Processing Invoices for Receivables Leases

This chapter provides an overview of processing invoices for receivables leases and discusses how to:

Work with the transaction generator.
Manage transactions for invoice processing.
Run manage interface to AP/Billing.
Inquire pending lease receivables.

Understanding Invoices for Receivables Leases

Real Estate Management provides corporate real estate managers a facility to manage the subleasing lifecycle. During the lease lifecycle, the system generates various billable items. You must submit these items to the tenant on an invoice. These billable items can include base rent, operating expenses, miscellaneous rent, security deposits, and specific maintenance fees.

The high-level business process flow for processing invoices for receivables leases consists of these steps:

Create receivables leases (including all general and financial terms and conditions).
Activate receivables leases.
Run the Manage Transaction Generator process.
Review transactions for processing in the transaction queue.

Add adhoc transactions if necessary.
Approve transactions for processing.

This process is optional. You can set up the Auto Approve option at the business unit level for recurring items.
Run the Manage Transaction Interface to AP/Billing process.
View pending receivables.

Before you generate an invoice, you must first create a lease, define the amount and frequency for each recurring billable item, and activate the receivables lease. Once you have activated the lease, you run the transaction generator to load the billable items into the transaction queue. You can review the transactions in the transaction queue manager to ensure that the recurring rent schedules are correct. If the status is Pending, you must approve each transaction. If Auto Approve is selected in the business unit setup, the system automatically sets the transactions to Approved. All transactions that are in Approvedstatus are processed when you run the Manage Interface to AP/Billing process.

Note. If you need to review all transactions prior to processing, it is recommended that you do not turn on Auto Approve for Billing Options at the business unit.

To process invoices, Real Estate Management relies on the PeopleSoft Transaction Billing Processor to send billable transactions to Billing to generate the invoices. When you launch the Manage Interface to AP/Billing process (TBP), the process selects all the eligible transactions from the transaction queue and passes the data to a Contract process through the transaction billing processor. This process is responsible for loading the transactions into designated staging tables and scheduling the direct invoicing job, which contains the Billing interface, the finalization, and print, GL posting, and the interface to Receivables processes.

Payment Processing

Occasionally, you might need to process payments for reimbursement of repair costs or security deposit refunds. You can create adhoc payments for reimbursements or refunds using the Process Payments page.

See Understanding Processing Payments for Payables Leases.

Prerequisites

You must have active receivables leases before you can generate billable items to Billing.

Common Elements Used in This Chapter

Schedule Date to To	Specify the date range for transactions within that date range to be sent to the Billing system for processing.
Transaction Origin	Select the transaction origin from the list. Values are: Manual: Transactions created for one-time processing. No duration specified. Recurring: Transactions created in a lease that occurs (for example, on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis) for a duration of time.
Status	Select a status for which the system uses as a search criteria for transactions you want to process. Values are: Approved, Cancelled, Errors, Hold , Pending, Pending & Hold, Processed, and Processed & Cancelled. See Understanding Leases.
Transaction Group	Select the transaction group criteria for transactions you want to process. For example, to process only base rent transactions, you select Base Rent as your transaction group criteria. Available values are: Base Rent, Manual Fee, Miscellaneous Rent, Operating Expense, Percent Rent, and Security Deposit.
Region	Select the region to process all transactions within that region. You can group invoices to process by the location of each region.
Case Sensitive	Select if search criteria is case-sensitive.
Payor	Select to whom the invoice is sen. The payor or tenant must be set up in the Customer table.

Working with the Transaction Generator

This section provides an overview of the transaction generator and discusses how to run the transaction generator.

Understanding the Transaction Generator

The Transaction Generator process (RUN_RE_GENTRANS) generates transactions into the transaction queue manager by monitoring the transaction schedule and processing transactions into the queue when the due date is reached, less the processing lead time defined in Real Estate Management business unit setup. The transaction queue manager manages the financial transactions that are created by the transaction generator, as well as manual transaction entries that are entered directly in the queue.

When you run the transaction generator, the process picks up all recurring items that are due within a leadtime that is defined for the Real Estate business unit. Note that two different lead times are defined—one for receivables leases and one for payables leases. You also use the transaction generator to manage automatic lease expiration for leases that are due to expire. When the transaction generator identifies a row that is ready for processing, the system verifies the accuracy of the transaction amounts and modifies the transaction as needed. For example, if a base rent has an indexed escalation and the new index value goes into effect, the transaction schedule bill amount might be out of date. When the transaction generator picks up this row, the system recalculates the amount, revises the schedule, and inserts the modified transaction into the queue for further processing.

The Manage Transaction Generator processes records in these transaction tables:

RE_LS_TXN — Lease Transaction

Contains the recurring and non recurring lease transactions.
RE_LS_TXN_DTL — Lease Transaction Detail

Contains the details such as amount per sales categories.
RE_LS_TXN_NOTE — Lease Transaction Note

Contains the Hold, Un-hold and Cancel history.
RE_LS_TXN_ERROR — Lease Transaction Errors

Contains the interface error description.
RE_LS_TRM_SCHED — Lease Term Schedule

Contains the Financial Terms Schedules.

Typically, you run the Manage Transaction Generator as a scheduled process. You can run the process automatically on a recurring basis or as needed. For efficient and timely processing of any outstanding transactions, it is recommended that you set up this process to run on a nightly recurring basis. Depending on the volume of transactions that are processed within your organization, you can set up this process to run more frequently, but once every day is recommended. You can also initiate this process at any time in addition to the normal recurring schedule.

Prerequisites

Before you can run the Manage Transaction Generator process, you must create and activate leases with recurring rent schedules.

Page Used to Manage Transaction Generator

Page Name	Object Name	Navigation	Usage
Manage Transaction Generator	RUN_RE_GENTRANS	Lease Administration, Integrations, Manage Transaction Generator Click the Run button.	Create a run control ID for the Manage Transactions Generator job and run the job.

Running the Transaction Generator

Access the Manage Transaction Generator page.

Managing Transactions for Invoice Processing

This section provides an overview on managing transactions for invoice processing and discusses how to manage transactions for invoice processing.

Understanding Invoice Processing

You use the transaction queue manager to manage the recurring transactions that are created by the transaction generator or by using manual entries. The transaction queue manager enables you to approve, hold, un-hold, and cancel transactions in the queue. If the Auto Approve option is turned on at the business unit level, all recurring transactions are automatically set to Approved status when the transaction generator places them into the queue. You can retain an approved transaction from further processing by selecting the transaction and clicking the Hold button; thus putting the transaction on hold. When you are ready to process the transaction, you can select it again and click the Un Hold button. If a lease is in dispute and the status is set to Dispute, the system sets the associated transactions on hold. Once the dispute is resolve, the transactions remain on hold until you manually set the transactions for that lease back to Approved status for further processing.

You can also cancel a transaction. Once you have cancelled the transaction, no further processing occurs and you cannot re-initiate processing for that transaction in the future. Cancelling the transaction does not cause the transaction generator to recreate a new recurring row. If you cancel a row that came from one of the processing worksheets, such as a sales report or operating expense reconciliation or audit, the system reopens that worksheet so it can be further modified and reissued.

You can create manual transactions for one-time charges such as: rekeying locks in a building, carpet cleaning, broken window repairs, and other charges that are not included in the lease. After creating the manual transactions, select the transaction and click the Approve button for processing. The system displays manual transactions as a Manual Fee under Transaction Groups and sets the status to Pending. To view details of each transaction, click the link under the Transaction Group column.

The transaction queue is the final point in Real Estate Management that any billable transaction can be processed, modified, cancelled, and so on. This component serves as a workspace for any pending transactions, enables you to add transactions as necessary, and provides capabilities for holding or cancelling transactions. It also serves as a historical log of past transactions, with links to various subsystems for further research and status verification.

Prerequisites

Before you can select recurring transactions for invoice processing, you must create and activate the receivables leases and run the Manage Transaction Generator process.

Pages Used to Manage Transactions for Invoice Processing

Page Name	Object Name	Navigation	Usage
Billing Transactions	RE_TXN_MANAGER	Lease Administration, Receivable Leases, Processing Invoices	Manage and review transaction items that are generated by the transaction generator and any transaction items that are added through ad-hoc entry.
Create Manual Billing Transactions	RE_TXN_ADHOC_SEC	Click Create Manual Billing Transactions button on the Billing Transactions. page.	Create manual, ad-hoc billing transactions that are not generated by the transaction generator.
Billing Transaction Details	RE_TXN_DTL_SEC	Click the link in the Transaction Group column on the Billing Transactions page.	Review transaction details such as categories, amount, and invoice number. Note. The invoice number is only available when the transaction status is Processed.
Billing Interface Error Details	RE_TXN_ERROR_SEC	Click the on the Billing Transactions page under the Transactionstab.	View the error description for specific transactions that are set to Error status during interface processing. Note. The Error button is only available when the transaction status is Error.

Selecting and Approving Transactions for Invoice Processing

Access the Billing Transactions page.

Create Manual Billing Transaction

Click the button to create ad-hoc transactions for billing. Manual billing transactions can be one-time miscellaneous expense charge-backs to the tenant for minor repair costs, re-keying of locks, and transactions that are not included as part of the recurring rents.

Approve for Billing

Click the button to approve the selected transactions for billing. If you select the Auto Approve option when you establish your business unit, the system automatically approves all transactions in the transaction queue.

Hold

Click the button to hold selected transactions from further processing.

Note. A lease that is put on hold due to a dispute automatically puts the pending transactions for that lease on hold status until the dispute is resolved. When the dispute is resolved, you need to manually change the transaction status in the transaction queue back to Approved.

See Understanding Leases.

UnHold

Click the button to un-hold transactions that were previously on hold from further processing.

Cancel

Click the button to cancel the selected transaction.

Note. Once a recurring transaction is cancelled, a new manual transaction must be created if one is required. The system does not regenerate a new recurring transaction.

Billing Transactions – Transactions tab

Schedule Date	Displays the date which the transaction is scheduled for invoicing. For example, if the transaction is due on the first of the month, the system generates the transaction prior to the first of the month (using the leadtime that is defined for the business unit) for the user to approve for invoicing before the schedule date. Therefore, when the transaction originates from a recurring term, the schedule date can be either a regular recurring term (such as the 15th of the month) or a scheduled date that you add when you create the lease for proration purposes.
	Click to review the error description for specific transactions that are set to error during interface processing. Note. The Error button is only available when the transaction status is Error.
Transaction Group	Displays the categories of each transaction. Click the category link to view details such as expense type, description, amount, and invoice ID. Note. Invoice ID is only available when the transaction status is pending. You can click the Invoice ID link to view the voucher status in the Billing system.
Prior Period Variance	Displays the difference (in a percentage) between that recurring rent payment and the same recurring rent payment for the prior month. You can use this information to help with large variances from month-to-month, which are sometimes for escalations. For example, a rent payment of 1000 USD for the month of December is processed, but in January, an escalation takes effect and the new rent payment is 1200 USD. The prior period variance is 20 percent.

Billing Transactions – Lease Information tab

The Lease Information tab displays the lease number, lease name, and region information that is associated with that transaction.

Billing Transactions – Status Details tab

Modified By	Displays the user that made modifications to the transaction.
View Historical Details	Click to view the reasons associated with the transactions that are in Hold, Un-hold, or Cancelled statuses.

Running Manage Interface to AP/Billing

This section provides an overview of managing interface to AP/Billing and discusses how to run manage interface to AP/Billing.

Understanding Manage Interface to AP/Billing

To generate invoices to Billing, you must run the Manage Interface to AP/Billing process. This process transfers approved transactions to the Billing system using the PeopleSoft Enterprise Transaction Billing Processor (TBP) engine. This process is also used to generate payments to landlords for payables leases.

See Understanding Leases.

The Transaction Billing Processor engine is a set of processes that are supplied by the Contracts application and that enables external applications to create sales invoices in the Billing system. You must create a contract to utilize this interface. For lease administration, the system creates a contract header, a contract line, and a bill plan every time a Receivables lease is activated and associated with the lease. Billable items such as lease transactions are submitted to the Contracts system as transactions in the interface tables.

The following is the high level business process flow:

Real Estate Management integrates with Billing and Contracts so that you can generate invoices for all of their transactions.

Billing information from Real Estate Management is sent to Contracts as transactions.
The transaction billing processor process selects Billing Plans (for rate-based billing methods) that have been marked in the Contracts system as ready to bill and creates bill lines in the Billing Interface tables for the transactions that are sent by the Real Estate Management system.

For Real Estate Management transactions, the Contracts sends revenue to the Billing system , and the Billing system creates the receivables side of the debit entry.
Once the transaction billing processor process stages the billing data in these tables, the Billing Interface processes the data to create bills.
When a transaction is selected for billing, the data from the transaction and the data from the billing plan (including bill-to customer, bill by, and bill type) combine to create the basis for a bill line.
The Billing system then groups bill lines based on the Billing Optionsthat are defined in the billing plan and generates invoices for the transactions and upon finalization, sends information regarding the invoices back to the Contracts system.

The following example shows how a journal entry is created by the billing plan (as incurred method) in Billing for a Real Estate Management transaction that was for 100 USD:

	Credit	Debit
Receivables		$100
Revenue	$100

To post the entries that are shown in the example, you must set up an appropriate accounting rule so that the system can send the revenue to Billing system and the Billing system can create the receivable debit side of the entry.

Note. The Billing business unit that is used for the receivables for this entry must share the same general ledger business unit as the Contracts system business unit.

See Understanding Integration Messages for Transaction Billing.

Processing Errors

To resolve errors or issues for lease transactions that are sent through the transaction billing processor, you must first determine where the error occurred. Resolution for the errors that occur after the transaction is sent from Real Estate Management to Billing through the Transaction Billing Processor must be resolved in the Billing system .

When the error occurs in the Manage Interface to AP/Billing or Transaction Billing Processor, the error is typically caused by incomplete setup of the accounting rules. The transaction detail is set to Error in the transaction queue and the resulting error stops the processing for that transaction. Although the error occurred for this transaction, other valid transactions continue to be processed. For example, if only one category of an operating expense transaction is in error, the other categories of that same operating transaction with valid accounting entries are transferred to Billing to be invoiced. You need to resolve the error in the setup and run the process again to process the transaction through the Billing system.

To resolve the error, you can search the transaction queue and review the transaction detail error message. You cannot change the transaction, but you can correct the setup. After the setup error is resolved, all the transaction details in error are automatically recycled when Manage Interface to AP/Billing process is generated.

See Understanding Real Estate Management Accounting Rules.

Accessing Billing Information

When a transaction is successfully processed through the Billing interface, the status in the transaction queue is set to Processed. You can view the transaction details in the grid. To review the transaction details, select the transaction from the queue. The system displays the invoice number on which the transaction detail resides. Clicking the invoice number link takes you to the Billing Inquiry page.

See Reviewing Bill Summary Information.

Note. If a transaction with the status of Processed does not have an invoice number, it might be due to a delay in the execution of the Billing interface.

Prerequisites

Before you run the Manage Interface to AP/Billing process, verify that transactions in the transaction queue are in an Approved status.

Page Used to Run Manage Interface to AP/Billing

Page Name	Object Name	Navigation	Usage
Manage Interfaces to AP/Billing	RUN_TXN_INTFC	Lease Administration, Integrations, Manage Interface to AP/Billing.	Run to generate transactions to Billing to create sales invoices to the tenants.

Managing Interface to AP/Billing

Access the Manage Interface to AP/Billing page.

Payables

Select to send all Payables transactions for the business unit and lease number parameters selected. If both are left blank, then all Payables transactions are sent. Only approved transactions in the transaction queue are sent to the Payables.

Billing

Select to send all Billing transactions for the business unit and lease number parameters. These fields are not required. If a business unit is selected, the interface generates the approved transactions for that business unit. If a lease number is selected, the interface generated the approved transactions for that business unit and lease number. If both are left blank, then all Billing transactions are sent. Only approved transactions in the transaction queue are sent to the Billing.

Viewing Pending Lease Receivables

This section discusses how to view pending lease receivables.

Lease Administrations enables you to view the list of pending lease receivables. This interactive inquiry enables you to filter the criteria and view all the active leases with pending payments and their schedules.

Pages Used to View Pending Lease Receivables

Page Name	Object Name	Navigation	Usage
Pending Lease Receivables	RE_RECEIVABLE_INQ	Lease Administration, Reports, Pending Lease Receivables	Inquire on the pending invoices for a lease. You can view the invoice types and the schedule date the transaction is to be processed for all invoices associated to the lease.

Inquire Pending Lease Receivables

Access the Pending Lease Receivables page.

Due Date From: and To:

Select the date range for pending transactions that are scheduled within that range.

Lease Administrator

Select to view pending transactions schedules associated to that lease administrator.

Portfolio Manager

Select to view pending transaction schedules associated to that portfolio manager.

Term

Displays the type of transaction scheduled. The term can be for base rent, operating expense, miscellaneous rent, and so on.

Schedule Date

Displays the date the transaction is schedule to be processed.

Generated Date

Displays the date the transaction is processed by the Transaction Generator process and placed in the Transaction Queue.

Schedule Status

Displays transaction schedule status, whether the transaction is pending or generated to the transaction queue.

Create Manual Billing Transaction	Click the button to create ad-hoc transactions for billing. Manual billing transactions can be one-time miscellaneous expense charge-backs to the tenant for minor repair costs, re-keying of locks, and transactions that are not included as part of the recurring rents.
Approve for Billing	Click the button to approve the selected transactions for billing. If you select the Auto Approve option when you establish your business unit, the system automatically approves all transactions in the transaction queue.
Hold	Click the button to hold selected transactions from further processing. Note. A lease that is put on hold due to a dispute automatically puts the pending transactions for that lease on hold status until the dispute is resolved. When the dispute is resolved, you need to manually change the transaction status in the transaction queue back to Approved. See Understanding Leases.
UnHold	Click the button to un-hold transactions that were previously on hold from further processing.
Cancel	Click the button to cancel the selected transaction. Note. Once a recurring transaction is cancelled, a new manual transaction must be created if one is required. The system does not regenerate a new recurring transaction.

Due Date From: and To:	Select the date range for pending transactions that are scheduled within that range.
Lease Administrator	Select to view pending transactions schedules associated to that lease administrator.
Portfolio Manager	Select to view pending transaction schedules associated to that portfolio manager.
Term	Displays the type of transaction scheduled. The term can be for base rent, operating expense, miscellaneous rent, and so on.
Schedule Date	Displays the date the transaction is schedule to be processed.
Generated Date	Displays the date the transaction is processed by the Transaction Generator process and placed in the Transaction Queue.
Schedule Status	Displays transaction schedule status, whether the transaction is pending or generated to the transaction queue.