Generate Recurring Billing

Overview

This process generates Periodic Billing Details, which will be used to invoice customers and is run against the criteria entered by using information from the Sales Contract (Recurring Charges, Miscellaneous Charges, and Covered Devices).

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Generate Recurring Billing

  NOTE  Only an ‘Active’ Contract can be billed.

Fields
 

Billing Run Date:  Enter the date used as the “as-of” date; the default is TODAY.

Specify Customer Range:  If checked, it enables the From Customer and To Customer fields below. 

  NOTE  To run for all Customers, check this option and leave the From Customer and To Customer fields blank.

Customer:  Optional. Selecting a Customer here will filter the ‘Contract’ fields dropdown to only those Contracts for the selected Customer. If a specific Contract is not specified, billings will be done for all Contracts for the Customer selected.

Contract:  If a Customer is selected and the billing is to be done for only a specific Contract for that Customer, select the Contract for which billing is to be done.

Run for All Divisions:  Normally, billings will be generated for only those Contracts within the current Sales Division of the user running the billing engine. Billings will be done against all Sales Divisions when this checkbox is checked. This applies when multiple Sales Divisions exist and does not apply when using Centralized Sales.

Periodic Billing Frequency:  Select the billing frequency desired; the default is ‘All’ meaning that billings will be processed regardless of the billing frequency used on any given Contract (although billings will only be generated that are “due” to be billed). Options are

• All

• Monthly

• Quarterly

• Semi-Annual

• Annual

Contract Type:  Optional. If a value is selected, then billings will be created only for the Contract Type selected. Options are

• Purchase

• Flexi

• Value Plan

• Lease 

  NOTE  The picklist values for Contract Type can be modified by users to reflect more meaningful values to them. No logic is associated with these values, other than as a means to filter how billings are run.

From Customer: Enabled only when the Specify Customer Range option above is True. Specify a From Customer to filter for billing.

To Customer: Enabled only when the Specify Customer Range option above is True.  Specify a To Customer to filter for billing.

  NOTE  The 'From Customer' and 'To Customer' dropdown fields display Customers ordered by Customer Number. The range is defined based on the Customer Number.

Schedule Name:  If the desire is to schedule a billing run on a regular interval, this is the name that will appear in the Scheduled Job queue

Cron Expression:  This is used to define the schedule parameters when setting up a billing schedule to run automatically. Values to be provided are [Seconds][Minutes][Hours][Day of Month][Month][Day of Week][Optional Year], defining when the scheduled job is to run.

Scheduled Billing Button

Use this button to take the “schedule” information that the user input to create the scheduled job, using the criteria entered on the page

Generate Recurring Billings Button

­Use this button to generate Recurring Billings immediately, using the criteria entered on the page

• When running by Division only, a field on SO Control > Sales Contract – Periodic Billing Process Lock is temporarily set while the job is running, and is cleared automatically when complete. This prevents the running of this job simultaneously in more than one Sales Division.

• When running by Contract only (where Contract is specified), a field on Sales Contract Maintenance - Periodic Billing Process Lock is temporarily set while the job is running, and is cleared automatically when complete. This prevents the running of this job simultaneously against more than one Contract.

• All Periodic Billings generate upon clicking the ‘Generate Recurring Billings’ button are grouped together in a “Billing Run Batch”.

• Once billings are generated, the results can be seen (among other places) on the Sales Contract page related list for Contract Periodic Billings.

• Use Contract Periodic Billing Review (see below) to process billings generated.

  NOTE 

• When the user runs this 'Generate Recurring Billings' process, the system will verify the dates in the 'Recurring Billing Start Date' and 'First Full RB Period Start Date' fields on the Sales Contract. If a date is provided in the 'First Full RB Period Start Date', the system will consider it when creating Billing details.

• When the user runs this 'Generate Recurring Billing' within the current Sales Division, this process may error out when the Sales Contract record is locked, but the message 'Processing completed' still displays. However the 'Billing Run Batch Header' will not be created and the link to 'View Billing Run Batch Header' will not be displayed. The user will receive an email notification containing the error details.
  
  If this 'Generate Recurring Billing' process goes further than locking, i.e., it starts actual processing of the Contracts, and if there is an error in processing, then the 'Contract Periodic Billing' record is marked as 'Processed with Errors'. The user needs to look at the 'Job Logs' records for details.
   

  IMPORTANT  When Contract Periodic Billings are generated, all Contract Recurring Charges belonging to the Sales Contract will be applied, but the 'Periodic Billing Amount' field value on the Contract Periodic Billing will be calculated as mentioned below:

• If the Contract Periodic Billings are generated for a period for which a Date Effective Pricing record exists, the 'Periodic Billing Amount' will be derived from the 'Periodic Price' specified in that Date Effective Pricing record.
• If the Contract Periodic Billings are generated for a period for which no Date Effective Pricing record exists, the 'Periodic Billing Amount' will be derived from the 'Periodic Price' specified on the corresponding Contract Recurring Charge record.

  EXAMPLE  Consider the user creates a Sales Contract with two Contract Recurring Charges (A and B) with three Date Effective Pricing records for each of those Contract Recurring Charges as mentioned below.

When the user generates Recurring Billing for this Sales Contract, the system applies both Contract Recurring Charges, but the 'Periodic Billing Amount' is adjusted/calculated as mentioned below.

  NOTE  The user needs to create a single Contract Recurring Charge per Contract, if only one charge needs to be applied at a given time.

SEE ALSO

Recurring Billing Overview
Contract Periodic Billing Review
Recurring Billing Batch Review
Sales Contract Creation/Maintenance