Understanding the Billing Interface Process (BIIF0001)
PeopleSoft Billing enables you to enter bills online or to import billing activity through the Billing Interface from external billing sources, such as Order Management or Project Costing. PeopleSoft uses online bill entry primarily for low-volume and miscellaneous billings. The majority of bills that PeopleSoft Billing creates come from the Billing Interface.
The Billing Interface is a staging area for all billing activity from external sources. Understanding the Billing Interface Structure topics provides detailed information about the components of the Billing Interface process and maintenance instructions. Billing Interface setup topics provide technical information that you need to set up the Billing Interface, including how to populate the staging area to successfully process interface activity.
Billing activity from external sources populates the following tables: INTFC_BI, INTFC_BI_AEDS, INTFC_BI2, INTFC_BI_TAX, INTFC_BI_EXSD, INTFC_BI_NOTE, and INTFC_BI_HDR, which are referred to as the interface staging area. For the data in this staging area, the Billing Interface process:
Validates the data by verifying its integrity and compliance with PeopleSoft Billing business rules.
Pre-populates InterUnit control, customer, bill source, bill type, and Billing business unit data.
Populates the following fields with default values.
Note: The Billing Interface process does not apply default values for all VAT-related fields. The process performs a partial VAT defaulting process to correctly group invoice lines with VAT information when creating invoices.
To apply a full range of VAT default values, access the Apply VAT Defaults - Run VAT Defaults page, where you can run the BIPVAT00 application engine process.
VAT Treatment Group.
Ship From Country.
Ship To Country.
VAT Registration Country of the buyer.
VAT Registration Country of the seller.
Note: VAT Treatment Group, Ship From Country, Ship To Country, Buyer's VAT Registration Country, and Seller's VAT Registration Country fields are treated as implicit bill-by fields; you do not need to add them to any bill-by definition that is be used by VAT transactions.
Establishes whether to add the Billing Interface activity to an existing bill or to a new bill.
Note: You can control this or let the interface decide.
Converts the billing activity in the staging area into a bill structure.
Processes adjustments.
Pre-populates the ChartField data if a distribution code is provided.
Staging Area Data
Billing activity in the interface staging area is always in one of the following states:
Term |
Definition |
|---|---|
NEW |
The staging area has been populated, but you did not run the Billing Interface process for the billing activity. A blank load status can also indicate that the system has not processed the activity. |
ERR |
The staging area has been populated and you ran the Billing Interface process; however, the Billing Interface process encountered validation errors (for example, an invalid or nonexistent customer number was recorded in the staging area). |
DON |
The staging area has been populated and you ran the Billing Interface process successfully, loading the billing activity into a structured bill format. Activity in this state is automatically moved to the archive tables. |
UPD |
The Billing Interface process is actively processing this billing activity. |
Billing Interface Transaction Components
PeopleSoft Billing provides four components, which give different views of billing activity in the staging area. Each component has six pages, and each page displays data (if present) from the corresponding interface staging table. If data is not present, the pages are hidden. The component you use depends on the activity status.
Term |
Definition |
|---|---|
Correct Interface Errors |
Review interface activity with a status of ERR. Correct error fields here. |
Update Pending Transactions |
Review interface activity with statuses of NEW and ERR. Update error fields here. |
Review Pending Transactions |
Review interface activity with statuses of NEW and ERR. This page is read-only. |
Review Interface - Completions |
Review interface activity with a status of DON. This page is read-only. |
All four components display almost the same fields. Small differences exist because of changes in the activity status. For example, an activity in error has an ERR status, while a completed activity has an invoice number and a line sequence number.
Correcting Billing Interface Transaction Errors
When transactions fail during the load process into the PeopleSoft Billing system, the system marks them with a load status error and an error status number. The transactions remain in the staging area until you correct the errors.
To correct Billing Interface transaction errors:
Define search parameters to locate Billing Interface transactions in error.
Display the data for interface transactions in error on the Applicable Interface Errors page and correct any errors.
Interface transactions in error are marked with an error number and a short message. If you locate a transaction with a LoadStatus ERR but with no associated short message on a page, it indicates that a related record was located and no correction is required on this page. Make the correction after you locate an error number and an associated short message. Refer to the Billing Interface Errors table for error conditions and explanations.