Bill Manager

This page is accessed via Financials > Billing Management > Billing.

The Billing Manager enables you to manage the sell-side settlement process, from the entry and editing of customer bills to approving bills for payment and creating supplemental bills.

Customer bills can be created in the following ways:

• Bills can be manually entered into the Billing Manager (described on this page).
• Bills can be generated from sell shipments individually.
• Bills can be generated from sell shipments in batches.
• Bills can be can be integrated into the Billing Manager from an external database.

Use the Billing Manager to enter new customer bills or edit saved ones. Bills can be created by manual entry, by a system process, or via integration from another system.

Manually entering or editing a bill is a multiple-step process. Depending on the amount of data and the type of bill, you will need to perform some or all of these steps:

• Header specifies basic data such as the Bill ID and involved parties.
• Routes/Ports specifies route, vessel, and status data.
• Equipment specifies equipment data.
• Stop specifies stop specifications and reference numbers.
• Line Item specifies data related to each line item, such as line item freight charges, accessorials, and declared values.
• Summary specifies the total freight charges and related data. (Required).
• Summary Detail specifies freight charges, accessorials, and other data related to steamship shipments only.
• Remarks specify comments and text templates associated with the bill.

Header

The Bill ID is a unique identifier generated by the Business Number Generator (BNG) when you are finished entering this bill. Once generated, the Bill ID cannot be edited. However you can change the content and format of generated business numbers in Power Data.

An alphanumeric Bill Number can be entered. If not, a bill number will be generated by the BNG when you are finished entering this bill.

Select an appropriate Financial Consolidation Type: STANDARD for a stand-alone bill, PARENT for a parent bill (for example, a consolidation bill), or CHILD for a child bill, or JOB if this is a customer bill that was created from a job.

The Parent Bill ID field is automatically populated if this is a child bill. A consolidated bill is a parent bill that combines a group of shipments that have the same service provider. If you are creating a bill that supplements (adds to or corrects) a previously issued bill, the Original Bill ID fields is populated. The Parent Bill ID field will have the same value as the Original Bill ID field unless it is overwritten with the true parent bill ID field if the bill is added to a consolidation.

Note: Before you can create a supplemental bill, its parent bill must have been issued.

To specify the service provider listed on the bill, enter Service Provider Alias Qualifier to define the type of service provider, and then type a Service Provider Alias to uniquely identify the service provider. The Service Provider ID is the carrier responsible for transporting the shipment. For planned shipments, Oracle Transportation Management performs calculations to select the lowest cost service provider. After the shipment is created, Oracle Transportation Management sends a tender offer to the service provider.

Note: The public data Service Provider Alias Qualifiers include GLOG, SC (for SCAC), and XX (for qualifiers mutually defined by service providers and logistics companies). If the Service Provider Alias Qualifier is GLOG, then the Service Provider Alias should include a domain name, followed by a period, followed by the alias value (for example, SHIPPING.XYZCO, for the SHIPPING domain and the XYZCO alias). Bills that have GLOG Service Provider Aliases without domain name prefixes cannot be automatically matched to buy shipments.

Click Status to displays the current status types and status values for this invoice or bill.

The Payment Method specifies how the bill is to be paid. The options available in this field will depend on what payment methods you have set up in Power Data. Some Payment Methods ship with Oracle Transportation Management as public data, such as PP (prepaid), COD (cash on delivery), COLLECT (invoiced after delivery), and MIXED (when orders with different payment methods are bundled together).

The Amount Due is the total monetary amount of the bill, in the selected currency.

Note: The value displayed in this field is tied to the currency displayed beside it. To determine if that currency is the functional currency or not, click view () to see a pop-up window containing the data.

The Amount Due with VAT is the total amount due plus any applicable value added taxes (VAT). The applicable VAT data appears at the bottom of the Header tab.

Use the Credit Note field to indicate that this is a credit note. Credit Notes are used for auditing to effectively "cancel out" a rejected bill. Credit Notes are represented as invoices, but are not actually processed.

You can specify information pertaining to oceangoing vessels. The Voyage Number identifies the particular voyage on which the cargo travels. The Vessel Name is the name of the ship as registered in Lloyd's Register of Ships. The Vessel Country Code is a commonly accepted code (for example, ISO) for the vessel's country of registry (its flag).

