Understanding Invoicing Processes

PeopleSoft Billing generates invoices from the data stored in the Billing tables when an invoicing job is run. The components of an invoicing job can include AE, SQR, and BI Publisher processes, as well as subjobs. You can configure the invoicing jobs so that all the processes needed to generate an invoice are part of a single job, or you can use separate jobs to divide the invoicing process into logical steps. Likewise, you can configure a single job to generate all types of invoice forms or you can use different jobs for different types of invoice forms.

The typical steps required to generate an invoice are:

• Complete the preprocessing steps:

  • Import billing data through the Billing interface.

  • Set value-added tax (VAT) and tax defaults.

  • Finalize invoice data and set status.

• Extract invoice data and complete the print processing steps:

  • Extract data to temporary tables.

  • Run print processes for each invoice form.

• Complete physical printing, email notification, and electronic data interchange (EDI) transmittal.

• Complete the post-processing steps:

  • Process credit card payments.

  • Convert currency (if needed).

  • Create accounting entries.

When configuring invoice jobs, you must maintain the proper processing order. The processes and subjobs within a job can be configured to run in series or in parallel. In general, pre- and post-process steps must be run in series, while the processes that print the different types of invoice can be run in parallel.

Before invoices can be printed, the billing data must be imported (for Interface bills), validated, and finalized.

This table lists the processes, in alphabetical order, used to prepare billing data for invoicing:

The print processes consist of the data extract process, which copies bill data to temporary extract tables and print processes for generating each type of invoice. There are three types of print processes, which are SQR and BI Publisher reports. Each printing process selects bills from the extract tables that meet the requirements for the type of invoice it generates.

The delivered SQR programs combine invoice selection, layout, and formatting in a single, modular program. Most of the SQR programs can generate several forms of invoice within a given layout; however, separate SQR programs are used for consolidated versus nonconsolidated invoices, portrait versus landscape invoices, and summarized versus detailed invoices. Thus one SQR program prints consolidated, portrait, and detailed invoices, while another prints consolidated, landscape, and detailed invoices. Not every combination is available in the delivered SQR programs. For example, summarized invoices are only provided in landscape format.

BI Publisher invoices have two parts:

• An Application Engine program which selects the invoices to process.

• Report definitions, or templates, which define the format and the layout of the invoice

The print processes and queries can be modified to produce tailored invoice forms.

See Understanding Invoice Programming.

This table lists the print process options:

PeopleSoft Billing supports two ways of paperless invoicing, Email Notification and Email invoice as attachment. You can specify the type to use on the invoice media field of the invoice.

The BIIVCEMAIL Email Notification process sends an email to billed customers for invoices that were finalized with an Invoice Media setting of Email Notification. You must have the eBill Payment product installed in order to choose this option. The process can be run independently from its own run control page, or it can be incorporated into one or more of the invoicing jobs. If incorporated, the Email Notification process must follow the BIIVC000 finalization process. This process will send an email to the billing contact on the bill. The email will contain a link to the eBill Payment application. When the customer clicks the link, they will be directed to the eBill Payment log in screen. Once logged in, the customer will be able to view and pay the invoice.

Alternatively, you can choose the Email invoice as attachment feature to accomplish paperless invoicing. The BI_XMLPBURST process sends an email to the customer with the invoice attached as a PDF. This feature is available only for BI Publisher invoices. The Review Email Invoice Log component can be used to review the processing results of the email attempts.

During the invoice print processing, the system can generate an image of the formatted invoice for permanent storage. The image that is generated is in a PDF file format and is automatically attached to the bill header. The image is viewable from the Bill Summary or Supporting Documentation components. If the eBill Payment product is installed, the image can also be viewed by your customers from the self-service Bill Summary page.

The invoice image is produced by the BI_XMLPBURST program when the invoice is finalized. An image is not retained when a pro forma or a reprint is run for the invoice. This feature is available only for invoices that specify a BI Publisher invoice format. This feature is not available for invoices marked for the following Invoice Media delivery options: Invoice Notification, EDI and Federal Highway File because a formatted invoice is not produced for these media types.

The PeopleSoft Billing system is able to achieve batch emailing of invoices and retaining invoice images via the bursting feature of BI Publisher. During the Finalize and Print processing of invoices, the BI_XMLPBURST program is run which will generate a PDF file which contains multiple invoices, and break it up into smaller PDF files of one file per invoice. This means that for each distinct invoice, a separate PDF file will be generated.

The name of the PDF will be a concatenation of Business Unit, Invoice and sequence number. These bursted files are stored in a temporary working directory which is deleted once the processing completes. For Windows, the working directory is specified in the TMP environment variable of the process scheduler. For UNIX environments, the working directory is specified in the PS_FILEDIR environment variable.

The burst program will loop through each bursted file and either email the PDF file, attach the PDF file or both depending on your system settings. If the invoice file is to be emailed, then a row is inserted into an email log table to track the email attempt and the results.

After you generate a set of invoices, several processes can be run to create accounting entries.

This table lists the Billing post-invoice processes in alphabetical order: