Billing is the process of claiming amounts due from customers on their lease and loan contracts. Billing charges for rent, fees, and services are processed to include taxes and generate accurate accounting transactions. Documents called invoices or statements of account are created as a notice to the customer for payment.
Compliance with regulatory tax and accounting requirements and efficient collection of payment is essential in this process. Clear presentment of billing charges on invoices is necessary to meet internal billing policy and procedures while making the payable process easy for customers to make prompt and correct payments.
The Oracle Lease and Finance Management billing process consists of the following topics:
Billing Transactions
Options to Generate and Present Invoices
Create Invoices
View and Adjust Invoices
To begin the billing process, you first determine amounts to be billed, then you process options to format and present invoices in Oracle Lease and Finance Management, then Create Invoices, and finally you View and Adjust Invoices. An active contract in the status described below defines the payment schedule and streams for rent, fees and services to be billed.
Although the processing of billing data from different billing sources varies, every billing transaction of each billing type results in a record in Oracle Lease and Finance Management. The main billing data consists of the following data items:
Stream type, such as Rent, Insurance
Amount
Item Type
Item number, as stored in Oracle Inventory
Customer information, as stored in Oracle Receivables
The following table describes types of billing that financiers may need to bill their customers for and the Oracle Lease and Finance Management concurrent programs used to process the billing.
| Type of Billing | Description | Concurrent Programs |
|---|---|---|
| Contractual Amounts | Billing charges for use of equipment, fees, or services specified on the contract. Contractual amounts are charges defined in the contract to be paid on specific dates in a payment schedule. | Master Program - Process Billable Streams - Contract |
| Event Based | Billing charges or credit calculated as events occur based upon contract terms and conditions. Event based charges that may be specified in the contract include, but are not limited to, adjustments when the contract is revised or rebooked, quote fees for a repurchase quote, and contract obligations when a contract is terminated early. | Master Program - Process Billable Streams - Contract |
| Variable Rate | Lease or loan contracts are linked to an index that defines the interest rate used to calculate the charge for interest payment. | Create Receivables Variable Rate Invoices |
| Usage Billing | Billing charges for use of equipment based on counters or meters, for example, the number of clicks or sheets used by a copier, the number of miles driven by a vehicle, or the number of hours of use by a machine. | Usage Based Billing |
| Service Contract | Lease or loan contracts are linked to service contracts that process maintenance charges to be billed and combine these service amounts with the contractual amounts on a single invoice. | Service Contracts Billing |
| Service Contract | Lease or loan contracts are linked to service contracts that process maintenance charges to be billed and combines these service amounts with the contractual amounts on a single invoice. | Usage Based Billing |
| Usage Based | Billing charges for use of equipment based on counters or meters, for example, the number of clicks or sheets used by a copier, the number of miles driven by a vehicle, the number of hours of use by a machine. | Service Contracts Billing |
| Policy Based | Billing charges calculated as events occur based upon policies specified in contract terms. Policies that may be specified in the contract include, but are not limited to, late charges or late interest when payments are late, interest charges when funding is disbursed prior to contract booking, and evergreen billing after the contract expires. | Calculate Late Interest & Calculate Late Charges |
| Manual | Ad hoc charges based on new events or circumstances that are not billed automatically based on contract payment schedule or terms and conditions. | None When you create a Manual Invoice, the Master Program – Receivables Invoice Transfer program sends billing information to Oracle Receivables |
| Advance Billing | Advance billings are for payments received before the contract is booked. Running the Advanced Billing concurrent program creates an invoice to which the payment can be applied. | Advance Billing |
| Future Pay | Future Pay can be used to reserve receipt amounts of future invoices for a contract, or a contract and stream type. Running the Future Pay Sweep program applies allocated amounts to invoices of a contract. | Future Pay Sweep |
| Evergreen | When an evergreen contract expires, contractual billing discontinues and evergreen charges are billed in Evergreen Billing | Evergreen Billing |
| Investor Agreement | When an investor agreement is activated, you can bill the investor for their stake and fees defined in the agreement. | Master Program – Process Billable Streams – Investor Agreement |
| Taxes | Billing charges for property tax and upfront tax and generation of VAT schedules. Upfront taxes are charges over the expected life of the contract that are payable to tax authorities when the contract is booked. | None Oracle E-Business Tax calculates tax based on billing information exported from Oracle Lease and Finance Management to Oracle Receivables. |
| Third Party | Billing charges imported from third-party files containing charges that you want to bill the customer and pass through to the third-party. For example, you may want to import and bill for a county's property tax liability, a bank's non-sufficient funds charge, or a vendor's maintenance fee and pass the receipts back to the third-party. | Third Party Billing |
Billing for contractual amounts consists of billing charges for use of equipment, fees, or services specified on the contract. Contractual amounts are charges defined in the contract to be paid on specific dates in a payment schedule.
The contractual amount billing process begins by first determining the amounts to be billed, then processing the options to format and present invoices in Oracle Lease and Finance Management. After invoices are formatted and presented, you can create invoices and view and adjust the invoices.
Oracle Lease and Finance Management identifies customers for automatic billing based on the stream types to be billed, the due date for a payment, and the number of print lead days. Print lead days are the number of days before the invoice due dates that you can generate an invoice.
Before you can begin the bill contractual amounts process, you must have an active contract with terms and conditions that define amounts and formulas to calculate billing charges when events occur and a payment schedule with billable streams.
For more information on creating terms and conditions on a contract, see Contract Authoring
The following table describes the billing process for contractual amounts using periodic billing. A request set has been seeded called Lease Billing. The Lease Billing request set is comprised of the three concurrent programs listed below.
| Step | Description | Application |
|---|---|---|
| Book Contracts | Book contracts with terms and conditions with billing information, and payment schedules for rent, services and fees. | Oracle Lease and Finance Management |
| Run Master Program - Process Billable Streams - Contracts | This program is used to process the stream elements to create the billing transactions in Oracle Lease and Finance Management. | Oracle Lease and Finance Management |
| Run Master Program - Receivables Invoice Transfer | This program is used to process and transfer Oracle Lease and Finance Management billing transactions to the AR Invoice Interface table | Oracle Lease and Finance Management |
| Run AutoInvoice Master Program | This program imports the billing information into Oracle Receivables and creates an invoice with invoice lines. | Oracle Receivables |
To enable contractual billing, you must run the Master Program - Process Billable Streams - Contracts concurrent program. After this concurrent program is active, the process of selecting which contracts and items to prepare for billing is completely automatic. Oracle Lease and Finance Management identifies customers for automatic billing based on the stream types to be billed, the due date for a payment, and the number of lead days. Lead days are the number of days before the invoice due date that you can generate an invoice.
Similarly, if you require usage-based billing, all the necessary background processing automatically runs and generates the excess usage billing data. For usage-based billing items where you want to level-out counter readings across individual counters, you must set up one or more consolidated counter groups.
The Master Program - Process Billable Streams - Contracts concurrent program identifies contracts with streams due for billing and creates billing items. See Concurrent Programs, page B-1.
An active contract with defined terms and conditions determines the amounts and formulas used to calculate billing charges when events occur.
Event based billing occurs when billing is charged or credit is calculated as events occur based upon contract terms and conditions. Event based charges that may be specified in the contract include, but are not limited to, adjustments when the contract is revised equipment is repurchased by the vendor, and contract obligation amounts billed when a contract is terminated early.
An active contract with defined terms and conditions determines the amounts and formulas used to calculate billing charges when events occur.
To enable event based billing, run the Master Program - Process Billable Streams – Contracts concurrent program. After this concurrent program is active, Oracle Lease and Finance Management selects contracts and items to prepare for billing automatically based on the event. Oracle Lease and Finance Management identifies customers for automatic billing based on the stream types to be billed, the due date for a payment, and the number of lead days. Lead days are the number of days before the invoice due date that you can generate an invoice.
Similarly, if you require usage-based billing, Oracle Lease and Finance Management automatically processes and generates the excess usage billing data. When you create usage-based billing items and want to level counter readings across individual counters, you must set up one or more consolidated counter groups.
The Master Program - Process Billable Streams - Contracts concurrent program identifies contracts with streams due for billing and creates billing items. See Concurrent Programs, page B-1.
One of the parameters of a contract is the interest type upon which you base the contract. Examples of contract interest rate types include fixed rate interest and variable rate interest. In the case of variable rate contracts, there are several additional parameters you enter when you book or restructure a contract. The most important of these parameters identifies how you calculate the interest as a result of the change in rate.
The four methods for handling the interest adjustment are:
FLOAT - Uses internal simple interest calculation to calculate interest, or the formula defined during the booking process to calculate an interest adjustment. This interest adjustment billing is in addition to the principal billed.
REAMORT - Calls the stream generation tool to calculate new rental and income streams. With this method, you can have only level payment contracts--for example, monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, or annually.
FLOAT FACTOR - Calculates interest using float factor streams for a lease contract with floating factors.
CATCHUP/CLEANUP - Uses catchup of interest on a contract and is calculated periodically separate to the periodic interest billing cycle. Actual interest is recalculated periodically, resulting in the cleanup of principal.
When you perform billing for variable rate contracts, Oracle Lease and Finance Management automatically evaluates the interest rate basis linked to the contract for any increases or decreases in the effective interest rate. If the applicable rate changes, the billing process automatically calculates and bills the appropriate amounts. The interest calculation basis defined on the financial product associated to the contract computes the revised interest or loan payment amounts.
Before you can execute the variable rate billing process, the following prerequisites apply:
The interest index associated to the contract should be updated.
The interest rate parameters should be defined on the contract.
To process billing for variable rate interest contracts, run the following concurrent programs:
Create Receivables Variable Rate Invoices
Master Program - Process Billable Streams – Contracts
Master Program - Receivables Invoice Transfer
AutoInvoice Master Program
For more information on variable rate in Oracle Lease and Finance Management, see Variable Rate.
The following table describes the Variable Rate billing process.
| Step | Description | Application |
|---|---|---|
| Create Receivables Variable Rate Invoices | The interest or loan payment amounts are computed and the stream elements are created or revised in Oracle Lease and Finance Management. | Oracle Lease and Finance Management |
| Run Master Program - Process Billable Streams - Contracts | This program is used to process the stream elements to create the billing transactions in Oracle Lease and Finance Management. | Oracle Lease and Finance Management |
| Run Master Program - Receivables Invoice Transfer | This program is used to process and transfer Oracle Lease and Finance Management billing transactions to the Oracle Receivables Invoice Interface table. | Oracle Lease and Finance Management |
| Run AutoInvoice Master Program | This program imports the billing information into Oracle Receivables and creates an invoice with invoice lines. | Oracle Receivables |
The Run Create Receivables Variable Rate Invoices concurrent program performs the following tasks:
Identifies contracts set up with variable rates
Identifies if a change in interest occurred
Generates bills at the new interest rate
Run the Create Receivables Variable Rate Invoices concurrent program after entering the following parameters:
Contract Number
As of Date
Deal Type: The values for this parameter are:
Leases and Loans: Direct Finance Lease, Operating Lease, Sales Type Lease and Loan book classifications
Revolving Loans: Loans of Revolving book classification
All: All book classifications
The program is run for contracts only associated with the selected product type. The default value is All.
For more information on this and other concurrent programs, see Concurrent Programs, page B-1.
Equipment lessors often include metered equipment in their asset portfolio. Metered equipment, such as copiers, can be charged on a usage basis during the lease term. Usage Based Billing (UBB) enables equipment lessors to calculate the amounts to bill based on usage of the equipment.
Billing charges for use of equipment is based on counters or meters. Examples of UBB include the number of clicks or sheets used by a copier, the number of miles driven by a vehicle, or the number of hours of use by a machine.
When you author and book a lease contract with a usage service line, Oracle Lease and Finance Management automatically creates a contract in Oracle Service Contracts and links it to the Oracle Lease and Finance Management contract. When you enter meter readings to record usage, Oracle Service Contracts calculates the usage based billing amounts. Then, when you run the Oracle Lease and Finance Management billing processes, Oracle Receivables generates a consolidated usage service invoice.
Before you can use Usage Based Billing in Oracle Lease and Finance Management, you must complete all required set up tasks. For information on set up for UBB, see Oracle Lease and Finance Management Implementation Guide.
The following table describes the UBB billing process.
| Event | Description |
|---|---|
| Author a Contract | Author a contract with UBB as the billing method and create a usage line. |
| Service Contract | Once a Oracle Lease and Finance Management contract is booked, a service contract is automatically created in Oracle Service Contracts Manager. |
| Enter Meter Reading | In Oracle Service Contracts Manager, enter the meter reading. |
| Generate OKS Billing | To generate billing in Oracle Service Contracts Manager, run the OKS: Service Contracts Main Billing concurrent program, which calculates billing and creates transactions in Oracle Service Contracts Manager. |
| Transfer OKL Billing | To transfer the billing data to Oracle Lease and Finance Management, run the OKL: Usage Based Billing concurrent program, which transfers your Oracle Service Contracts Manager data to Oracle Lease and Finance Management and creates transactions. |
| Generate OKL Billing | To generate billing in Oracle Lease and Finance Management, run the following concurrent programs: Master Program - Process Billable Streams – Contracts; Master Program - Receivables Invoice Transfer; Autoinvoice Master Program. |
| View Invoices | To view the new invoices, navigate to Operations > Invoices and enter the contract data. |
| Termination | To terminate the contract you must terminate both the Oracle Lease and Finance Management version and the Service Contracts Manager version. |
| Inquiry | You can view the Meter Reading History and Billing History for a UBB contract in the Lease Center, Customer Self Service, and Vendor Self Service. |
Meter Usage Service consists of billing and collection of the fees for a service based upon usage of output (copies, hours, and so on) or number of units of delivered service (number of hours, number of events). The amount billed, while based on usage, is not for usage, but for the service being provided. The usage is tracked as a basis for calculating the billing amount. The usage is counted, sometimes using a meter, to determine the usage quantity. The values of the pricing sheet are applied to the usage quantity to determine the usage fees to be billed and collected. The pricing sheet may include both an allowance (a minimum usage included in a base price) and an arrange rate (the amount charged per UOM of usage quantity) for any usage quantity amount used in the usage period over and above the allowance provided.
Metered usage service can be combined with metered usage rentals into a bundled usage-based solution wherein all rental and service is billed as a single charge per unit of usage quantity (can include an allowance) and the components of service and rental are separated later and disbursed to the solution providers. The amounts collected for a metered usage service may be retained by the lessor or passed through to the service vendor, depending upon which partner delivers the service to the end user.
A consolidated group is required when the metered usage line is priced to apply rates to the usage quantities for multiple serviced asset meters. You can define a consolidated group separately from a contract. The consolidated group should be setup to a specific customer. For the group, all of the pricing structure (price list values), billing information and a usage schedule should be captured. The pricing and billing information from the consolidated group takes precedence over anything defined on the contract for the usage line.
Once the consolidated group is created, it can be selected, in place of a pricing structure template when creating a usage line. Each serviced usage asset that contributes to the group must be associated with the consolidated group pricing setup. You cannot override pricing information defined in the consolidated group. Each serviced usage asset must have all of the other counter information assigned. Only the pricing structure with the defined pricing tiers and the usage service schedule is derived from the consolidated group.
You can manage consolidated counters during rebook by performing the following actions:
Moving a counter from one group to another group
Moving a counter from a group to a single counter
Moving a single counter to a group
Adding a new counter to a group
Removing a counter from a group by termination
Before any of the counters are moved, you must terminate assets associated to the usage line during rebook by providing an end date for the Termination Date (one day more than the end of usage period). There must be no gaps between the termination date and end of usage billing period. If there are gaps or overlapping dates, an error is displayed. You must correct the termination date before completing the rebook process. For information on terminating assets, see "Terminate Assets Associated to Existing Usage Lines During Rebook" in this chapter.
You can navigate to an existing usage line and associate the asset that was terminated to either a group or single counter. Meter reads entered for that counter are associated to the new group or single counter. When the next billing is run, the counter that was moved is associated to the new group or single counter.
Service only contract lines are those where the assets associated to the metered usage service line are owned by the customer. The assets may have been bought out during a termination in Oracle Lease, or entered as lessee owned asset that the vendor is servicing and pricing based on metered usage. These assets are not financed. Enter them in the Configuration tab during authoring.
The asset cannot have any financing information associated to it directly, such as rental or loan payments, depreciation or tax information (including property taxes). Only the service usage billing amounts are financially relevant, such that the cost of the asset is not included in any pricing calculations or profitability measures, including during termination of the service line.
The serviced asset can be a terminated asset from another contract that was purchased as part of the termination.
The contract may include both owned and financed assets for the purpose of specifying metered usage services.
All asset details required to capture and apply usage quantity and pricing information must be established for the asset, including a vendor and vendor party information, location, serial numbers, and so on.
The meters associated to service-only assets as part of the metered usage service line can be in a consolidated group and use the group pricing.
The billing amounts of the usage line can be passed through to vendors like any other service usage line which is financed.
The billing amounts for service-only assets can be combined with billings from other assets, including financed assets, on the same contract (or across contracts for consolidated billing).
The lines can be terminated as any other service usage line.
For metered usage services, you can change the usage passthrough details and add an asset to an existing usage line when a rebook is activated.
You can create usage lines during rebook. You can also associate assets to the new usage line. For information on creating usage lines and associating assets to the new usage lines, see Set Up Usage Lines.
You can perform the following tasks on the new usage lines:
Adding assets from an existing UBB enabled asset to the usage line.
Removing assets from the new usage line if you do not want to commit an added usage lines and its details. Assets can only be removed before completing the rebook process.
Updating the usage line before activating the rebook. You can update the following attributes in the new usage lines:
Base term and evergreen term
Vendor details
Payout details
Associating assets
The new usage line and its associated information are added when the rebook is activated.
You can update an existing usage line during rebook by clicking the Update button for that existing usage line. On the Update Usage page, you can update the following usage line attributes:
Period
Number of Periods
You can extend the usage line during rebook by increasing the number of periods for the usage line. For example, if the contract's initial term was for 12 months and it has been extended for 18 months, you can extend the usage line by increasing the number of periods for the usage line.
Allowance: This only takes place on next billing
Do Not Bill in Evergreen flag
Once the billing has been processed for the usage line, you cannot change the period and number of periods.
Note: Usage effective from and effective to dates are read-only fields on the usage line. The effective from date will be based on the start date of the usage line or the revision date when the contract is rebooked. The effective to date will be derived based on the usage line periods (or frequency) and the number of periods.
You can terminate an asset associated to a usage line during rebook by providing an end date for the Termination Date. Perform the following steps in the Usage region of the Additional Charges subtab:
Enter the usage search criteria and click Go.
Click the Usage Asset icon for an existing usage line.
Enter an end date for the Termination Date of an associated asset of that usage line.
Click Apply.
Once the rebook process is completed, the status of the associated asset is Terminated. The termination date for the usage line that has been terminated during rebook is displayed.
Note: You can enter meter readings and run the billing for the last few usage periods even after the counter line has been terminated.
Meter readings are captured for metered usage services in order to bill and collect from end user customers. They are collected from a variety of sources with varying levels of automation and capabilities. Meter readings are captured using the following methods:
Automatic upload directly from the meter on a pre defined or requested date, for example, period of usage end date or termination date.
Automatic upload from a service vendor system where readings have been entered (scanned or uploaded) and associated to vendor invoices by the service vendor.
Batch upload through a spreadsheet or common file format (the format should be downloaded, filled in, and uploaded) by a service vendor or end user customer from a common portal. This includes a direct scan from metered equipment into the portal.
Upload from a spreadsheet by an internal user from a submitted vendor file or report.
Manual entry on to a meter reading transaction for a specific asset or meter combination either by a service vendor, customer, or internal user.
The capture of a meter reading includes:
Contract
Customer
Asset (by serial number)
Meter
Date of reading
Usage period of reading
Usage quantity or meter read value: The reading is entered either as a usage quantity, in which case the implicit meter reading value is calculated, or as a meter reading value, in which case the usage quantity is calculated. Usage quantity is calculated by deducting prior reading from the current reading. If there is a credit adjustment due to the maintenance on equipment, this adjustment is deducted from the current reading along with the prior reading. For example, if the current reading is 500, the prior reading is 100, and the credit adjustment is 50, the usage quantity is (current reading minus prior reading) minus credit adjustment, which is (500 minus 100) minus 50, which equals to 350. Prior adjustments are also considered while calculating the usage quantity.
Usage credits: These are units that are not chargeable to the end user customer and associated to some service or maintenance activity performed by the service vendor. These are deducted from the total billable usage quantity.
Initial readings at the counter level: If the initial reading is not defined, then the source will derive the reading from the base reading on the usage based billing page.
You can capture meter reads as follows:
Identify the counter or meter for which the meter reading applies. This can be done manually by searching for a meter and entering the values or providing the identifying information for any meter reading record in a spreadsheet (for upload) or through electronic transmission.
Select the period of usage. This can be more than one if a previous reading was missed, for which the reading applies is selected or specified with the meter reading record if not entered manually.
Enter the reading values and verify them. You may need to view meter history, validation warnings or errors, or calculated values, such as usage quantities and billing amounts and dates if needed, to verify the reading.
Save or submit the reading record. The period of usage is marked appropriately to indicate the reading for the period has been captured. The calculated billing amount becomes eligible for billing on the due date.
You can search for meters for viewing meter reading history or entering a meter reading. From the Search Results list, you can create and enter a new meter read record, open and view the prior meter reading history.
You can enter a meter read manually from the Search Results table or the View Meter History page. If the meter read is incorrect or invalid, you can make the correction based on the error or warning and re-validate or save and submit.
You can import or upload multiple meter readings from a single file. To prepare the upload or import meter readings, you can download a spreadsheet format to enter the meter read data. The meter read must have a corresponding period of usage. You can upload from the following locations:
Vendor Self Service
Operations menu of the seeded OKL menu
Available as a pluggable service for use in a user configured or customized portal
For validation, in addition to the seeded validations that insure consistent and valid data, you can setup defined error or warning conditions and set the warning and error levels. During manual entry, you can request for validations or submit to run the validations. For the upload or service based entry, you can receive errors and warnings report (internal or external user entry) upon request. In addition, you can setup and define the following validations:
Validation short name
Effective From or To Dates
Warning or Error Level
Package or Extension
Read Type
Stream Types
The defined validations are executed for each meter reading entered. If you upload a reading batch, the validations are available as a log file than can be saved and stored locally.
Note: A record can be submitted and recorded with warnings, but not errors.
A missing meter read is defined as any period of usage with no meter reading on its billing due date. For missing meter reads, an estimate or minimum reading is used to generate the billing and is then adjusted when the actual meter reading is available. Otherwise, the period is not billed and when the next meter read is entered, all previous missing periods are billed together with the reported read period.
To enter a meter read for a missing period, select the period of usage for the missing meter read. If the period is not eligible to be adjusted, it is recorded as read only and the appropriate indicator is made on the period of usage. If the actual reading triggers an adjustment, the period is marked for adjustment, and is processed on the next billing due date (or during a termination if it occurs first).
Use the Estimation Method to assign a usage quantity for any period with a missing meter reading on the period's billing date. Capture the usage quantity based on the Estimation Method defined in the terms:
Minimum Quantity: Use the minimum quantity setup in the terms and conditions for the usage line.
Average Quantity: Use the average value of all previous period usage quantities.
Estimated Quantity: Allows you to enter a meter read as an estimate. The actual reading can be updated later.
If the Estimation Method is set as none, estimated usage quantity is not used for billing. Any allowance defined for appropriate pricing structure for the period is accrued to the allowance of the next period. Once a valid actual meter reading is applied to the correct usage period, the period billing amount is recalculated and the billing adjustment is processed. That period of usage is then marked as complete.
Billing for a metered usage service depends on an accurate meter reading and a unit-rate based pricing structure to calculate the correct usage charges. The service contract may also have a flat periodic amount in the billing schedule in addition to any rate based usage charges. The rate based usage must be calculated for the specified period of usage based upon a meter reading at, or close to, the end of the period that determines the usage quantity. Billing must continue for metered usage service lines in the IPR/evergreen term unless the contract line is ineligible for IPR. You can define on the contract line if it is eligible for IPR/evergreen separately from the usage asset or the contract. In such cases, billing must continue for metered usage service lines in the IPR/evergreen term unless the contract is ineligible for IPR.
When the financing contract enters into evergreen status, and the metered usage service line is eligible, the Service Contract is also renewed using the same number of months defined for the base term as the term of the renewed contract. The contract start date defaults to +1 day after the original contract end date. The periods of usage will continue on +1 day after the end of the contract base term and use the same frequency as base term. The last meter read must be entered for the last period of usage of the base term in order for the contract to go into IPR.
Meter reads must be captured for period of usage in the IPR term in order to generate billing charges. Any rate changes specified in the price structure dated on the end date of the contract line or any dates that occur during the IPR period are used to calculate the billing amount when the contract line enters the IPR period. Otherwise, the same rate used in the final period of the base term is used.
Each period of usage that occurs in the IPR term is maintained in the same manner as the base term without terminating the metered usage service line.
Many financiers have multiple business units that provide service as well as financial services and want to use the full functionality of Oracle Service Contracts while consolidating their billing for service and lease. You can author a service contract and link to the lease contract in Oracle Lease and Finance Management and consolidate the service and lease charges on one invoice. After running billing in Oracle Service Contracts and Oracle Lease and Finance Management, Oracle Receivables generates a consolidated invoice on the two contracts.
You must have created a service contract in Oracle Service Contracts, created a lease contract and linked the two in Oracle Lease and Finance Management. You must run the Oracle Service Contracts main billing program after meeting the following prerequisites:
For each service line, an asset line in the lease contract is associated with a covered product inventory item in the corresponding service contract
Both contracts are for the same customer
Both contracts have the same Bill To information
Both contracts have the same contract currency
The date ranges of both contracts must overlap; that is, either all or some of the effective days of one contract must be all or some of the effective days of the other contract
When you author a lease contract and want to consolidate billing from a service contract on the same invoice, create a service contract in Oracle Service Contracts that meets the prerequisites. Then, when you author the lease contract, go to Additional Charges and select the pull-down menu Create Service from Service Contract.
In the Contracts screen you can select Service Contract as the payment type and supplier. Click Apply to link the lease contract to the service contract. When you run the billing for the service in Oracle Service Contracts, the billing charges will not be sent to the Oracle Receivables interface table.
When you run the Service Contracts Billing in Oracle Lease and Finance Management, the service contract billing information is associated with the lease contract. Then, when you run Master Program – Receivables Invoice Transfer in Oracle Lease and Finance Management, the service contract and lease contract billing information are sent together to the Oracle Receivables interface. The consolidated lease and service invoice is generated when you run the Oracle Receivables Master Import Program.
Financiers want the flexibility to initiate billing charges to control policies that discourage late interest and principal payments.
Before you can execute policy based billing processes, you must book contracts with terms and conditions that define the billing parameters.
Late payments may be subject to a late interest charge. The Late Interest policy determines the late interest charges.
For more information, see the Define Late Charges Parameters, Oracle Lease and Finance Management Implementation Guide.
This concurrent program identifies late payments, calculates interest, and generates bills for Oracle Receivables. See Concurrent Programs, B-1.
If a previous invoice still has a balance outstanding, late charges may apply. The Late Charges policy determines the late charges amount. The late charges amount is either a flat fee or a percentage of the total invoices past due, depending upon the setup configuration.
To begin the calculation of the late charges, you must start the Calculate Late Charges concurrent program. This program evaluates all outstanding invoices to identify the invoices past their grace period and where the late charges are not placed on hold for the contract. After the program identifies a delinquent invoice as eligible for late charges, the penalty automatically applies, based on the rules in the late policy.
For more information, see the Define Late Charges Parameters, Oracle Lease and Finance Management Implementation Guide.
This concurrent program identifies past due invoices, calculates late charges, and generates bills for Oracle Receivables. See Concurrent Programs, B-1.
You must have created a late charges policy.
Financiers may want to charge for services or commodities that are not processed automatically. For example, suppose you receive a registration fee related to a contract. As you pay the appropriate vendor for this expense, you may also want to charge the lessee in order to recover your money.
The following table describes the Manual Billing process required to create a manual invoice and recover your expense:
| Step | Description | Application |
|---|---|---|
| Create Manual Invoice Header & Lines | Create a manual invoice with the required billing information. | Oracle Lease and Finance Management |
| Master Program - Receivables Invoice Transfer | This program is used to process and transfer Oracle Lease and Finance Management billing transactions to the Oracle Receivables Invoice Interface table. | Oracle Lease and Finance Management |
| AutoInvoice Master Program | This program imports the billing information into Oracle Receivables and creates an invoice with invoice lines. | Oracle Receivables |
To create a manual invoice header, perform the following steps in the Manual Invoices subtab of the Operations tab:
Navigate to Operations > Manual Invoices
Click Create Manual Invoice.
Select the Operating Unit.
Select the Contract Number for which you are billing ad hoc charges.
Enter the Transaction Number.
Enter the Invoice Date.
Enter the Invoice Amount.
In the Manual Invoice Lines region, enter assets (optional), fee type details, and the amount for each manual invoice line. You can enter multiple invoice lines for a manual invoice.
Select the Fee Type.
Select the Asset Number.
Optionally, enter a Description for the fee.
Enter the Amount for the asset on the invoice line.
If you want to create more manual invoice lines, click Add Another Row, and repeat the previous steps; repeat this for each required manual invoice line.
After you have entered all the manual invoice lines, click Recalculate. After you click the Recalculate button, the Line Amount is displayed in the Grand Total region. The Line Amount displays a total of all the invoice line amounts and must equal to the invoice amount entered on the Manual Invoice header.
Click Apply. After you click Apply, the Manual Invoice is created with the Transaction Number as the Manual Invoice Number.
You can find manual invoices by performing a list search in the Manual Invoices tab of the Operations page. List search is a search tool that helps retrieve information quickly and easily.
Perform the following steps:
Click Show Filters.
Note: You can hide filters by clicking Hide Filters.
Select the objects using the following filters:
Operating Unit (mandatory field)
Transaction Number
Contract Number
Customer Name
Bill To Site
Invoice Date: This field uses a range of date.
Currency
Status: You can select multiple options for this filter.
You can also include additional filters by clicking Add and selecting a filter.
Note: You can remove the additional filters from the search criteria by clicking the remove filter icon next to each added criteria.
Click Go.
The search results are displayed.
You can save searches by performing the following steps:
After selecting filters, click Save.
Perform the following actions in the Create Saved Search region:
Perform the following actions in the Create Saved Search region:
Select the Display in Tile checkbox to display a tile having this search's details in the Manual Invoices tab.
Additional Information: Tiles display the count of search records for the defined search filters. This count can be refreshed by clicking the refresh icon present on each tile. Clicking on a tile will show the filters selected for this saved search.
Select the Set as Default checkbox to make a saved search as the default search.
Click OK.
Even if a saved search is not saved as a tile, it will be displayed in the drop down beside Show Filters/Hide Filters. You can manage saved searches by clicking Manage Saved Search in this drop down.
Note: You can disable list search using the Disable List Search button in Table Diagnostics. After disabling list search, you can find manual invoices by performing either a simple or advanced search.
A simple search on the Manual Invoices tab includes the following parameters:
Operating Unit (mandatory field)
Transaction Number
Contract Number
Customer Name
Bill To Site
Bill Date From
Bill Date To
Currency
Status
An advanced search allows you to expand or refine their search criteria.
Financiers often require deposits or payments from customers to cover fees and services before a contract is activated. You can improve customer service by creating advance receipts against contracts before activation or during the contract life. You create a manual receipt, select the Application Criteria, Advance, select the contract and run the Advance Billing concurrent program. When you run the billing programs, Oracle Lease and Finance Management automatically creates an invoice and applies the receipt.
Receive payment before a contract is activated.
The following table describes the advance billing process.
| Step | Description | Application |
|---|---|---|
| Create Manual Receipt Header & Application Criteria | Create a manual receipt and select the Application Criteria, Advance. | Oracle Lease and Finance Management |
| Advance Billing | Run the Advance Billing concurrent program to apply payments received before the contract is booked and create an invoice to which the payment can be applied. | Oracle Lease and Finance Management |
| Master Program - Receivables Invoice Transfer | This program is used to process and transfer Oracle Lease and Finance Management billing transactions to the Oracle Receivables Invoice Interface table. | Oracle Lease and Finance Management |
| AutoInvoice Master Program | This program imports the billing information into Oracle Receivables and creates an invoice with invoice lines. | Oracle Receivables |
When payments are received before a contract is activated, create a manual receipt in Receipts under the Operations tab. In the Application Criteria, select Advance from the pull-down menu in the Criteria field. Oracle Lease and Finance Management will display a field to enter the Contract Number. The contract can be active.
Run the Advance Billing and Master Program - Receivables Invoice Transfer concurrent programs to transfer the advance billing information to Oracle Receivables that creates an invoice and applies the receipt.
You may be required to reserve receipt amounts of future invoices for a contract, or a contract and stream type. You can create future payment of receipts against contracts. You can reserve receipt amounts fully or partially.
The following table describes the process for creating future payments.
| Step | Description | Application |
| Create manual receipt and select application criteria | Create a manual receipt in Receipts under the Operations tab. In the Application Criteria region of the Create Manual Receipt page, select Future Pay from the drop-down menu in the Criteria field.
Note: You can also update an existing manual receipt to future pay by clicking Update on the Manual Receipt page and selecting the Future Pay checkbox. |
Oracle Lease and Finance Management |
| Run Future Pay Sweep program | Run the Future Pay Sweep concurrent program to apply allocated amounts to invoices of a contract. This program applies the allocation amount based on whether the amount is for a contract, or a contract and stream type. The application of the allocation amount is based on the following criteria:
After this program is run, receipt allocation balances are updated to deduct applied amounts from allocation balances. Amounts allocated in a receipt are automatically placed on-account. Note: When this program is run, the system will check whether the receipt on account balance is less than the total allocated amount. If it is, the receipt number will be reported in the output report. |
Oracle Lease and Finance Management |
| Run Future Pay Reverse Allocation program | Run the Future Pay Reverse Allocation program to check whether any receipt with an allocation balance has been reversed in Oracle Receivables. If a receipt has been reversed, this program automatically cancels any allocations recorded for the receipt. | Oracle Receivables |
The Allocated Amount field in the Update Receipt Allocation page is the sum of allocation line amount and allocation tax amount.
You can remove allocation rows if allocation has not been applied yet.
Financiers require the flexibility to continue billing contracts when the assets continue to be in service after the contract expires. The period after a contract expires without termination and the assets continue to be in service is the evergreen period. Since the contract has expired, contractual billing is discontinued. To continue billing, run Evergreen Billing.
The following table describes the Evergreen billing process.
| Step | Description | Application |
|---|---|---|
| Evergreen Billing | Run the Evergreen Billing concurrent process to apply payments received before the contract is booked and create an invoice to which the payment can be applied. | Oracle Lease and Finance Management |
| Master Program - Receivables Invoice Transfer | This program is used to process and transfer Oracle Lease and Finance Management billing transactions to the Oracle Receivables Invoice Interface table. | Oracle Lease and Finance Management |
| AutoInvoice Master Program | This program imports the billing information into Oracle Receivables and creates an invoice with invoice lines. | Oracle Receivables |
To process billing information, you must have contracts in Expired status that have not been terminated.
On a periodic basis, run the Evergreen Billing and Master Program - Receivables Invoice Transfer concurrent programs to transfer the evergreen billing information to Oracle Receivables that creates an invoice.
When financiers negotiate investor agreements, they define the amount of investment or investor stake. The financier may also want to bill the investor for fees incurred in creating the investor agreement. The investor stake amount and fees are defined in the investor agreement. To bill the investor, run the Investor Agreement concurrent program.
To process billing information, you must have an active investor agreement with a defined stake amount.
The following table describes the Investor Agreement Billing process.
| Step | Description | Application |
|---|---|---|
| Activate Investor Agreement | Author Investor Agreement with stake amount and any fees. | Oracle Lease and Finance Management |
| Master Program – Process Billable Streams – Investor Agreement | When an investor agreement is activated, bill the investor for their stake and fees defined in the agreement. | Oracle Lease and Finance Management |
| Master Program - Receivables Invoice Transfer | This program is used to process and transfer Oracle Lease and Finance Management billing transactions to the Oracle Receivables Invoice Interface table. | Oracle Lease and Finance Management |
| AutoInvoice Master Program | This program imports the billing information into Oracle Receivables and creates an invoice with invoice lines. | Oracle Receivables |
Create an Investor Agreement and add investors to the agreement with their stake amount. Add any fees to be charged to the investor. Activate the investor agreement. For more information on investor agreements in Oracle Lease and Finance Management, see Investor Agreements.
Run the Master Program – Process Billable Streams – Investor Agreement and Master Program - Receivables Invoice Transfer concurrent programs to transfer the evergreen billing information to Oracle Receivables that creates an invoice with invoice lines for the investor stake and fees to be billed to the investor.
Financiers are required to calculate, collect, and remit transaction-based taxes and meet leasing specific tax requirements within multiple applicable jurisdictions. Oracle Lease and Finance Management and Oracle E-Business Tax are integrated to calculate taxes using lease-specific and common tax parameters.
This integration creates a common infrastructure for tax configuration for multiple legal entities, operating units, and tax jurisdictions and increases the flexibility of your infrastructure to define comprehensive sets of tax rules for tax determination requirements. You can reduce duplication of effort and errors using a common repository to maintain tax related records, and reduce clerical effort generating tax reports for reporting to tax authorities.
For information on processing taxes in Oracle Lease and Finance Management, see Taxes.
You can import billing items from a third-party finance company into Oracle Lease and Finance Management. You can import billing files containing charges incurred by the customer that you want to pass through, for example, property taxes, charges for non-sufficient funds, service, and maintenance. After you import billing files, you review them, correct errors, and download them into Oracle Lease and Finance Management tables.
To process billing information, you must have an active investor agreement with a defined stake amount.
You must include third-party billing data in a billing import file. You may include the following basic data fields in your data file:
Contact ID or Asset ID
Customer ID
Customer Address
Type of Charge
Amount
In addition, you can provide other fields, such as vendor, invoice, and source identifiers
To prepare a third-party billing import file, perform the following steps:
In all rows, set the value of the column TRX_STATUS_CODE to "SUBMITTED".
Create a SQL*Loader control file specific for the data file to be imported. This step should be done by a technical consultant with knowledge of SQL*Loader programming language. The control file describes the format of the data file to be imported. SQL*Loader does not validate data.
Run SQL*Loader to load the data file. Running SQL *Loader is a concurrent job that takes two arguments: name of data file and name of control file. This job produces an audit report.
Review the SQL*Loader audit reports. The report indicates the number of records which have been successfully or unsuccessfully loaded from data file into the Oracle interface table. Only data records with wrong format are rejected. That is, records with an invalid customer ID are accepted and loaded into the database. These records are rejected by a validation process in the next step.
Run the concurrent program Third Party Billing Import to pass all records from the billing import interface table to Oracle Lease and Finance Management transaction tables. he process validates data for referential integrity. For example, every record must have an amount, contract ID, and type of charge. Moreover, if optional data is supplied, it is validated. For example, if a vendor ID is provided, it should correspond to an active vendor. Note that all the records that passed the checks in the previous step are loaded into the database. f the data is loaded correctly, the column TRX_STATUS_CODE is set to "PROCESSED". If the concurrent program detects errors, the column TRX_STATUS_CODE is set to "ERROR".
Review the audit and exception reports that the concurrent program Third Party Billing Import generated. All validated records are copied to Oracle Lease and Finance Management transaction tables. Rejected records remain in the interface table. The audit report shows the number of excepted and rejected records. The exception report displays rejected records and corresponding error messages.
If any records are rejected, then fix the invalid records until there are no error records.
Repeat these steps until all records are accepted.
You can drill down to the specific billing transaction lines to obtain more detailed information in Oracle Lease and Finance Management. Transaction summary information appears in three main areas:
Retrieve Transaction Summary Records - View contract number, customer name, invoice, currency, due date, amount, and balance.
View Transaction Line Results - View a breakdown of the lines of the invoice that shows how much was paid and how much is still due for each line of the invoice.
View Transaction Line Details Results - View a breakdown of the streams history within each line of the invoice that shows how much was paid and how much is still due for each stream of each line of the invoice.
The transaction summary process consists of the following steps:
Retrieve Transaction Summary Records
View Transaction Line Results
View Transaction Line Details Results
You can search and retrieve transaction summary records by specifying any or all of the following fields:
Consolidated Invoice Number
Contract Number
Customer Name
The initial results show you the following fields about an invoice:
Contract Number
Customer Name
Invoice - This field is hypertext linked, which allows you to access transaction line information.