The Vessel Code Qualifier (for example, Lloyd's or Radio Call Sign) designates the type of Vessel Code. The Service Provider Alias Qualifier (for example, SCAC) designates the type Service Provider Alias for the vessel operator.

Bill Source indicates how the bill was created: Manual for manually entered bills, GLOG for bills generated by system processes such as the sell shipment Generate Customer Bill action or automation agents, and Integration for bills imported from other systems. If Integration is the bill source, you cannot edit any of the fields of the bill.

The Bill Date is the date this bill was entered, not necessarily the date it was received. The Due Date specifies when payment is due, and the Start Date and End Date indicate when the billed service was provided.

The Consolidation Constraint Set field specifies the consolidation criteria used to generate the parent invoice. When you execute the agent action Add To Consolidation Bill, the Consolidation Constraint Set field is populated on the generated parent invoice based on the constraint set defined in the agent action.

The Other Charge is the sum of the accessorial and other non-shipping charges for the bill. The Base Charge is the sum of the shipping charges for the bill. For parent bills, the other and base charges are the sum of those charges for all their child invoices.

A Discount Amount or a Discount Percentage can be entered, but not both. In either case, the value entered expresses the discount per se, not the total remaining after the discount. A Discount Days Due or a Discount Due Date can be entered to specify when the last day on which the discount applies.

To specify the type of pickup or delivery service provided by rail or ocean-going shipments, enter a Service Code ID. To specify the responsibilities of buyers and sellers for delivery under a sales contract, enter an Incoterm ID.

The Correction Code is a two-character alphanumeric code that specifies whether this is an original or a corrected invoice (for example, 00 may be used to designate an original).

Protective Services

Protective services instructions are used primarily for rail shipments. First, enter a Sequence Number for the instruction (for example, 1 for the first). For the Service Code, enter the type of perishable protective service (for example, HDN for Do Not Heat). For the Service Rule Code, enter the Association of American Railroads (AAR) protective service that applies. Then enter the optimal Temperature for the shipment, in the specified unit of measure (UOM).

After entering a protective service instruction, click Save, and then enter and save other sequenced instructions if needed.

Letter of Credit

You can identify a letter of credit from a bank or lending institution that authorizes withdrawals within set limits for use in paying this bill. Enter the Letter of Credit Issue Date, Expiration Date, and the Letter of Credit Number.

VAT

The fields in the VAT section are applicable to bills that have a VAT (value added tax) added to them. This is most common in Europe. These fields are automatically populated when the Calculate VAT action is run against a bill. You can alternatively enter the appropriate information in these fields. The data you manually enter will be saved in their respective fields in the database and can be sent to an external system via integration if desired. If the Calculate VAT action is run after you manually enter data, however, the data you entered will be overwritten by the results of the action.

The Supply Country Code ID represents the country that the goods are coming from. The Servprov VAT Registration ID is the VAT tax ID for the service provider. The Customer VAT Registration ID is the VAT tax ID for the customer. Both the Servprov and Customer VAT Registration ID's are pulled from the Corporation section in Power Data. The VAT Exempt field is used when the bill is exempt from the tax. When it is checked, you need to specify whether the bill is Exempt with Credit or Exempt without Credit.

The VAT Code ID is the tax that is being applied to the bill. The VAT Rate is the percentage of tax that is being applied to the bill. The VAT Amount field is a dollar amount that is to be added to the bill. While the VAT Code and VAT Rate are maintained in Power Data, the VAT Amount field is used when you are entering data in these fields to be used later by an external system, as described above.

Supply Province Registration

The fields in this section are applicable to bills that have a Provincial VAT (value added tax) added to them. This is most common in Canada and Australia. These fields are automatically populated when the Calculate Provincial Tax action is run against a bill. You can alternatively enter the appropriate information in these fields. The data you manually enter will be saved in their respective fields in the database and can be sent to an external system via integration if desired. If the Calculate Provincial Tax action is run after you manually enter data, however, the data you entered will be overwritten by the results of the action.

The Country Code ID is the country the provincial tax is being applied in, while the Province Code identifies the actual province that the VAT applies to. The VAT Provincial Registration ID is the VAT tax ID of the of the party charging the tax, and is pulled from the Corporation section in Power Data. Since you can have different VAT's in different provinces, you can enter as many country and province code combinations as necessary.

VAT Analysis

The VAT Analysis section shows the VAT Code and the Amount charged for the VAT for each line item on the bill.