or a .PDF file. If you are previewing and printing the invoice with additional documents, the invoice and documents display in a .PDF file.
Accept	This action (without beside it) displays if a project does not use an approval process for its billing invoices. Click this action to finalize an invoice for posting. On the Invoice File Selection dialog box that displays, create a new invoice file for posting or select an existing file. On the Invoice Accept dialog box, review the invoice and click Accept. Your ability to accept final invoices depends on whether or not the Allow Final Processing check box is selected for your security role on the Accounting tab in Settings > Security > Roles. For more information about what happens when you accept a final invoice, see Accepting Final Invoices.
Submit	This action displays if a project uses an approval process for its billing invoices and the invoice status is New or Rejected. You see the invoice status in the Draft Invoice Information section on the General tab of the Interactive Billing form. Click this action to submit the invoice for review and approval. On the Draft Invoice Comments dialog box, enter a comment about the invoice. The approvers for the invoice can see this comment when they review the invoice before approving it. When you click Save on the Draft Invoice Comments dialog box, the invoice is submitted for approval and the following changes occur: In Interactive Billing: The value for the Invoice Status option on the General tab is changed from New to Submitted. The values for the Invoice Status option for the related billed transactions on the Labor, Expenses, and Units tabs are changed from New to Submitted. The Submit action on the actions bar is replaced with the Approve action. From the Approve drop-down list, you can select only the actions that apply for your role in the approval process. Possible actions are: Approve, Submit, Unsubmit, or Accept. If the invoice approval workflow for the project specifies that alert notifications be sent to approvers when invoices are submitted, alert notifications are sent. The invoice is available for review and approving in Interactive Billing, in Invoice Approvals in the Billing application, and in Draft Invoice Approvals in the Projects hub. If you set Use Markup on Draft Invoices to Yes on the Options form in Settings > Billing > Options: A PDF file of the draft invoice becomes available on the Draft Preview tab in Hubs > Projects > Draft Invoice Approvals and in Billing > Interactive Billing. In Draft Invoice Approvals, approvers can mark up the draft invoice PDF with annotations and comments to communicate invoice changes for the biller to make. In Interactive Billing, billers can review the markup on the draft invoice, make changes to the invoice, and then accept and send the final invoice to the customer. The biller can also add annotations and comments to the draft invoice PDF as needed. If you submit a draft invoice that is already in a Submitted or Rejected state, the history of the prior draft invoice with markup will be associated with the submitted-again draft invoice for reference. All users with a security role that provides access to Interactive Billing can submit an invoice in Interactive Billing for projects to which they have record access. You can submit a batch of invoices for approval in the Batch Billing application. For more information on submitting and approving invoices in Interactive Billing or Batch Billing, see the Approving Invoices section of the Billing help.
Approve	This action displays if a project uses an approval process for its billing invoices, the invoice is submitted and ready to be approved, and you are designated to participate in the draft approvals process for the selected project. If you use billing groups, this action displays only if the project you selected in Interactive Billing is the main project for the billing group. This Approve action is most commonly used in Draft Invoice Approvals (in the Projects hub) and Invoice Approvals (in the Billing application) when an approver approves an invoice. Click and select one of the following actions from the drop-down list: Approve: This action is enabled if you are designated as an approver for the invoice approval process in the project's billing terms. Click this action to review and approve the invoice. On the Draft Invoice Comments dialog box, enter a comment for the approval as appropriate. When you click Save on the dialog box, you are returned to the Interactive Billing form, and the following changes occur in Interactive Billing: The Invoice Status field on the General tab changes from Submitted to Approved. The Invoice Status for the related billed transactions on the Labor, Expenses, and Units tabs changes from Submitted to Approved. The Approve action on the actions bar is replaced with Accept . From the Accept drop-down list, you can select only the actions that apply for your role in the approval process. Possible actions are: Accept, Submit, and Unsubmit. In addition, if the invoice approval workflow for the project specifies that alert notifications be sent to person responsible for accepting the final invoice (and any other people), alert notifications are sent to the appropriate people. Submit: Click this action to submit the draft invoice again (resubmit) after you make changes or corrections to it in Interactive Billing. You can submit the invoice as many times as needed. This action lets you retain the comments for the previous submittals on the Draft Invoice Comment dialog box. If the invoice approval workflow for the project specifies that alert notifications be sent to approvers when invoices are submitted, alert notifications are sent. If you set Use Markup on Draft Invoices to Yes on the Options form in Settings > Billing > Options: If you are resubmitting a draft invoice after an approver made annotations and comments on it and rejected it and a biller revised the draft invoice: A PDF file is created to store the approver's annotations and comments. You can view this PDF in Hubs > Projects > Draft Invoice Approvals in the Revision dialog box on the Draft Preview tab by clicking on the tab's toolbar. You can review this alongside the current copy of the draft invoice on the Draft Preview tab to confirm that the invoice revisions were made correctly before the invoice is accepted. Unsubmit: Click this action to unsubmit the invoice. The comments on the Draft Invoice Comments dialog box for any other submittal are removed. After you unsubmit, you can make changes or corrections to the invoice and click Submit again. If you set Use Markup on Draft Invoices to Yes in Settings > Billing > Options: When you submit an invoice and then unsubmit it, the draft invoice is deleted and no longer displays on the Draft Preview tab in Interactive Billing or in Draft Invoice Approvals in the Projects hub. Annotations and comments made to the submitted draft invoice cannot be retrieved again. The PDF files that store an approver's annotations and comments on the Revision dialog box on the Draft Preview tab in Draft Invoice Approvals are deleted. A new draft invoice reappears on the Draft Preview tabs when you submit the draft invoice again. Accept: If an invoice has been approved, click this action to final accept the invoice for posting. On the Invoice File Selection dialog box that displays, create a new invoice file for posting or select an existing file. On the Invoice Accept dialog box, review the invoice and click Accept. Your ability to accept final invoices depends on whether or not the Allow Final Processing check box is selected for your security role on the Accounting tab in Settings > Security > Roles. After you accept an invoice, you post the invoice file in Transaction Center > Transaction Entry > Invoices. The Reject action is available only in Billing > Invoice Approvals and Hubs > Projects > Draft Invoice Approvals. For more information on submitting, unsubmitting, rejecting, and approving invoices in Interactive Billing or Batch Billing, see the Approving Invoices section of the Billing help.

Field

Description

Accept

This action displays whether or not you use an invoice approval process. if a project uses an approval process, this action displays when an invoice is submitted, approved, or ready to be final accepted, so it can be posted and sent to the client. Click and then select one of the following actions from the drop-down list: Accept: Click this action to final accept the approved invoice for posting. On the Invoice File Selection dialog box that displays, create a new invoice file for posting the invoice or select an existing file. On the Invoice Accept dialog box, review the invoice and click Accept. After you accept an invoice, you post the invoice file in Transaction Center > Transaction Entry > Invoices. Your ability to accept final invoices depends on whether or not the Allow Final Processing check box is selected for your security role on the Accounting tab in Settings > Security > Roles. If you set Use Markup on Draft Invoices to Yes in Settings > Billing > Options and you accept an invoice: A PDF of the draft invoice with all its annotations and comments is saved. You can view it by clicking the icon in the Draft Invoice column on the Invoice History tab in Interactive Billing or Draft Invoice Approvals. Submit: Click this action to submit an invoice again (resubmit) after making changes or corrections to it in Interactive Billing. You can submit the invoice as many times as needed. You can submit invoices that have a Submitted, Rejected, or Approved status. Using the Submit action lets you retain the comments on the Comment dialog box for the previous actions. If the invoice approval workflow for the project specifies that alert notifications be sent to approvers when invoices are submitted, alert notifications are sent. Unsubmit: Click this action to unsubmit the invoice. The comments on the Draft Invoice Comments dialog box for any other submittal are removed. After you unsubmit, you can make changes or corrections to the invoice and click submit it again.

