PeopleSoft Enterprise Contracts for Government Contracting 9.1 PeopleBook

Processing the Contracts Billing Interface

This chapter provides an overview of the PeopleSoft Contracts billing process for government contracts and discusses how to run the Contracts/Billing Interface process.

Understanding the Contracts Billing Process for Government Contracts

This section discusses:

PeopleSoft Contracts integration with PeopleSoft Billing and PeopleSoft Project Costing for government contracts.
The Contracts Billing Interface process (CA_BI_INTFC).
Streamlined billing.

PeopleSoft Contracts Integration with PeopleSoft Billing and PeopleSoft Project Costing for Government Contracts

One of the features of PeopleSoft Contracts is the ability to track and generate invoices for direct costs, indirect costs, and fees. Through its integration with PeopleSoft Project Costing and PeopleSoft Billing, PeopleSoft Contracts enables you to generate invoices for all of your contract lines. For amount-based contract lines, PeopleSoft Contracts sends billing data directly to PeopleSoft Billing. For rate-based contract lines and rate-based contract lines associated with fee types (cost-plus), you can track cost transactions originating in feeder systems such as Payables or Expenses, price those transactions in PeopleSoft Project Costing, calculate direct costs, indirect costs and fees, and pass the billable transaction amounts to PeopleSoft Billing using PeopleSoft Contracts.

To generate invoices for your rate-based contract lines, you must define rates, associate the rates to the contract line, and link projects and activities to the contract line. As cost transactions are processed, the system uses these relationships to determine how the transactions are priced and processed. For both amount-based and rate-based contract lines, you must also define billing plans and assign your contract lines to them. Billing plans are the mechanism by which contract line transactions are selected for billing by the Contracts/Billing Interface process.

When you run the Contracts/Billing Interface process, it selects billing plan lines marked as ready to bill (for amount-based contract lines) and resource rows (for rate-based contract lines) from the PeopleSoft Project Costing Project Transaction tables (PROJ_RESOURCE) that are marked as billable. These billable rows are sent to the Billing Interface tables (INTFC_BI) as bill lines for processing through to PeopleSoft Billing. After the invoices are generated, you can update PeopleSoft Contracts and PeopleSoft Project Costing with the billed data, enabling you to keep an accurate accounting of rows actually invoiced to use for withholding, limit processing, fee calculations and progress payments.

The Contracts Billing Interface Process (CA_BI_INTFC)

The Contracts/Billing Interface process (CA_BI_INTFC) is the mechanism by bills are sent from PeopleSoft Contracts and PeopleSoft Project Costing to PeopleSoft Billing. These bills can represent costs, indirect costs, fees, withholding and release amounts, progress payment amounts, and amount-based contract line amounts, and so on.

The Contracts/Billing Interface process creates real and temporary bills. Temporary bills are routed to the billing worksheet where they are reviewed by the Billing Administrator, and accepted or cancelled. Temporary bills that are approved are converted into real bills for PeopleSoft Billing to complete bill processing and finalization. Cancelled bills are reset in the PeopleSoft Contracts and Project Costing Project Transaction tables, where they are reviewed and adjusted (if needed) before being selected for processing the next time that the Contracts/Billing process is run.

Before the Contracts/Billing Interface process is run for government contracts to process billable transactions, you must first complete the following steps:

Define a government contract and assign active contract lines to the contract.
Assign rates, projects, and activities to the contract lines (only required for rate-based contract lines).
Define funding, revenue and transaction limits for the contract lines (only required if enforcing limit controls on rate-based contract lines).
Define funding and revenue fee limits for the contract lines (only required for rate-based contract lines associated with fee types (cost-plus)). If you don't want the system to apply a limit to the funding and revenue fees for cost-plus contract lines, enter zero for the funding and revenue fee limit amounts.
Define withholding and release criteria for the contract lines (only required if enforcing withholding on rate-based contract lines).
Set up progress payment criteria for the contract lines (only required if administering progress payments for amount-based contract lines).
Define and link each contract line to a billing plan. After the contract is activated, the billing plans and any associated events must be in a ready status to be processed by the Contracts/Billing Interface.

For contract lines associated with prepaid amounts, you must also define billing plans for the prepaid amount. For contract lines associated with progress payments, you must also assign a billing plan to the progress payment worksheet.
For rate-based contract lines, and rate-based contract lines associated with fee types (cost-plus), pricing must be completed against incoming transactions for the contract lines before billing can occur for those transactions.
For rate-based contract lines associated with fee types (cost-plus), the billing fee worksheet can optionally be completed to review and accept or override the billing fee. The Contracts to Billing interface runs the Fee engine to calculate all billing fees not previously submitted.

Contracts Billing Process Flow for Government Contracts

After your contract is defined and set up to include all required parameters for the customer, you can begin processing transactions against the contract and billing the customer.

This process flow diagram depicts the billing process flow for government contracts. The numbered steps correspond to the numbers in the diagram:

Contracts billing process flow for government contracts

The PeopleSoft Contracts for Government Contracting bill processing flow includes the following steps:

When defining your contract, depending on the terms and conditions identified by your customer, you may need to enter additional terms and conditions for withholding, fee processing, progress payment processing, limits, and project and activity tracking.

After you define your contract and complete all of your set up, including defining and assigning all of your contract lines to billing plans and activating the contract, you can begin billing for your contract cost transactions.
Process cost transactions for rate-based contract lines and rate-based contract lines associated with fee types (cost-plus) into PeopleSoft Project Costing.

This process calls the Pricing Engine, which in turn also calls Limit Processing, evaluating and applying any funded, transaction or revenue limits that are defined for the rate-based contract lines.
Run the Contracts/Billing Interface process.

This process selects and passes the following data to the Billing Interface:
- Contract lines and cost transaction rows that are assigned to a billing plan (and events if defined) that are in Ready status.
- Billing Fee amounts for rate-based contract lines assigned to fee types (cost-plus) processed by the Fee Limit Process, as reviewed and accepted or overridden by the user on the billing fee worksheet page or as calculated by the Fee engine.
  
  Note. You can optionally review and accept or override the proposed fee amount on the contract line's billing fee worksheet and then submit the fee for processing before the fee amount is included on the contract line's invoice.
  
  When you manually submit the billing fee worksheet for processing, the system calls the Fee Limit Processor and determines if the fee amount is eligible for processing, and then passes the billing fee amount to the Project Costing Project Transaction tables (PROJ_RESOURCE) where it is selected for processing by the Contracts/Billing Interface.
- Automatically calls the Withholding process to calculate withholding amounts and generates withholding, withholding release, and withholding write-off rows .
- Progress payment request rows.
- Automatically calls the Progress Payment Liquidation process to evaluate and liquidate any outstanding progress payments.
Run the Billing Interface process (BIIF0001) in PeopleSoft Billing.

The Billing Interface process generates real or temporary bills. Temporary bills are passed to the billing worksheet for evaluation and approval or deletion by the Billing Administrator.
Approve the billing worksheet.

When you approve a billing worksheet with the billing option of bill, the system creates a real bill with an assigned invoice number and updates PeopleSoft Contracts accordingly. This includes withholding (WTH) and withholding release (WRL) rows. Approved withholding write-off rows (WWO rows where the billing option is write-off) are passed to PeopleSoft Project Costing with a corresponding update to the PeopleSoft Contracts withholding release record. Any rows that are deleted in the billing worksheet are reset in PeopleSoft Contracts and PeopleSoft Project Costing respectively, to be processed the next time the Contracts/Billing Interface process is run.
Run the Finalization process (BIIVC000). Run the Finalization process on the real bill rows created.