Currency
Due Date
Amount
Balance
Details - This is an icon, which allows you access to stream details on each transaction line.
When you click on an invoice in the Transaction Summary results area, the Transaction Lines page appears. This page contains summary information about the invoice in the header, including the Invoice Amount and the Balance. In the Lines section, a breakdown of the lines of the invoice that shows how much was paid and how much is still due for each line of the invoice.
The fields that appear in the Lines region are as follows:
Line Number
Contract Number
Line Name
Invoice Amount - This is the amount for the current line on the invoice, not the total amount of the invoice, which appears in the header.
Tax
Amount Paid
Balance - This is the balance for the current line on the invoice, not the balance of the invoice, which appears in the header.
When you click Details for an invoice in the Transaction Summary results region, the Transaction Line Details page appears. This page contains summary information about the invoice in the header, including the Invoice Amount and the Balance.
In the Streams region of the page is a breakdown of the streams history within each line of the invoice that shows how much was paid and how much is still due for each stream of each line of the invoice. The fields that appear in the Streams region are as follows:
Line Number
Line Name
Stream
AR Invoice
Invoice Amount - This is the amount for the current stream on the invoice line, not the total amount of the invoice, which appears in the header.
Tax
Amount Paid
Balance - This is the balance for the current line on the invoice, not the balance of the invoice, which appears in the header.
Check Number
Receipt Date
Once billing transactions are processed, the charges must be presented to the customer for payment in invoices or statements of account. When invoices clearly present charges, they are easy to understand to meet the needs of both the customer and the financier.
Customers often request clear presentment of billing to make their payable process easier to pay promptly and correctly. Financiers may want to minimize invoice volume while building better customer relationships and winning repeat business through management of their invoices. The following examples describe invoice options.
Invoice Format – display invoice information at the level of detail to meet customer requirements. For example, a customer may want invoice detail to match their purchase order or to be notified with an invoice message when certain events occur.
Invoice Format – display invoice information at the level of detail to meet customer requirements. For example, a customer may want invoice detail to match their purchase order or to be notified with an invoice message when certain events occur.
Invoice Grouping – group invoices or charges on invoices into the desired level of detail. For example, a customer may want charges to be grouped into one invoice line by customer cost center; a customer may have contracts with numerous assets and want rent charges to be grouped into one invoice line; a customer may want an invoice for each contract that lists each charge in detail.
Print Lead Days – the number of days before the due date the invoice should be submitted. Customers may want to receive invoices early in the month; others may want to receive invoices later in the month.
Invoice Format – merge charges and bill them as a single invoice line. For instance, a financier may want to present rent and service charges in one invoice line formatted as rent.
Invoice Format – merge charges and bill them as a single invoice line. For instance, a financier may want to present rent and service charges in one invoice line formatted as rent.
Invoice Grouping
Invoice Message
Creating invoices for lease and loan contracts includes the following tasks:
Determine the amount and date to send the invoice
Group charges into invoice lines on an invoice
Calculate taxes
Generate a receivable record in the system
Account for the billing transaction in the general ledger
Format and print invoice messages
Determine the media to dispatch the invoice
To complete these tasks, generate billing data through a combination of processes and concurrent programs in Oracle Lease and Finance Management and other Oracle applications.
The billing process also creates disbursements, when required, to passthrough billing charges from customers to vendors for services or from customers to investors for investment returns.
To create invoices, you must complete the following setups:
Set Up Billing in Oracle Receivables
Define Invoice Grouping Rules and Accounting
Run the Oracle Lease and Finance Management Pre-Billing Report
When you setup billing in Oracle Receivables for each customer that you want to invoice, you must enable consolidated billing for lease and loan contracts in Oracle Receivables. To setup billing in Oracle Receivables, see the Oracle Receivables Implementation Guide.
Oracle Receivables is seeded with the default OKL INVOICE grouping rule to group Oracle Lease and Finance Management billing transactions using the following parameters: Invoice Group Type, Private Label, OKL Billing Transaction Number, Contract ID, Source of Billing Transaction and Invoice Format Type. You can configure Invoice Groups in Oracle Lease and Finance Management if the seeded grouping rule in Oracle Receivables does not meet your requirements.
Before you run concurrent programs to generate billing data, run the Oracle Lease and Finance Management Pre-Billing Report to identify potential errors or incomplete and missing billing information that will prevent the billing programs from completing successfully. The Pre-Billing Report identifies errors in billing information that are difficult to correct once the billable streams are processed in Oracle Lease and Finance Management and transferred to Oracle Receivables. The Pre-Billing Report identifies the contracts for which errors can occur due to disabled bank accounts, disabled receipt methods, incorrect bill-to-site, inaccurate sales representative, and invalid GL code combinations.
Prerequisites to generate billing data are defined in the Billing Transactions prerequisites sections.
The objective of the Create Invoices process is to generate billing information in Oracle Lease and Finance Management and pass the information to Oracle Receivables in order to generate an invoice. There are two main stages in the process: the billing information preparation stage and the invoice generation stage. In the billing information preparation stage, you perform one or more of the following sets of billing tasks:
Billing Information Preparation
Invoice Generation
In the billing information preparation stage, you perform one or more of the following sets of billing tasks:
Enter billing charges manually in the Create Manual Invoice page to bill ad hoc charges
Run the program Pre-Billing Report to identify and correct incomplete or missing billing information that will prevent the billing processes from completing successfully
Run the program Master Program - Process Billable Streams - Contracts to process contractual billing information
Run the program Master Program - Process Billable Streams – Investor Agreement to process investor stake and fees
Run the program Create Receivables Variable Rate Invoice to process billing information for variable rate invoices
Run the program Advance Billing to process billing information for advance receipts
Run the program Evergreen Billing to process billing information for expired contracts that have not been terminated
Run the program Service Contracts Billing to process Oracle Service Contracts billing information for consolidated lease and service invoices
Enter counter readings in Oracle Lease and Finance Management and run the program Usage Based Billing to process usage billing
Run the program Calculate Late Interest to process charges for late interest payments
Run the program Calculate Late Charges to process late charges
Import and correct Billing File using SQL*Loader, then run the program Third Party Billing Import
After the billing preparation stage, you must run the following programs in the invoice generation stage:
Master Program - Receivables Invoice Transfer
AutoInvoice Master Program (this is an Oracle Receivables program)
Print Consolidated Invoices (if you want the invoices to use the invoice formats setup in Oracle Lease and Finance Management)
If you require passthrough or syndication disbursements to vendors, investors, or suppliers, Oracle Lease and Finance Management sends the required data for invoice approval and payments to Oracle Payables. See Disbursements Overview.
Important: Passthrough billing for services created in Oracle Service Contracts is not possible. The receipt of payments process is a combination of Oracle Lease and Finance Management and Oracle Receivables procedures. When you receive payments and electronic transfers, receipts apply to invoices. Late payments and delinquent invoices result in billing items. The diagram, Procedures to Generate Receipts Data, in Receipt of Payments, Oracle Lease and Finance Management User's Guide, describes the concurrent programs and processes of Oracle Lease and Finance Management for generating receipts data.
The procedures to generate billing and disbursement data call the accounting engine for each transaction created, and automatically create the accounting entries defined in your accounting templates. Oracle Receivables accounts for the receipts procedures.
Financiers want to speed collections and customer inquiry response by presenting bills in formats that meet your business requirements and customer needs. You can create multi-line receivable invoices from Oracle Lease and Finance Management and use invoice grouping rules to present invoices that are clear to understand by your customers.
For example, if a customer wants to receive one invoice from your global operations, you have the flexibility to create billing charges from your multiple business units and consolidate charges for rent, fees, and services in one invoice.
To reduce the number of invoices processed, you can group invoices from multiple customer accounts into a single customer invoice.
And if a customer wants to track invoice details for each contract, you can list all charges as separate lines associated with the same contract. Then print and view individual or consolidated invoices in Oracle Lease and Finance Management.
Oracle Receivables is seeded with the default OKL INVOICE grouping rule to group Oracle Lease and Finance Management billing transactions using the following parameters:
Invoice Group Type
Private Label
Oracle Lease and Finance Management Billing Transaction Number
Contact ID
Source of Billing Transaction
Invoice Format Type
You can also configure Invoice Groups in Oracle Lease and Finance Management if the seeded grouping rule in Oracle Receivables does not meet your requirements.
If the seeded grouping rule in Oracle Receivables does not meet your requirements, you can define an Invoice Group in Oracle Lease and Finance Management by performing the following tasks:
Create Invoice Grouping Rule
Define Invoice Types
Define Invoice Line Types
Associate Stream Types to Invoice Line Type
Associate Billing Information to Invoice Customer Account
Consolidate Billable Amounts into a Single Invoice
To create an Invoice Group in Oracle Lease and Finance Management, go to Setups > Receivables > Invoice Groups. Give the Invoice Group a name and description and assign it to an Operating Unit.
If you want to group invoices billed on multiple contracts with the same billing terms, you can check the Multi-Contract Invoice box. In this example, do not check the Multi-Contract Invoice box because the scenario does not require invoice grouping across multiple contracts.
The Invoice Types define separate invoices. For example we can create two invoices, one for Rent and one for Fees. In this example, the Rent Invoice Type could include invoice lines for rent and property tax streams and the Fees Invoice Type could include invoice lines for installation, legal, and vendor fees.
Create an Invoice Line Type for each Invoice Type to define invoice lines. For example, create invoice lines for rent and property tax. At this point, we have named the invoice lines. To generate billing charges on the invoice line, click Streams (I) to associate streams with the Invoice Line Type.
After completing the previous steps, select the rent streams to be associated with the Invoice Line Type, for example, Rent. When this Invoice Group is associated with a contract and you run billing processes, the rent streams associated this Invoice Line Type, Asset Rent, will be added and the total displayed as an invoice line on the Rent invoice.
The invoice contact information is based on the Bill To role associated with the invoice customer account. To derive the contact information from a different Bill To role, you must update the Billing To Contact Override system option in the Billing Options region of the Operational Options page.
To update the Billing To Contact Override system option, perform the following steps in the Operational Options page:
Click Update.
In the Billing Groups Contact Override system option of the Billing Group Options region, select the appropriate value from the list of values for Billing To Contact Override.
Click Apply.
Consolidating billable amounts into a single invoice is important because it provides simplified invoices that are easy to track and process. Lessors can consolidate all contract charges independent of the following factors:
Revenue Recognition Method
Amounts that are contractually scheduled
Amounts that are ad-hoc charges incurred during the life of contract
Date assignment for unscheduled invoices aligns the unscheduled invoice date with the rent due date. It ensures that the billable amounts can be presented in a single invoice. This consolidates the charges with rent and presents in the same invoice.
You can enable date assignment for unscheduled invoice sources by using the following system options in the Consolidation Options region of the Operational Options page in the Setup tab:
Manual Invoices
Insurance Payments
Late Interest
Late Charges
To enable date assignment for unscheduled invoice sources, perform the following steps in the Operational Options page:
Click Update.
From Consolidation Options in the Billing Options region, select the appropriate unscheduled invoice checkboxes to align their due dates with rent.
Note: You can define the number of tolerance days in the Alignment Tolerance Days system option.
Click Apply.
To process date assignment, you must assign the Waiting for Consolidation status to the unscheduled invoices you have created.
If the next rent due date is within the number of tolerance days defined in the system option, the invoice waiting for consolidation is created based on the next rent due date.
If the next rent due date is beyond the number of tolerance days defined in the system option, the invoice waiting for consolidation is created based on the system date when it was created.
Complete the date assignment process by running the Assign Due Dates for Invoices concurrent program.
Lessors require consolidating billable charges in the same invoice regardless of their accounting revenue recognition method. Lessors can do this by using the Non Contingent Cash Basis Revenue Recognition Basis.
If lessors need to consolidate invoices with non accrual revenue recognition method with invoices with accrual revenue recognition, they must select the Non Contingent Cash Basis Revenue Recognition Basis in the stream type setup of the non accrual billable stream.
Note: The Sub-Ledger Accounting (SLA) source Stream Revenue Recognition Basis is required to configure cash basis accounting for Non Contingent Cash Basis streams.
Not only are billing details important to customers, and third parties, including collection agents and vendors, but they are vital to internal departments responsible for accounting, customer service, cash management, collections, vendor relationships and investor relationships. Clear and accurate billing information provides critical information to help employees meet their responsibilities to:
Ascertain outstanding balances by customer, account, contract and charge
Respond to customer queries
Apply cash receipts
Initiate collection at the appropriate time and make quality decisions
Disburse dues to vendors accurately on time
Disburse dues to investors accurately on time
Waive dues with confidence
Reverse and write-off uncollectible amounts
Oracle Bill Presentment Architecture (BPA) enables you to view a copy of the invoice as presented to the customer.
You can view BPA invoices by navigating to Operations > Invoices, entering your search criteria, and selecting the invoice you want to view. Click Display Invoice after you have selected your invoice.
When configuring your BFA Template Assignment Rules in Oracle Bill Presentment Architecture, you can select Oracle Lease and Finance Management attributes to be evaluated in the automatic invoice template selection process. Then when you create your BFA Invoice Formats, you can select the same attributes to be displayed in the invoice.
The following Oracle Lease and Finance Management attributes can be selected:
Invoice Grouping Rule
Invoice Type Name
Termination Quote Number
OKL Source Billing Transaction
Private Label
For more information on BFA setup, see the Oracle Bill Presentment Architecture User's Guide.
An invoice for metered usage may need adjustment due to an incorrect meter read entry or incorrect price. You can generate a manual invoice for usage adjustments, and disburse the correct invoice amounts based on the defined Passthough terms. You can adjust the invoice amount for usage in Base term and Evergreen. If Passthough terms are defined for the usage, the disbursement percent and processing fee percent is applied to the manual invoice based on the corrected usage amount.