The billing routine involves checking all live lines on the contract and using the values held at the line level as the basis for raising invoices. The billing routine can be accessed either by selecting Billing Routine from the RB Main Menu, or select Microsoft Dynamics >> Tools >>
M4 Recurring Billing >> Billing
The Billing Routine user can run in two modes:
Run RB Report Only – Creates a report to show which contracts would be invoiced given the criteria provided. No contracts are billed and no invoices created in this mode. This report can be output to excel to aid the checking process
Create RB Invoices – This is the actual billing activity and contracts will be billed and invoices created using this mode
Several criteria that can be set for the billing routine to limit the contracts that will be included:
Batch ID – this is a mandatory field for Invoice Creation as this is the batch within SOP where the invoices will be created
From/To SOP Type – Depending upon RB setup different contracts classes can result in different SOP invoice types these criteria lets you limit which SOP invoice types will be created. The invoice types can be selected using the lookup glass provided
From/To Dates – the “Date Range” option allows to restrict the current range of billing dates to be used on this billing run. The default “To Date” is set to User Date
Bill all Period Due – check mark to define if several invoices will be created until To Date is reached
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All Contracts – is marked by default, but can be changed by using range of contracts can be selected to limit the contracts From/To Contract ID, the entire contract id must be provided including Prefix, Number, and Version - those fields are mandatory
Note: When Run Billing Routine is run with Document Date set, documents are created with Tax Date and Posting date from Run Billing Document Date field. There is also a warning which will prevent billing of invoices with document date is not inside existing financial year.
From/To Customer – A range of customers can be selected so only the required customers are billed during this run. Selection can be made using the lookup glass provided.
From/To Contract ID – A range of contracts can be selected to limit the contracts that are billed in this run. The entire contract id must be provided including Prefix, Number, and Version - those fields are mandatory unless user marks the All
Contracts checkbox.
From/To Contract Line – (all lines are defaulted), if user need to bill some of lines , only one contract need to be selected
For Currency - currency is selected using the lookup glass provided
User Defined - one more filter is available for billing process. Added ability to filter contracts for billing with User defined Pick List 1 field, check UD section in this Manual:
Note: The verification of exchange table and rates setup is done before billing starts.
When the routine is run, it checks all lines in live contracts to see if a current billing ‘To Date’
falls within this routine’s active time span. If this is the case, the routine will either create
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an entry on a report or create a SOP Invoice for that Contract Line, based upon the data held in the contract tables, depending if the Run RB Report Only Option or the Create RB Invoices option has been selected.
Note: Contracts that are on hold will not be billed. For more info on hold check Contract Hold link.
Note: This RB version supports billing zero amount invoices. This is by design if enabled through RB Contract Class setup.
RB Billing Preset
There is a new functionality - Preset Filter Options for billing run. This allows user to define preset for billing run and save them for further billing. User can define more than one preset.
If user has default preset, run billing window will open with default filters set. When Preset Option window is open from current, filter setting will be picked up from Run Billing window then user can decide to save changes or not.
Creating New Preset for Billing
From RB Billing window after all options/filters are selected click on Preset Filter Action.
New button allows creating new preset by entering all options/filters
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Set as default should be checked if this is a default preset for billing. Open from current will use all currently selected settings for already selected preset:
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Selecting Preset
To select one of existing presets, user needs to use lookup glass next to Preset Option button:
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Billing - Report Only
This option will create Billing Run Report and the destination can be chosen between:
Screen, Printer and File or send by e-mail. No invoice will be generated.
The RB report can be exported to MS Excel using the Excel Icon next to the Run RB Report Only Button. The MS Excel version of the report is displayed on the following screenshot:
M4 Systems Advanced Recurring Billing
All enabled Header UD fields
All enabled Line UD fields
Line Comment Text
For Ceased Lines there is also a button for creating reports. Follow the link How to Cease Contract Line.
Note: Even a Bill All Period Due is checked, report (GP or MS Excel) - will show only contracts from first billing run.
Note: If there is MS Word Installed, instead of standard GP report, the report will open in .docx format
Note: Discount items will have negative amounts inside RB reports:
Create RB Invoices
If the Create RB Invoices option is selected you will need to confirm that you want to continue. If you select to continue with the creation of RB Invoices, the Invoices will be
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created in the defined Sales Order Processing Batch for each Live Contract Line based upon the data held in the contract tables.
While the Billing Routine is running, the status bar will display the progress that has been made. A message will be displayed when the process has completed.
After the billing routine is finished, invoices can be seen via the Billing History window.
Important: On SOP creation, several Contract fields in SOP Line Work table will be populated for tech review purpose:
CONTNBR Contract Number
CONTLNSEQNBR Contract Line Sequence Number
CONTSTARTDTE Contract Start Date
CONTENDDTE Contract End Date
CONTITEMNBR Contract Item Number
CONTSERIALNBR Contract Serial Number
When SOP is created, Contract Reference (from Contract Header) becomes GL reference
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Billing Example 1 - Quarterly (Periodic) Prorated with Bill all Periods Due
A Contract is added that goes live on 13 January 2011. Line Value of Contract is $118.30. For this contract line Billing Frequency is set to Quarterly (Periodic). Setup is set to use Pro-Rata.
From Next Billing Start Date to End Date Billing Period is 78 days form go-live to the end of the first quarter. The contract was not billed before so Last Billed Dates are empty.
Annual List Price is $118.30/365 gives $0.32 Daily List Price (rounded to two decimal places)
Next Billing Period Amount is Daily List Price * Billing Period = $25.28 (uses the unrounded
daily amount) The same contract will be billed with To Date and Document Date set to
27.03.2013. Report will show only the first billing round.
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Billing history is showing billing the same amount for 8 periods as depicted below, last period is first quarter in 2013:
Billing Example 2 – Quarterly (Daily) Prorated with Bill all Periods Due
Annual price is calculated as $152.10*4 . As it is pro-rated it will calculate the first period differently and for the rest of billing periods the price for whole quarter (90-92 days).
Billing with Bill all Periods Due will generate 9 different invoices. Billing amount are different because billing frequency is Daily. Also as billing covering leap Year, daily price will change during this year and the amount for the same number of days in 2011 (non-leap) and 2012 (leap year) differs:
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92 days is 2011 – 608.4/365 92 days in 2012 – 604.4/366
Billing Example 3 – Bi-Annual (Periodic)
In this scenario Price was added manually and set as Quarterly price,
It is not Pro-rated and will take 6 months for billing period – Next Billing Period End Date will be end of Bi-annual period (01.11-30.04). Contract is billed once, and the next period will be next 6 months with the same billing amount:
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Billing Example 4 – Bi-Annual (Periodic) with RB start Date
For using a pro rate on this item, it will calculate 140 days, next billing and date will be one day before First Circle start date (taken from RB star date/month on item):
Next Billing amount will cover 6 moths and price will be calculated as 2 X Quarterly Price = 2 X 1,200.00 = 2,400.00 (depicted below).There is a previous billing amount – field Total billed to Date –
$1,838.26
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Billing Example 5 – Using Discount Items
Contract below has one regular item with Monthly (Daily) Price and discount Item intwo billing frequencies:
Items price is takes from price list and have negative amount(90.00). Next billing peiod is for 4 weeks which is (360.00). Line has Discount Item checked.
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Contract was billed and invoice getting from Billing History window shows negative amounts in two lines, but as presumed total on invoice is a positive sum:
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M4 RB Enquiry
Recurring Billing offers several enquiry windows: Contract Enquiry, powerful Advanced Search and Billing History: