Manage Project Billing Information Screen

The Manage Project Billing Information screen is the main screen for the initialization of project billing. Use this screen to choose a billing formula, confirm the customer for the project, select a billing format, identify the billing currency, and establish some controls over the billing for this project. 

The level of the project you enter in this screen establishes the billing level for this project.  When you post the bill, Costpoint posts the receivable at the billing level of the project. If you want detail bills for each lower level task of the project, you can enter them on the Detail Levels subtask. You cannot bill a project unless you have established a record for it in this screen.

If you are using a transaction-based billing formula, you should set up the Manage Project Billing Information screen before charging any transactions to the project to ensure that all transactions are recorded in the Open Billing Detail table. In a transaction-based billing formula, the invoice for the project is based on the transactions that have been charged to the project. The Open Billing Detail table is populated when transactions are posted to the general ledger. However, transactions are not inserted into the Open Billing Detail table unless you have set up the project on the Manage Project Billing Information screen. In order for the posting programs to insert data into the Open Billing Detail table, the billing formula must be other than "Unit Price Transactions Only" or "Enter Bill Manually." Costpoint uses the Open Billing Detail Table in the calculation of transaction-based billings. If you do not set up the billing information before you post transactions, you can enter the transactions manually into the Open Billing Detail table or use the Update Open Billing Detail Records screen. This utility copies the transactions from the general ledger into the Open Billing Detail table. 

Warning: Exercise caution when using the Update Open Billing Detail Records utility. This utility does not check whether the transactions already exist in the Open Billing Detail table, nor does it check whether the transactions have already been billed. Misuse of the utility could result in double billing some transactions. 

You do not need to populate the Open Billing Detail table if you intend to use a manual billing formula.

The Manage Project Billing Information screen is required when using manual billing formulas, but you do not need to set it up before posting transactions to the project. The Open Billing Detail table is not used in the manual billing process. You cannot enter a bill in the manual billing screens unless you have previously set up the Manage Project Billing Information screen. You can enter manual bills on the Manage Manual Bills, Manage Project Product Bills, and Manage Milestone Percent Complete Bills screens. You should select the formulas Enter Bill Manually or Unit Price Transactions Only for projects that you intend to bill using one of the manual billing screens. This will prevent the Update Open Billing Detail Records screen from being populated with transactional data that is not needed for billing. The only exception to this occurs if you are using the "Pay When Paid" feature. This feature requires the Open Billing Detail table to determine whether or not the client has paid the bill. If you wish to use this formula and intend to bill manually, use the Manual Bills with Unbilled Detail formula. This formula will allow you to bill manually and populate the Open Billing Detail table. 

You can select a variety of special features for your bills on the Manage Project Billing Information screen. You can have the invoice calculated in a currency that differs from the functional currency of the database, have the invoice calculated on a cash basis, enter information for production of Progress Payment bills, establish retainages, set up scheduled billings, and select a format for your bill.

You must select the format of your bill in this screen. You can set up a unique billing format and assign it to your project, or you can use a standard formula. You can set up these formats on the Manage Generic Billing Formats screen. Generic bills allow flexibility for the bill heading, line groupings, and totals on the bills. Standard formulas are grouped by function code and have some flexibility in the bill heading. See the Manage Generic Billing Formats screen documentation for more information on setting up generic billing formats.

You can set up scheduled bills on the Schedule subtask of the Manage Project Billing Information screen. In the subtask, you enter an amount to be billed, a date to bill, and a description. If you run the Calculate Standard Bills screen for a fiscal year/period that includes the date to bill, Costpoint produces a scheduled bill with the correct description and amount. Similarly, if the project being calculated has a scheduled bill item, the process will always insert the Bill Schedule Line Description Detail (BILL_SCHED_LN_DESC) column into the BILL_EDIT_DETL table. This ensures that detailed descriptions of each item are displayed on the Manage Standard Bills screen and included on the printed invoices. When billing by schedule, you should select the Unit Price Transactions Only billing formula to prevent the Open Billing Detail table from being populated with unnecessary data.

Note: The Bill Schedule Line Description Detail (BILL_SCHED_LN_DESC) column is added in Costpoint 8.2.15. If you are in Costpoint Cloud, you can choose to opt in to this feature. The ability to opt in is temporary and will be removed when the feature becomes automatically enabled for all users as part of a future Costpoint release. See the Manage Opt-In Features topic for more information.