The Finalization process performs a variety of tasks, including calculating taxes (on regular bill rows), setting the invoice date, and calculating the due date.
Run the Projects/Contracts Interface process (BIPCC000). After you run the Finalization process, you run the Projects/Contracts Interface process.

This process updates PeopleSoft Contracts and PeopleSoft Project Costing with the following data from PeopleSoft Billing:
- Finalized bill information.
- Withholding release data.
- Finalized progress payment request data.
- Progress payment committed amounts and liquidated amounts.
- Billing plan statuses are updated to Complete.
Run the Billing to Projects process (PC_BI_TO_PC). Run the Billing to Projects process for rate-based contract lines to update PeopleSoft Project Costing tables with billing, withholding, withholding release, billing and withholding adjustments, and withholding write-off data.

Contracts/Billing Interface Process and Withholding

PeopleSoft Contracts enables you to bill for transaction costs that occur against a contract line, and withhold a portion of those costs according to predefined terms and conditions. After defining your withholding and release terms and conditions and activating the contracts, you can run the Contracts/Billing Interface process to generate withholding transactions and process release rows.

When you run the Contracts/Billing Interface process, it automatically calls the Withholding process (CA_WTH_CALC) to calculate withholding amounts. Any requested release amounts entered for the contract lines are evaluated and passed to PeopleSoft Billing . The Contracts/Billing Interface process generates three types of withholding rows:

Withholding transaction rows, which are generated by the Withholding process (CA_WTH_CALC) and assigned an analysis type of WTH.
Withholding Release transaction rows, which are entered by the user on the Withholding page and are assigned an analysis type of WRL.
Withholding Write-Off transaction rows, which are entered by the user on the Withholding page and are assigned an analysis type of WWO.

All three of these withholding rows are passed to the Billing Interface (BIIF001) for processing. The withholding and withholding release transaction rows, once approved, are stored as real bills in PeopleSoft Billing for invoicing. Withholding release transaction rows that are written off (WWO rows) are passed to the Project Resource Temporary Billing table (PROJ_RES_TMP_BI) in PeopleSoft Project Costing, and are not stored as real bills in PeopleSoft Billing for further billing processing.

After the invoice is finalized, the Projects/Contracts Interface process (BIPCC000) is run to update the Billing Distribution status to D (Distributed), populate the Project Costing Temporary tables with data for the withholding, release and any adjustment rows, and updates the release row status in PeopleSoft Contracts to Complete. The last step is to run the Retrieve Billing Items process (PC_BI_TO_PC), which moves the data from the Project Costing Temporary tables to the Project Costing transaction table, where it is used the next time that withholding and release transactions are calculated.

See Generating Billing Invoices.

Contracts/Billing Interface Process And Limit Processing

The Limits process (CA_LIMITS) applies your defined funded and revenue line and transaction limits to billing and revenue transactions that occur against your contract lines. You can run the limits process manually; as a stand alone process, as part of pricing when pricing or repricing transaction rows, or as part of the pricing process when processing incoming transaction from feeder systems.

When summary limits are enabled for government contracts and the Contracts to Billing Interface (CA_BI_INTFC) process runs, BIL rows are taken from the PROJ_RESOURCE table and written to the INTFC_BI table as REV line type rows. However, if the amount in excess flag is Y in the PROJ_RESOURCE table, then BIL rows are written to the INTFC_BI table as BAE line type rows. If the reclaimed from over-the-limit flag is Y in the PROJ_RESOURCE table, then BIL rows are written to the INTFC_BI table as RAE line type rows.

When summary limits are enables for Government Contracts, the Contracts to Billing Interface process validates the required fields that are needed to generate a public voucher number (PVN) in Billing. When generating the PVN (public voucher number), the Bill By ID that is selected on the Billing Plan General page must include certain fields to prevent an error during the Contracts Billing Interface process. The required Bill By ID fields vary depending on the PVN Generation Level selected on the Contract - Billing Options page.

For more information about the PVN:

See Setting Up Bill By Identifiers for External Sources.

See Defining Contract Billing Options.

Note. Fee limits are defined on the Contract Amounts page and are applied by the Fee Limit Processor when you submit the proposed fee amounts from the Billing and Revenue Fee Worksheets, when you run the PeopleSoft Contracts to Billing Interface, or when you run the Process As Incurred Revenue processes for rate-based contract lines associated with fee types (cost-plus).

See Creating and Managing Limits.

Contracts/Billing Interface Process And Progress Payments

PeopleSoft Contracts enables you to bill the government for progress payment amounts, then liquidate those amounts against regular bills after your contracted items are delivered. To manage this process, you must define billing plans for both your progress payment requests and the contract lines associated with the progress payment amount.

When billing for progress payment amounts, you define your progress payment terms and conditions, create a progress payment worksheet and initiate a progress payment request. Run the Contracts/Billing Interface process to send progress payment requests through to PeopleSoft Billing.

When you are ready to liquidate the progress payment amount, run the Contracts/Billing Interface process to initiate billing for the contract line item. This process triggers the Progress Payment Liquidation process (CA_PGP_LIQ) to evaluate the bill line and liquidate any outstanding progress payments against it. The liquidation process performs the following steps:

Calculates the amount available for liquidation (progress payment remaining amount less the progress payment committed amount).
Determines if the contract lines associated with the billing line are linked to the same set of progress payment terms.
Calculates the maximum liquidation amount (available billing amount multiplied by the liquidation rate factor).
Liquidates the calculated amount against the regular bill (either the total amount available for liquidation or the maximum calculated liquidation amount; whichever is less).

Note. Progress payment requests update the progress payment amount and the remaining amount only when the progress payment request is finalized. This prevents the progress payment request from being liquidated against another bill that is processed on the same process instance.

See Establishing Progress Payments.

Streamlined Billing

Utilize streamlined billing to reduce the number of steps for invoicing bills, fees, withholding amounts, and progress payments. Streamlined billing enables you to process transactions from PeopleSoft Contracts to PeopleSoft Billing and back to PeopleSoft Contracts with one job, after the necessary streamline billing parameters are defined in your system. To initiate streamline processing, you must select the Pre-approved and Direct Invoicing check boxes on the Billing Plan – General page.

PeopleSoft Contracts delivers the following additional streamline billing options:

Select the Process Milestones check box on the Process As Incurred Billing or Process Other Billing Methods pages to run the milestone update process prior to running the Contacts/Billing Interface process.
Select the Process Automatically check box on the Billing Fee worksheet page for rate-based contract lines associated with fee types (cost-plus).

By selecting this check box, the system checks the limit for the billing fee, creates the billing fee, and sends the fee to PeopleSoft Billing.

See Streamlined Billing.

Running the Contracts/Billing Interface Process

This section lists common elements and discusses how to:

Run the Contracts/Billing Interface process for as-incurred billing.
Run the Contracts/Billing Interface process for amount-based billing.

Common Elements Used in This Section

Program Name	Displays the name of the process that this run control page performs. This run control page runs the Contracts/Billing Interface process (CA_BI_INTFC).
Billing Business Unit	Select a PeopleSoft Billing business unit to run the Contracts Billing Interface process for a specific billing business unit.
Bill To	Select to filter your processing parameters by the customer receiving the invoice.
Billing Plan	Select a billing plan ID to run the Contracts Billing Interface process for a specific billing plan.
Billing Method	Select a billing method for the system to run only the Contracts/Billing Interface process for contract lines associated to ready billing plans assigned the billing method specified. For the Process As Incurred Billing page, As Incurred appears by default in this field and cannot be overridden. For the Process All Other Billing Methods page, select a billing method of Immediate, Milestone,, Percent Complete or Value Based.
Billing Specialist	Select a billing specialist to run the Contracts/Billing Interface process for a specific billing specialist.
Billing Cycle Identifier or Billing Cycle ID	Select to filter your processing parameters by the billing cycle ID.
Event Date	Enter a date to run this process for billing plan events that occur on or before the specified date.
Invoice Date	Displays the date that the run control page is opened and processed. The current date appears by default and can be modified. This is the date that prints on the invoice if the invoice date is not updated by the invoice finalization process in PeopleSoft Billing.
Process Milestones	Select this check box to set up the system to automatically run the Process Milestones process prior to running the Contracts/Billing Interface process.

Pages Used to Run the Contracts Billing Interface Process

Page Name	Definition Name	Navigation	Usage
Process As Incurred Billing	RUN_CA_BI	Customer Contracts, Schedule and Process Billing, Process As Incurred Billing	Run this process to load rate-based contract line billing information from PeopleSoft Contracts and PeopleSoft Project Costing into PeopleSoft Billing to create bills
Process Other Billing Methods	RUN_CA_FF	Customer Contracts, Schedule and Process Billing, Process Other Billing Methods	Run this process to load fixed-price contract line billing information from PeopleSoft Contracts into PeopleSoft Billing to create bills.

Running the Contracts/Billing Interface Process For As-Incurred Billing

Access the Process As Incurred Billing page (Customer Contracts, Schedule and Process Billing, Process As Incurred Billing).

Process Billing Details

Use the request number to set up multiple sets of filtering criteria to run the Contracts/Billing Interface process for a specific set of contract line, such as rate-based contract lines associated with a specific fee type (cost-plus).

Contract Options

Use the fields in this group box to limit the billing data that is included in the run of this process. Filter by PeopleSoft Contracts business unit, contract type, contract classification, sold to customer, contract number, or cost-plus fee type. If you leave all fields blank, the process picks up all available billing activity in PeopleSoft Contracts.

Note. Entering field values to filter the run control criteria does not limit the prompt values that appear in other fields on the As-Incurred Billing run control page. The Contracts/Billing Interface process uses the combination of filter criteria that you defined to limit the transactions that are selected for processing.

Cost Plus Fee Type

Select a fee type to run the Contracts/Billing Interface process for rate-based contract lines associated with a particular fee type. If a fee type is selected, the project and activity fields cannot be used to further restrict the contract lines selected for billing. The lowest level of criteria that can be selected is Contract or Billing Plan. You can select from the following fee values:

Award Fee: Select to process only rate-based contract lines associated with a fee type of Award.
Fixed Fee: Select to process only rate-based contract lines associated with a fee type of Fixed.
Incentive Fee: Select to process only rate-based contract lines associated with a fee type of Incentive.
None: Select to process only rate-based contract lines associated with a fee type of None. This processes time and material rate-based contract lines (not cost-plus).
Other: Select to process only rate-based contract lines associated with a fee type of Other.

Use the request number sequencing option to select more than one fee type on the run control page. Leave the field blank to run the Contracts/Billing Interface process for all fee types.

Project Options

Use the fields in this group box to limit the billing data that is included in the run of this process. If you leave all fields blank, the process picks up all available billing activity in PeopleSoft Project Costing.

Select values for any of the PeopleSoft Project Costing options to filter processing criteria: PC Business Unit, Project, Activity ID, Project Type, and Project Manager.

BU/Proj/Act Option (business unit/project/activity option)

Select a value to filter the information that is pulled from PeopleSoft Project Costing. Values include:

All: Run this process for all available PeopleSoft Project Costing business units, projects, and activities.
Business Unit: Filter the PeopleSoft Project Costing source data by adding values to the PC Business Unit field. You may further filter the data by adding values to the Project Type and Project Manager fields.
Business Unit/Project: Filter the PeopleSoft Project Costing source data by adding values to these fields: PC Business Unit and Project..

Note. It is recommended that you leave the Project Type and Project Manager fields blank when selecting this value as the system may return inconsistent results if these fields are populated with values that do not match the project indicated.
Business Unit/Project/Activity: Filter the PeopleSoft Project Costing source data by adding values to these fields: PC Business Unit, Project ID, and Activity.

Note. It is recommended that you leave the Project Type and Project Manager fields blank when selecting this value as the system may return inconsistent results if these fields are populated with values that do not match the project and activity indicated.

Billing Options

Use these fields to limit the billing data that is included in the run of this process. If you leave all fields blank, the process picks up all available billing activity in PeopleSoft Contracts and PeopleSoft Project Costing.

Cycle From Date	Enter the cycle from date. The date that you enter in this field appears by default in the From Date field. You can override the from date. For government contracts, the Cycle From Date maps to the period of performance from date, which is sent to PeopleSoft Billing and printed on the invoice. Note. This is a required field when the Enable Summary Limits option is selected on the Installation Options - Contracts page and you want to generate public voucher numbers.
Cycle To Date	Enter the cycle to date. The date that you enter in this field appears by default in the Through Date field. You can override the through date. For government contracts, the Cycle To Date maps to the period of performance to date, which is sent to PeopleSoft Billing and printed on the invoice. Note. This is a required field when the Enable Summary Limits option is selected on the Installation Options - Contracts page and you want to generate public voucher numbers.
Billing Authority	Person responsible for the overall approval of the billing plan. Select a billing authority to run this process for a specific billing authority. This field only applies to PeopleSoft Enterprise Grants users and is not applicable to government contracts.
Letter of Credit ID	Select a letter of credit reference number to run this process for a specific letter of credit. This field only applies to PeopleSoft Enterprise Grants users and is not applicable to government contracts.
Date Option	Select a date option to narrow this process to billing activity within a certain time frame. Values include: Acct Dt:(accounting date) Run this process for billing activity that occurs within an accounting (general ledger period) date. You must enter values in the From Date and Through Date fields. Trans Dt: (transaction date) Run this process for billing activity that has occurred within a transaction (system date) date. You must enter values in the From Date and Through Date fields. All: Run this process for all available billing activity. If you select this option, you do not need to enter a value in the Through Date field.
From Date	Displays the first date on which the process identifies available billing activity. The system uses this field for accounting and transactional date purposes only.
Through Date	Displays the last date on which the process identifies available billing activity. The cycle through date must be equal or greater than the cycle from date. The value that you enter in the Cycle To Date field appears by default in this field. You can override the default value. The system uses this field for accounting and transactional date purposes only.
Ignore Tolerance Amount	Select this check box to allow project rows to process through to PeopleSoft Billing even if the minimum bill amount set on the as-incurred billing plan has not been reached.

Streamline Processing Options

Process Milestones

Select this check box to set up the system to automatically run the Process Milestones process. Use this option in conjunction with the Process Automatically check box on the billing fee worksheet to check the limit for the billing fee, create the billing fee, and send the costs and fee to PeopleSoft Billing.

Running the Contracts/Billing Interface Process For Fixed-Fee Billing

Access the Process Other Billing Methods page (Customer Contracts, Schedule and Process Billing, Process Other Billing Methods).

Contract Options

Use the fields in this group box to limit the billing data that is included in the run of this process. Filter by PeopleSoft Contracts business unit, contract type, contract classification, sold to customer, or contract number. If you leave all fields blank, the process picks up all available billing activity in PeopleSoft Contracts.

Note. Entering field values to filter the run control criteria does not limit the prompt values that appear in other fields on the Process Other Billing Methods run control page. The Contracts/Billing Interface process uses the combination of filter criteria that you defined to limit the transactions that are selected for processing.

Billing Options

Streamline Processing Options

Process Milestones	Select this check box to set up the system to automatically run the Process Milestones process prior to running the Contracts/Billing Interface process.
Process Project Progress	Select this check box to set up the system to automatically run the Percent Complete Update process prior to running the Contracts/Billing Interface process. This option does not apply to PeopleSoft Contracts.