Understanding the Billing Process Flow

Costs are subject to transaction and contract line-level limits. Transaction limits, which the system applies before contract line level limits, are based on limits that you establish by contract line and transaction identifier and comprise combinations of transaction sources, categories, and subcategories.

The system applies the transaction and contract line limits against corresponding direct and indirect cost transactions. The system creates billable transactions (rows with an analysis type of BIL) for cost transactions that completely pass limit checking or over-the-limit transactions (rows with an analysis type of OLT) for transactions that exceed applicable limits. If the Separate Billing and Revenue option on the Installation Options - Contracts page is selected, the system creates revenue transactions (rows with an analysis type of REV) for cost transactions for cost-plus contract lines that completely pass limit checking, or over-the-revenue-limit transactions (rows with an analysis type of ROL) for transactions that exceed applicable limits. The system splits cost transactions into separate billing and revenue and over-the-limit transactions in the amount of the remaining limit and excess, respectively, if the Split to Match Limit Exactly option on the Installation Options - Contracts page is selected. The system excludes OLT and ROL rows from billing and revenue processing.

The Pricing Application Engine process (PC_PRICING) calls limit processing, which examines each Project Transaction table row that represents a contract line for which you have enabled bill limits. Additionally, you can run the Limits Application Engine process (CA_LIMIT) as a standalone process and select specific run control criteria to apply limits to specific contracts, recalculate limit amounts when totals are changed, or apply limits to billing and revenue transactions.

If a discount amount exists for a project, the transaction row amount is decreased by the discount amount prior to comparing the transaction row against the limit. Discounts do not apply to government contracts.

See Understanding the Contracts Billing Process.

Run the Contracts-Billing Interface Application Engine process, also called the Billing Engine, in PeopleSoft Contracts for the appropriate billing methods to send Contracts-related and Project Costing-related billing activity to PeopleSoft Billing.

This process selects transaction rows (for rate-based billing methods) or billing plan lines (for fixed-amount billing methods) that are marked in PeopleSoft Contracts as ready to bill, and creates bill rows in the PeopleSoft Billing Interface tables (INTFC_BI and its related tables). After the Contracts-Billing Interface process stages billing data in these tables, the Billing Interface Application Engine process creates bills.

See the Running the Contracts Billing Interface Process and Understanding the Contracts Billing Process.

The Billing Interface process can create two types of bills from the Contracts-Billing Interface process activity—temporary bills and real bills. You deselect or select the Pre Approved option to create temporary or real bills for individual billing plans on the Billing Plan - Billing Plan General page in PeopleSoft Contracts.

When interfacing billing data, the system checks for billing plans that are associated with the bill rows to determine whether they are designated as pre-approved. The system creates real bills for bill rows that are associated with pre-approved billing plans. Real bills become invoices that are sent to the customer.

The system creates temporary bills for bill rows that are not associated with pre-approved billing plans. Temporary bills are routed to the billing worksheet, where you can review and, for rate-based bills, approve or delete the entire worksheet, or bill, defer, delete, or write-off a bill line based on your review. Temporary bills or billing worksheets are grouped by invoice and display applicable tax information.

The system updates the Project Transaction Temporary Billing table (PROJ_RES_TMP_BI) when you approve a billing worksheet with bill options of defer, over-the-limit, and write-off, because none of these actions results in creating a bill for the customer. The data exits the staging table when the Billing to Project Costing process (PC_BI_TO_PC) runs and successfully moves the data from the staging table to the Project Transaction table.

When you approve a billing worksheet, the system:

• Creates a real bill with an assigned invoice number for the approved worksheet.

• Updates the Project Costing Distribution Status field value (PC_DISTRIB_STATUS) on the Bill Header table (BI_HDR) to I (ignore) to prevent the temporary bill from reappearing on the billing worksheet.

• Updates the Contracts Prepaid table (CA_PREPAID_TBL) for all of the deleted rows that have a line type of UTL (utilization).

  The system adds the line's original amount (prior to any billing worksheet changes) back to the committed amount.

• For rate-based bill rows, updates the Project Transaction table, by way of the Project Transaction Temporary Billing table, for any rows with an analysis type of DEF (defer), WTO (write off), DEL (delete), or OLT (over the limit), that do not have a line type of UTL.

• For fixed-amount bill rows, updates the Cross-reference Status field value (XREF_STATUS) to ACP (accepted) in the Contracts-Billing Cross-reference table for all of the lines that originated in PeopleSoft Contracts.

