Managing Contracts Billing

This chapter provides an overview of billing management and discusses how to:

• Review the cross-reference table.

• Review and reverse billing activity.

Note. For contracts with a classification of Government, you can find additional billing information in the Contracts for Government Contracting PeopleBook.

See Also

Managing Revenue and Billing for Government Contracts

Understanding Billing Management

The billing management pages in Contracts provide you with an overview of your contract billing activity within Contracts. From the billing management pages, you can review multiple contract billing plans together, navigate to individual billing plans to update information that controls Contracts billing activity, and reverse billing activity.

Contracts also provides you with a view of any billing activity that you entered manually from an external source. This includes the following type of invoices:

• Billing (for all billing methods) that was initiated in Contracts and sent to Billing.

• A credit or rebill where the original invoice was initiated in Contracts.

• Basic invoice data that you entered manually from another source such as:

  • A third-party billing system.

  • A Microsoft Word document.

  • A Billing module without Contracts cross-reference information.

The system stores the billing schedule for a contract in three tables: CA_BILL_PLAN, CA_BP_EVENTS, and CA_BP_LINES. Each table stores a piece of billing information for a contract. The CA_BILL_PLAN table defines high-level information about the billing plan. The CA_BP_EVENTS table defines when payments are due. The CA_BP_LINES table defines how Contracts should group contract lines when sending invoice lines to the Billing Interface. In the case of as-incurred billing, the invoice lines are not defined in Contracts but are fed in detail to Billing from individual transactions in Project Costing.

Reversing Billing Activity

You can reverse any billing plan that contains events. You can reverse the entire billing plan for billing plans with the following billing plan methods: Milestone, Percent Complete, Value-Based, and Immediate. You initiate a reversal of a billing plan from the Review Billing - Plans page. You can reverse an entire contract, but only those contract lines with a billing plan method of Milestone, Percent Complete, Value-Based, or Immediate are reversed on the contract. You initiate a reversal of the entire contract from the Contract Reversals page.

Note. If you reverse a billing plan that includes a prepaid, until you enter and finalize the new initial billing plan, utilization does not occur against the prepaid.

Warning! It is not recommended for you to make any billing adjustments to the contract lines outside the Contracts system (for example, in Billing or Project Costing), as these changes will not flow back into Contracts.

Adjusting Amounts and Cancelling Contract Lines

You can increase or decrease amount-based contract line amounts, as well as cancel contract lines as part of the amendment process. When increasing or decreasing contract line amounts, you must choose whether to adjust billing and revenue retroactively or to adjust billing and revenue for future events only. The adjust billing and revenue choices are independent of each other and are can be selected on the Amendment Amount Allocation page. When cancelling an amount-based contract line, you can select the Reverse Amounts option from the Amendment Amount Allocation page. This option applies to both billing and revenue. If you select the Reverse Amounts option, then you are indicating that you want to adjust billing and revenue retroactively for the cancelled contract lines. If you do not select the Reverse Amounts option, then for cancelled contract lines, the system adjusts billing and revenue for future events only.

See Also

Understanding Contract Amendments

Working with Amendments

Reviewing the Cross-Reference Table

This section provides an overview of the cross-reference table and discusses how to:

• Set fields in the cross-reference table.

• Update the cross-reference table: Contracts Billing Interface process.

• Update the cross-reference table: Projects/Billing Interface process.

• Update the cross-reference table: manually entered invoices.

• Review billing examples.

Understanding the Cross-Reference Table

The cross-reference table (CA_BP_XREF) enables Contracts to have visibility of all billing activity that relates to contracts. This includes billing activity originating both within and outside of Contracts.

For billing activity originating in Contracts, these inserts occur:

• Fixed-fee bill lines (with a system source of CBI) are initially inserted by the Contracts Billing Interface process.

  They are updated throughout the billing cycle and are marked FIN after the invoice has been finalized. This includes billing plans with a billing method of milestone, percent complete, immediate, and value-based.

• Rate-based bill lines (with a system source of PBI) are inserted by the Update Contract/Projects Data process (BIPCC000) in Billing after the invoice has been finalized.

  Rate-based bill lines are summarized by project, billing currency, and invoice ID.

• Recurring bill lines (with a system source of CBI) are initially inserted by the Contracts Billing Interface process.

  They are updated throughout the billing cycle and are marked FIN after the invoice has been finalized.

For billing activity originating in Billing, if the bill line specifies a valid contract number and billing plan, the row is inserted by the update Contract/Projects Data process (BIPCC000) in Billing after the invoice has been finalized.

Note. If you reverse a billing plan that includes a prepaid, until you enter and finalize the new initial billing plan, utilization does not occur against the prepaid.