Other Actions

Select the following options from the Other Actions drop-down menu:

Field	Description
Include New Transactions	This action applies if invoice approvals is enabled for a project and the invoice that is displayed on the Interactive Billing form has a status of Submitted or Approved. Click this action to add all the transaction (charges) on the Labor, Expense, and Units tabs with a status of New to the submitted or approved draft invoice that displays on the Interactive Billing form. The transactions on these tabs are based on the bill through date and bill through period that are entered for the billing session options. When you click the Include New Transactions, the status of the New transactions changes to either Submitted or Approved to match the status of the invoice on the Interactive Billing form. The draft invoice is recalculated to include the new transactions. This action is helpful to use in the following scenarios: You need to add to an invoice one or more transactions that were entered in Vantagepoint after the invoice was submitted or approved. Labor, expense, or unit transactions were transferred from another project to a project whose invoice is already submitted or approved, and you want to add the transferred transactions to the submitted or approved invoice. Transactions that are transferred to another project are assigned a New status after they are transferred. Transactions transferred within a project or billing group retain the same status as the original transaction (New, Submitted, or Approved). This option is not available if the invoice has been downloaded to Microsoft Word or another application for editing.
View Supporting Documents	Click this action to open the Supporting Document dialog box and do either of the following from the dialog box: View the supporting documents for all unbilled transactions, based on the date or period that you enter in the Bill Through Date or Bill Through Period in Billing Session Options. These are the supporting documents that were uploaded to Vantagepoint for line items that were entered for AP vouchers, AP disbursements, journal entries, expense reports, and unit transactions, or uploaded directly in Interactive Billing for a transaction on the Expense or Units tabs. On a document-by-document basis, override the automatic printing of supporting documents with invoices if a project's billing terms specify that supporting documents always print with invoices. The supporting documents always print with invoices for a project if the Print Supporting Documents check boxes (AP Vouchers and Disbursements, Expense Reports, Journal Entries, and Units) are selected on the Billing Backup tab in Billing Terms for a project. On the Supporting Document dialog box, clear the Print with Invoice check box for a supporting document if you do not want it to print or be emailed with an invoice. If you use the Vantagepoint on-premises product, the Supporting Documents feature is available only if you have configured Transaction Document Management. For more information about the configuration, see the Configuring Supporting Documents online help topic.
Assign Invoice Number	Click this action to open the Assign Invoice Number dialog box, and assign the invoice number to use for the next invoice that is final accepted. If you use a separate numbering system for each project, the invoice number that you assign is applied to the next invoice for the project that you currently have open on the Interactive Billing form. If you use one company-wide invoice numbering system, the invoice number that you assign is applied to the next invoice that is generated for any project across your entire company. On the Assign Invoice Number dialog box, you can enter a specific number to override the next number that would be automatically assigned or select the option to have the next available number automatically assigned. If you do not assign an invoice number using the Assign Invoice Number action, an invoice number is assigned when you use the Accept action to final accept an invoice. (You specify either project or company-wide as your invoice numbering system in the Invoice Numbering field in Settings > Billing > Options. You enter a starting number for a company-wide numbering system in Settings > Billing > Options. You enter a starting number for a project's numbering system in the Summary pane in Billing Terms for a project.)
	For more information about invoice numbers, see Invoice Numbers for Billing Invoices and Credit Memos.
Download for Editing	Click this action to open the Edit Invoice dialog box and select the format of the third-party software in which to edit a billing invoice and save the invoice file to your workstation. Then use Other Actions > Upload Invoice to upload the edited invoice to the Vantagepoint database. Third-party applications that you can use to edit an invoice are Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Excel. Or, you can save the invoice as an RTF (Rich Text Format) file, which lets you open and edit the invoice in any word processing program such as WordPad. IMPORTANT: Any changes that you make to invoice amounts or calculations in third-party software are not recorded in Vantagepoint. If you change amounts in invoices outside of Vantagepoint and you want the amounts to be updated in Vantagepoint, make any necessary changes on the Invoice Accept dialog box in Interactive Billing during the last steps of accepting the invoice. You can use the Download for Editing action only if your security role allows you to edit and upload billing invoices (the Allow Edit/Upload check box is selected on the Accounting tab in Settings > Security > Roles). For more information about editing invoices in third-party software see Editing Billing Invoices in Third-Party Software.
Upload Invoice	After you use the Download for Editing action to edit an invoice in third-party software, the Upload Invoice action is enabled. Click this action to open the Upload Edited Invoice dialog box and upload a copy of the edited invoice to your Vantagepoint application server and link the edited invoice with the project in Interactive Billing. After the upload is complete, an Edited Invoice on File link displays below the Invoice Number field on the General tab in Interactive Billing. Click the link to view and make any additional changes to the edited invoice in the third-party software. After you upload an invoice, any time that you make a change to it, you must click Upload Invoice again to upload the most recent copy of the invoice file to your Vantagepoint application server. You can use the Upload Invoice action only if your security role allows you to edit and upload billing invoices (the Allow Edit/Upload check box is selected on the Accounting tab in Settings > Security > Roles). If you have Use Invoice Approvals and Use Markup on Draft Invoices set to Yes in Settings > Billing > Options and a project has invoice approvals enabled: When you download, edit, and upload an invoice back into Vantagepoint as a PDF file type, and you then submit it for approval, it displays as a PDF file on the Draft Preview tab in Draft Invoice Approvals in the Projects hub and in Interactive Billing. On these tabs you can mark up the draft invoice PDF with annotations and comments. Edited invoices that you upload back into Vantagepoint as file types other than PDF display on the Invoice Preview tab in Draft Invoice Approvals, instead of the Draft Preview tab, and you cannot mark them up. If you download an invoice for editing but do not upload it back into Vantagepoint as a PDF before you submit it for approval, the standard, Vantagepoint-generated invoice (not the edited invoice) is submitted for approval and displays on the Draft Preview tab in Draft Invoice Approvals and Interactive Billing.
Cancel Editing	After you use the Download for Editing action and the Upload Invoice action, the Cancel Editing action is enabled. Click Cancel Editing to remove the link between the project and the edited invoice saved in third-party software that has been uploaded to Vantagepoint. The Edit Invoice on File link under the Invoice Number field on the General tab of the Interactive Billing form is removed. Removing the link does not delete the invoice file from its location on your workstation or on your Vantagepoint application server. It deletes only the link that associates the edited invoice with the Vantagepoint project record. You can use the Cancel Editing action only if your security role allows you to edit and upload billing invoices (the Allow Edit/Upload check box is selected on the Accounting tab in Settings > Security > Roles). If you have Use Invoice Approvals and Use Markup on Draft Invoices set to Yes in Settings > Billing > Options and a project has invoice approvals enabled: When you click Cancel Editing for an invoice that was downloaded, edited, and uploaded back into Vantagepoint with a PDF file format, and the invoice is submitted, rejected, or approved, there is no impact on the draft invoice in the approval process. The uploaded PDF invoice still displays on the Draft Preview tab in Draft Invoice Approvals in the Projects hub and Interactive Billing.
Bill Retainage	This action displays if you have the retainage feature turned on for your company in Settings > Billing > Options, and the project, phase, or task that displays on the Interactive Billing form has retainage set up for it on the More Calculations tab in Billing Terms. Click this action to generate a retainage-only invoice to bill a client for the unbilled retainage that has been previously withheld on invoices for a project. If you do not have an invoice file selected for the current Interactive Billing session (for posting the invoice), select an existing file or enter a new one in the Invoice File Selection dialog box that displays. On the Bill Retainage dialog box view a list of all invoices for the project that have unbilled retainage, and select the invoices for which to bill the retainage. For more information about retainage, see Retainage.
Billing Terms	Click this action to open Billing Terms in Hubs > Projects > Billing Terms for the project, phase, or task that is currently displayed on the Interactive Billing form. Review and modify the billing terms as necessary. You can also add billing terms for a project that does not already have billing terms entered for it. If your security role gives you access to the Billing Terms menu item, your role's record level access for Billing Terms (entered in the Access field on the Record Access tab in Settings > Security > Roles) determines the extent of your access to billing terms: full (you can read, add, modify, and delete billing terms), read only, modify only, or add/modify. The Billing Terms action does not display in the Other Actions drop-down list if your security role does not give you access to the Billing Terms menu item and your record level access for Billing Terms is None or Percent Complete (in the Access field on the Record Access Tab in Roles Security Settings).