Creating Billing Schedules

Using the Advanced Billing feature, you can create billing schedules to apply to items and to sales. Billing schedules define the schedule of billing sales over a range of time or a contract term. They manage the billing process by tracking when to invoice customers and how much to bill. For example, you can bill monthly for the sale of a one-year membership or bill quarterly for a three-year service contract.

You create billing schedules by defining these characteristics of the schedule:

Initial Amount – the amount of the first billing instance (This can be a currency amount or a percentage of the sale total if you use line-level billing schedules, but you can only use percentage initial amounts if you apply billing schedules on the transaction level.)
Type – the type of billing schedule to use. If you select either the Time and Materials or the Charged-Based billing schedule type, the Initial Amount field does not display. If you are creating a billing schedule you want to apply to a transaction subtotal, this field must be set to Standard
Initial Payment Terms – payment requirements applied to the first billing instance
Recurrence Frequency – the frequency for billings to repeat, such as daily, weekly, quarterly, every four months, or monthly. If you are creating a billing schedule you want to apply to a transaction subtotal, this field must be set to Custom
Repeat Every – how often recurring invoices are generated. The Repeat Every field is related to the Recurrence Frequency field. If Monthly is selected for the Recurrence Frequency, the Repeat Every field changes to Monthly.
Recurrence Count – the number of bills that are created after the initial billing
In Arrears – bills at the end of each period, instead of the beginning
Recurrence Payment Terms – payment requirements applied to billings subsequent to the first

You can set up a billing schedule for each type of sale that incorporates the appropriate billing procedures. For example, you can create a billing schedule that defines the initial billing amount at 50% of the sale total with a recurrence frequency of monthly and a recurrence count of two. If you apply this billing schedule to a service contract sales order that totals $1,000.00, the sales order will be billed as below:

Initial invoice for 50% of the sale = $500.00
Second invoice one month later for 25% of the sale = $250.00
Third invoice one month after the second invoice for 25% of the sale = $250.00

Note:

The final installment of a billing schedule is calculated differently as compared to the rest of the installments. The final installment in a billing schedule is calculated as:

Final installment = Total amount - (sum of all other installments and initial amount)

If you want to apply a billing schedule to a subtotal, set the Type field to Standard, set the Recurrence Frequency field to Custom, and check the Apply to Subtotal box.

To create a billing schedule:

Go to Lists > Accounting > Billing Schedules > New.
In the Name field, enter a name for this schedule.

For example, you might name the schedule from the example above 50% down, 2 monthly.
In the Initial Amount field, enter the amount that is billed on the first invoice created from the sales order. You can enter this amount as a currency amount or as a percentage. (This can be a currency amount or a percentage of the sale total if you use line-level billing schedules, but you can only use percentage initial amounts if you apply billing schedules on the transaction level.)
In the Initial Payment Terms field, select the terms to be used on the first invoice to be created from the sales order.

To add new payment terms, go to Setup > Accounting > Setup Tasks > Accounting Lists > New > Term > New > Term > New.
In the Recurrence Frequency field, select the frequency for bills to recur.

Select Custom to create a new frequency or to create a billing schedule you want to apply to the subtotal of a transaction:
- Enter information in the fields in the middle of the page to define the frequency.
  1. In the Count field, enter the number of units of time to calculate a billing date.
    
    For example, enter 12 to bill twelve months from the initial bill.
  2. In the Units field, enter the units of time to calculate a billing date.
    
    For example, select Months to bill twelve months from the initial bill.
  3. Billing frequency defaults to be relative to the date of the initial invoice. If you prefer, the date of subsequent bills can be related to the date of the previous bill, not the date of the initial invoice, using the Relative to Previous box.
    
    Check the Relative to Previous box if the frequency is relative to the most previous billing instead of relative to the transaction date.
    
    On the first bill line, this box has no effect since the first bill is always relative to the initial bill. On subsequent bill lines, checking or clearing this box affects the Date of the bill.
    
    For example, the initial invoice for a sales order is created on 01/01/2007:
    
    The first line in the bill schedule has a Count and Units of 1 Month. This bill will be created on 02/01/2007.
    
    The second line in the bill schedule has a Count and Units of 2 Months. If Relative to Previous is checked, this bill is scheduled for 2 months after the previous line, or 04/01/2007. If Relative to Previous is cleared, this bill is scheduled for 2 months after the initial bill, or 03/01/2007.
    
    When you check the Relative to Previous box, the date of that billing appears in the Example field.
  4. In the Amount field, enter the amount to be billed. This can be a currency amount or a percentage of the sale total if you use line-level billing schedules, but you can only use percentage initial amounts if you apply billing schedules on the transaction level.
If you selected a Recurrence Frequency other than custom, enter a Recurrence Count. This defines the number of invoices or cash sales generated after the initial sale. The remaining amount due for the sale (after the initial amount is deducted) is evenly divided between the recurring invoices.

For example, the total to be billed for a sale is $2,400.00. The billing schedule applied to the sale has an initial amount of 50%, a recurrence frequency of monthly, and a recurrence count of 12. The initial invoice total is $1,200.00 and then a recurring invoice of $100.00 is generated one time per month for 12 months to bill the remainder of the sale.
In Arrears will be checked by default.
- When In Arrears is checked, billing occurs at the end of the recurrence period.
  
  From the example in step 6, if the initial invoice for $1,200.00 is generated on January 1st, 2006, then the first recurring monthly invoice for $100.00 is generated on February 1st, 2006.
- When In Arrears is cleared, billing occurs at the beginning of the recurrence period.
  
  From the example in step 6, if the initial invoice for $1,200.00 is generated on January 1st, 2006, then the first recurring monthly invoice for $100.00 is also generated on January 1st, 2006. NetSuite combines these two amounts on one invoice, so the first invoice includes both the initial amount and the first recurring payment, for an invoice total of $1,300.00.
In the Recurrence Payment Terms field, select the terms to be used on all invoices subsequent to the initial invoice.

Note:
This field is greyed out when you select Custom in the Recurrence Frequency field.
If you do not want this schedule to be applied to items and new orders, inactivate the schedule by checking the Schedule is Inactive box.
Click Save.

It is possible to create a billing schedule that will bill more than 100% of the invoice amount.

For example, you could create a schedule for the initial amount of $10,000.00 and then a custom frequency of 25% billed every three months. If you apply this schedule to an order totaling $60,000.00, the invoices are created as below:

1st invoice = $10,000.00
2nd invoice = $12,500.00
3rd invoice = $12,500.00
4th invoice = $12,500.00
5th invoice = $12,500.00
Total billed = $60,000.00

After the initial amount, invoices are created based on 25% of the total bill, not based on the remainder due after the initial amount. If your schedule uses both dollar amounts and percentages, or uses a custom frequency, verify that the total amount billed by the schedule is the amount intended.

Note:

Billing schedules created using the above steps default to be Private and cannot be set to Public.

Private billing schedules show only in the transaction it is created from.

Public billing schedules show on any transaction.

To create a Public billing schedule, it must be created on the fly. Read Creating Billing Schedules From an Estimate or Sales Order.

To create a billing schedule:

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