This table describes the use of the fields in CA_BP_XREF:

Setting Fields in the Cross-Reference Table

When running the Contracts Billing Interface process for amount-based products, the system inserts Contracts billing (CBI) rows into the CA_BP_XREF table. Billing updates the status of these CBI rows throughout the billing cycle until billing is finalized, at which point the system marks these CBI rows as Finalized.

When running the Contracts Billing Interface process for rate-based products, the process sends billing rows for as-incurred billing plans directly to Billing based on data accumulated in Project Costing. The system inserts these Project Costing billing (PBI) rows into the CA_BP_XREF table only after the invoice is finalized, during the Update Contract/Projects Data process (BIPCC000).

When running the Contracts Billing Interface process for recurring billing, the process is similar to that for fixed-fee. The system inserts rows into the CA_BP_XREF table as a New status.

Updating the Cross-Reference Table: Contracts Billing Interface Process

Contracts billing (CBI) rows are initially inserted in the CA_BP_XREF table by the Contracts Billing Interface process. The system then updates these rows at various stages in the billing process. This table shows which fields are updated at each stage:

Updating the Cross-Reference Table: Projects/Billing Interface Process

The system inserts PBI rows into the CA_BP_XREF table after the invoices represented by those rows have been finalized in Billing. The system inserts one row for each combination of CONTRACT_NUM, BILL_PLAN_ID, EVENT_OCCURRENCE, CONTRACT_LINE_NUM, BUSINESS_UNIT_PC, PROJECT, BI_CURRENCY_CD, and INVOICE.

Note. Although only certain project activities pertain to particular contract lines, the system does not store the activity in CA_BP_XREF. Activities are summarized by project and billing currency.

This table shows which fields are updated at each stage:

Updating the Cross-Reference Table: Manually Entered Invoices

If you manually entered an invoice directly into Billing, the system can still automatically insert rows for that invoice into the CA_BP_XREF table as long as the necessary fields have valid values. Billing enables entry of CONTRACT_NUM, BILL_PLAN_ID, EVENT_OCCURRENCE, BPLAN_LN_NBR, CONTRACT_LINE_NUM, BUSINESS_UNIT_PC, and PROJECT. Only CONTRACT_NUM and BILL_PLAN_ID must be set for the information to be inserted into CA_ BP_XREF. The system inserts rows for manually entered invoices into the CA_BP_XREF table after the invoice has been finalized in Billing.

Reviewing Billing Examples

Review the following examples to see how data flows from a billing plan in Contracts to the Billing Worksheet in Billing and from the Billing Worksheet to the finalized bill and update of Contract/Projects data. You can also see the updates that the system makes to the rows in the CA_BP_XREF table during this process.

Milestone Billing Example

Percent Complete works the same way.

Create a billing plan with two billing plan events and two billing plan lines.

CA_BILL_PLAN:

CA_BP_LINES:

CA_BP_EVENTS:

According to BP1, these are the invoice due dates and amounts:

• On January 1, 1999, the following amount is due: (0.5*400) + (0.5*600).

• On October 31, 1999, the following amount is due: (0.5*400) + (0.5*600).

Mark the first event RDY, and then run the Contracts Billing Interface process. When you run this process, the system creates the following entries in the CA_BP_XREF table:

After you have successfully run the Contracts Billing Interface process, run the billing interface process in Billing. This process updates the CA_BP_XREF rows to an XREF_STATUS of RCV (received). This process also adds a TEMP_INVOICE number and inserts the date into the LASTUPDDTTM field:

The billing administrator accepting the Billing Worksheet to which these rows were written triggers the next update to the CA_BP_XREF table. The system updates the XREF_STATUS for rows that were accepted in the Billing Worksheet to a status of ACP (accepted). The system also inserts the actual invoice number, inserts the date in the LASTUPDDTTM field, and adds the user ID of the user who accepted the bills to the LASTUPDOPRID field:

Once the billing administrator has finalized the invoice in Billing, the last update to the CA_BP_XREF table occurs when the Update Contract/Projects Data process (BIPCC000) in Billing is run. The system updates the XREF_STATUS to FIN (finalized), INVOICE_TYPE, and inserts values for the billing currency code (BI_CURRENCY_CD), the net extended amount (NET_EXTENDED_AMT), and gross extended amount (GROSS_EXTENDED_AMT). The system then inserts the date in the LASTUPDDTTM field and adds the user ID of the user who finalized the invoice:

Milestone Billing Example Part Two The Credit/Rebill

On January 10, 1999, the customer calls the billing department to complain that tax was charged on line two when it was a nontaxable item. The billing department issues a line level adjustment. Here are the CA_BP_XREF entries for these transactions.

Note. The system does not make entries to the cross-reference table for adjustments until the invoices for those adjustments are finalized and the Update Contract/Projects Data process is run.

Note that the amount here does not show any change. This is because the tax amount is handled strictly in Billing.

As-incurred Billing Example

Define two rate-based contract lines.

