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 |
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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. |
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 .) 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. |
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Accept |
This action (without
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 . 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:
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
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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
The Reject action is available only in and . 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 |
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Accept
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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
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Other Actions
Select the following options from the Other Actions drop-down menu:
Field | Description |
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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:
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:
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 . You enter a starting number for a company-wide numbering system in . 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 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 ). 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 ). If you have Use Invoice Approvals and Use Markup on Draft Invoices set to Yes in and a project has invoice approvals enabled:
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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 ). If you have Use Invoice Approvals and Use Markup on Draft Invoices set to Yes in 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 , 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 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 ) 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). |