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Billing Runs and Project Invoices

A billing run turns a project's approved work into a draft sales invoice: approved time and rechargeable expenses at their captured bill rates, and any billing events that are due. You can bill one project from its own workspace, or every project in a company in one run from the portfolio.

Where to find it

Architect Panel → ERP - Projects & Time:

  • Projects & Time — the console: the portfolio's Billing run panel and each project's Billing section
  • Billing Plans — the plans a run bills from

Admin Panel → Projects & Time:

  • Projects & Time — the same console for project managers and finance staff

Before you start

  • A billing plan on each project (see Time, Expenses & Projects). Projects without one are counted under No billing plan and never billed.
  • Approved work. Only approved time and expenses are billed; submitted or draft time is invisible to billing however many hours it holds.
  • A sales document type named under Invoice as on the plan.
  • The right roles. Raising invoices needs ERP: Projects or ERP: Finance, and post access to the company. Anyone else can preview but not raise.

Billing one project

  1. Open the project from the Portfolio and go to Billing.
  2. Under Raise an invoice, set Bill work up to and click Preview the invoice.
  3. Check the lines under What this invoice will contain. On a capped plan the preview shows the cap, what has been billed so far and the room left.
  4. Choose the document type under Raise as and click Raise this invoice, then Raise invoice to confirm.

The invoice is created as a draft document. The time, expenses and events on it are marked invoiced so they are never billed twice.

Billing every project at once

  1. On the Portfolio tab, click Billing run….
  2. Enter Bill work up to and click Preview. Each project with a plan shows what it would bill, with notes such as a cap being reached.
  3. Untick any project you do not want to bill. Projects with nothing to bill cannot be ticked.
  4. Click Raise N invoices… and then Raise the invoices. One invoice is raised per project, each in its plan's currency.
  5. The result lists every invoice as Raised or Not raised with the reason. Click an invoice number to open it.

The invoices are ready to check and post on the Receivables desk; posting them is covered in the order-to-cash documentation under Transactional Documents.

Correcting a run

Each event in the project's billing list shows its invoice and that invoice's status:

  • Undo this run appears while the invoice is still a draft. Confirming with Cancel the draft and release cancels the draft and puts the time, expenses and events back into work in progress, ready to bill again.
  • Release the work appears when the invoice was deleted or cancelled but its work is still marked invoiced. It returns that work to work in progress.

For sales document types that existed when the release patch ran, cancelling or voiding the invoice on its own screen releases the work automatically. A sales document type added later needs the same posting row (engine Projects, action releasebilling) on the document type; until it has one, use Release the work.

What goes wrong

  • A project shows Nothing to bill: no approved work up to the date, or a capped plan has reached its cap. Approved time above the cap stays unbilled and the preview says how much.
  • "You need posting access to this company to raise invoices": ask an ERP administrator for post access on the company.
  • A week cannot be reopened for correction: a week with invoiced time cannot be reopened. Credit the invoice first.
  • Approved time from over 45 days ago is still unbilled: the project's health check flags it. Run billing more often.

Worked example

At month end the finance controller opens Projects & Time for the UK company, clicks Billing run… and previews work up to 30 September. Eleven of fourteen projects are ready; one capped project has reached its cap and two have no plan. They leave all eleven ticked and raise them. One invoice comes back with the wrong client reference, so the project manager uses Undo this run on that project's Billing section, corrects the plan's Invoice to, and raises it again.

Recommendations

  • Preview before every run and read the notes column, not just the totals.
  • Clear approvals first, so the run bills everything that was worked.
  • Use Undo this run while the invoice is a draft rather than editing the invoice by hand.
  • Run billing at least monthly so no approved time ages past the 45-day health warning.