  Note: The system inserts rate-based bill rows into the Contracts-Billing Cross-reference table after the invoice is finalized.

When you delete a billing worksheet, the system:

• For rate-based bill rows, resets the Billing Distribution Status field (BI_DISTRIB_STATUS) in PeopleSoft Project Costing to P (priced) for all of the lines that originate in the Project Costing system with a line type other than UTL. This enables you to send each line to PeopleSoft Billing again at a later time.

• Updates the Contracts Prepaid table (CA_PREPAID_TBL) for any lines that originate from PeopleSoft Project Costing with a line type of UTL.

  The system resets the committed amount on the Contracts Prepaid table to the deleted amount of a utilization bill line and the utilization amount that is available for future billing activities.

For fixed-amount bill rows, the system changes the Billing Plan Event Status field value to RCL (recycled) if one or more of the billing plan lines associated with the event is canceled in the billing worksheet.

Individual billing plan lines are processed if an event is marked as recycled and the billing plan line is canceled in the Contracts-Billing Cross-reference table. The Cross-reference Status field value is updated to DEL in the Contracts-Billing Cross-reference table. PeopleSoft Billing is able to process these types of rows differently because of the System Source field value (SYSTEM_SOURCE)—PBI (Project Costing to Billing Interface) for rate-based rows that originate in PeopleSoft Project Costing and CBI (Contracts to Billing Interface) for rows that originate in PeopleSoft Contracts.

Run the Billing Finalization process on the real bills that you created. The Billing Finalization process:

• Calculates taxes.

• Sets the invoice date.

• Calculates the due date for real bills.

Billing Currency Conversion process (BICURCNV) must be run prior to running the Billing to Project Costing/Contracts Interface process (BIPCC000) to ensure that correct conversion rates are sent to project costing/contracts. For more information on Billing Currency Conversion process, see Running the Currency Conversion Process (BICURCNV).

Run the Project Costing-Contracts Interface process after you run the Billing Finalization process. The Project Costing-Contracts process updates the Contracts-Billing Cross-reference table and the Project Transaction table with the finalized bill information from PeopleSoft Billing.

All rate-based rows and their associated discounts and retainages are written to the Project Transaction Temporary Billing table. The process includes rows with these analysis types:

• Billing adjustment (BAJ)

• Billable amount (BIL)

• Billing retainage (BRT)

• Billing discount (DSC)

• Released retainage adjustment (RAJ)

• Released billing retainage (RRT)

The Contracts-Billing Interface process inserts fixed-amount bill rows into the Contracts-Billing Cross-reference table. This is because fixed-amount rows are not modifiable; you can only accept or delete them. The system updates the bill row status throughout the Billing Interface process, worksheet cancellation or acceptance, and the Billing Finalization process. Fixed-amount rows that specify a project are sent to PeopleSoft Project Costing with an analysis type of FBD (fixed cost billed amount).

The Running the Billing to Project Costing/Contracts Interface Process (BIPCC000) topic discusses the fields that the Billing Finalization process updates in PeopleSoft Contracts.

Run the Billing to Project Costing process for rate-based contract lines to update the Project Transaction table with results from PeopleSoft Contracts and PeopleSoft Billing processes, including adjustments, discounts, retainages, withholdings, and so forth.

PeopleSoft Billing processes write bill rows to the Project Transaction Temporary Billing table. The Billing to Project Costing process moves the rows from the Project Transaction Temporary Billing table to the Project Transaction table, either in the form of updates to existing rows or as new inserted rows. The process uses the PSBLD (Billing to Projects) analysis group to determine which rows to process and how to process the rows coming from PeopleSoft Billing.

This table lists how transactions are handled:

You can determine billed and unbilled amounts by appropriately grouping analysis types within the Project Transaction table. Analysis types and analysis groups can be user-defined. PeopleSoft delivers these sample analysis groups that contain analysis types for billed and unbilled amounts:

On the source transaction row, the system updates the billing distribution status to:

• P (priced) when the row is priced.

• D (distributed) when the row is successfully billed.

On the target row, the system updates the billing distribution status to:

• W (billing worksheet) while the row is in the billing process or in the worksheet.

• P when it is created from the Pricing Engine.

• W when PeopleSoft Contracts selects it for billing.

• D when the row is successfully billed.