CA_DETAIL:

CA_BILL_PLAN

You must associate the rate-based lines with an as-incurred billing plan. The as-incurred billing plan does not have an amount associated with it. You bill as work is performed:

CA_BP_EVENTS

Billing plan events are optional for as-incurred billing plans. If no billing plan events are defined, you bill for work performed to date when you run the Contracts Billing Interface process:

CA_BP_LINES

You do not define billing plan lines for as-incurred billing.

CA_DETAIL_PROJ

This table stores Project Costing information related to contract lines. You relate projects to contract lines on the Related Projects page:

CA_BP_XREF

The Billing Plan - History page displays one row per combination of contract line, business unit, and project, even though the billing for that contract line may have included billing for multiple activities. The system inserts this row into the cross-reference table only after the invoice has been finalized in Billing and the Update Contract/Projects Data process is run:

Reviewing and Reversing Billing Activity

This section lists prerequisites and common elements and discusses how to:

• Review or reverse billing activity for billing plans.

• Review billing events.

• Review statuses for as-incurred billing plans.

See Also

Understanding Billing in Contracts

Prerequisite

Before reviewing and reversing billing activity, you must first assign your contract lines to a billing plan and define bill lines and billing events for that billing plan.

Common Elements Used in This Section

Pages Used to Review and Reverse Billing Activity

Reviewing or Reversing Billing Activity for Billing Plans

Access the Review Billing - Plans page.

Search Criteria

Use the fields in the search criteria group box to filter your search results by entering specific values in these fields. If you leave all fields blank, the search returns all billing plans for all active contracts within your system.

Method

Select the check box of a billing plan - billing method to limit your search to include only those billing plans with a billing method equal to the billing methods that you selected. If you leave all check boxes blank, the system returns all billing plans matching the remainder of your search criteria. Billing method choices include: Milestone, Percent Complete, Value Based, As Incurred, Recurring, and Immediate.

Fee Type

To view billing plans, you must select a value of None in the Fee Type group box. For contracts with a classification of Government, you can select other values in this field.

Review Billing - Plans Page: Contract Billing Information Tab

Update Plans

The status for each row in the Search Results region of the page can be changed from Ready to Pending or from Pending to Ready. You can update the status of multiple billing plans at the same time by selecting the new status (either Pending or Ready), selecting the check box next to the appropriate billing plans, clicking the Update Plan Status button, and saving.

Review Billing - Plans Page: Billing Financial Information Tab

Select the Billing Financial Information tab.

Amount	For billing plan IDs associated with fixed-amount contract lines, displays the net amount for this billing plan ID.
Total Sent to Billing	Displays the amount for a billing plan ID that has been picked up by the Contracts Billing Interface process and sent to Billing. This field does not apply to recurring billing plans.
Total Billed	Displays the amount that has been finalized and billed by Billing and then written back by Billing to the Contracts billing cross-reference table.
Amount Pending	For billing plan IDs associated with fixed-amount contract lines, the amount pending equals the total sent to billing minus the total billed. This field does not apply to recurring billing plans.
Billed Thru Date	For recurring contract lines, displays the date through which the bill has billed.

Reviewing Billing Events

Access the Review Billing - Events page.

Use the fields in the Search Criteria group box to filter your search results by entering specific values in these fields. If you leave all fields blank, the search returns all billing events for all active contracts within your system.

Method

Select the check box of a billing event - billing method to limit your search to include only those billing events with a billing method equal to the billing methods that you selected. If you leave all check boxes blank, the system returns all billing events matching the remainder of your search criteria. Your billing method choices include: Milestone, Percent Complete, Value Based, and As Incurred.

Fee Type

To view billing events, you must select a value of None in the Fee Type group box. For contracts with a classification of Government, you can select other values in this field.

Review Billing - Events Page: Contract Billing Information Tab

Update Events

The event status for each row in the Search Results region of the page can be changed from Ready to Pending or from Pending to Ready. You can update the status of multiple billing plan events at the same time by selecting the new status (either Pending or Ready), selecting the appropriate events, clicking the Update Event Status button, and saving. The event status works in conjunction with the billing plan status to control when the amounts that you associated with an event are ready to bill.

Review Billing - Events Page: Billing Financial Information Tab

Select the Billing Financial Information tab.

Reviewing Statuses for As-Incurred Billing Plans

Access the Review Billing - As Incurred page.

Use the fields in the Search Criteria group box to filter your search results by entering specific values in these fields. If you leave all fields blank, the search returns all billing information for all active contracts within your system.

Fee Type

To view as incurred billing, you must select a value of None in the Fee Type group box. For contracts with a classification of Government, you can select other values in this field.

Review Billing - As Incurred Page: Billing Financial Information Tab

Select the Billing Financial Information tab.

The following amounts appear in the billing currency.