Corrective Invoicing

About Corrective Invoices

A corrective invoice is the invoice associated with a corrective bill. You generate a corrective invoice after you make corrections to a bill.

Corrective invoices can be the result of simple corrections or corrections to charges.

Simple corrections to a bill consist of changes that do not affect the amount owed by the customer, such as changes to the invoice address or to the language in the customer profile.
Corrections to the charges result from corrections to product offerings and accounts receivable (A/R) actions.

About Content of Corrective Invoices

Corrective invoices include the following:

Customer information, such as a name and address.
Previous bill information, such as the previous bill number, billing period, and previous billing date.
Corrective bill information, such as the corrective bill number and the new payment due date.
Bill totals.

BRM supports the following types of corrective invoices:

Replacement invoices, which show the regular (unchanged) portion of a regular invoice and all the corrections made to the invoice. The replacement invoice includes all bill items and events from the previous invoice and any corrections to those bill items and events.

Additionally, it supports regenerate invoices (also known as duplicate invoices), which are previously generated replacement invoices with no changes to the data on that invoice.
Invoice correction letters, which list only the corrections as a letter for the customer whose bill you corrected.

BRM can generate summary and detailed versions of replacement invoices and invoice correction letters.

About Invoices and Billing Periods

You can issue multiple corrective invoices for a billing period. After BRM issues the corrective invoice for a corrective bill, it cancels the original invoice for the bill and processes subsequent payments against the corrective bills for that billed period. Payments become due on the new due dates associated with the corrective invoice for the corrected bill.

BRM does not carry over A/R actions that were included in a corrective invoice to the next regular invoice. For example, an adjustment of $10 allocated to the November bill period results in a corrective bill for November. BRM does not re-list the $10 adjustment details in the regular bill for December. BRM would list the adjustment details in the regular bill for December only if the corrective bill for November did not include the adjustment.

It is recommended that, when you generate a corrective bill, you should also generate the corrective invoice for that corrective bill. A/R actions that occur between the time a corrective bill and its corrective invoice are generated may lead to incorrect invoices.

If a payment is allocated to specific bill items on the original invoice, BRM processes that payment against the latest corrected balance for the bill items. Any payment that is in excess is automatically credited to the balance on the account.

When BRM processes payments for a bill before it issues the corrective invoice for the bill, the corrective bill includes all the payment details for payments already processed against that bill.

About Deferred Corrective Invoices

Whenever you make an adjustment to a bill, you also generate a corrective bill and a corrective invoice. However, you can defer generating the corrective bill and corrective invoice after the next regular billing and invoicing period. In this case, if you enable the ARItemsInCorrectiveInvoice business parameter, adjustments are allocated to the corrective bill and displayed only in the corrective invoice whenever it is generated. You can generate the corrective bill and invoice in any billing period.

Note:

Regular invoices do not display any adjustments allocated to other bills.
If you make an adjustment and if you have not generated the corrective bill and corrective invoice for the bills, the adjustment will appear in the PREV_TOTAL field of the next regular invoice.
Deferring corrective invoices is applicable only for accounts of open item account type.

Configuring to Defer Corrective Invoices

To configure deferring corrective invoices:

Go to BRM_home/sys/data/config.
Create an XML file from the /config/business_params object:

pin_bus_params -r BusParamsInvoicing bus_params_Invoicing.xml

In the file, change disabled to enabled:

<ARItemsInCorrectiveInvoice>enabled</ARItemsInCorrectiveInvoice>

Save the file as bus_params_Invoicing.xml.
Load the XML file into the BRM database:
```
pin_bus_params bus_params_Invoicing.xml
```
Stop and restart the CM.
(Multischema systems only) Run the pin_multidb script with the -R CONFIG parameter. For more information, see BRM System Administrator's Guide.

About Replacement Invoices for Hierarchical Bill Units

You can configure the replacement invoices for parent bills to include information from nonpaying bill units (/billinfo objects) by setting the SubARItemsIncluded business parameter. For information on SubARItemsIncluded, see the description for pricing and rating business parameter entries in BRM System Administrator's Guide.

Detailed Replacement Invoice for a Parent Bill

If you include information from nonpaying child bill units, the detailed replacement invoice for the parent bill contains the following:

The bill total and the bill due amount (or the balance) on the parent bill updated for corrections made to the parent bill or to any nonpaying child bill.
Adjustment details of the parent and nonpaying child bills.
For corrected bill items associated with a nonpaying child bill, the corrected fields such as previous amount and corrected amount.
A list of all events for the parent bill and the nonpaying child bills.

If you do not include information from nonpaying child bill units, the detailed replacement invoice for the parent bill contains the following:

The bill total and the bill due amount (or the balance) on the parent bill updated for corrections made to the parent bill or any nonpaying child bill.
All bill items for the parent bill only.
Adjustment details for the parent bill only.
A list of all events for the parent bill only.

Summary Replacement Invoice for a Parent Bill

If you include information from nonpaying bill units, the summary replacement invoice for the parent bill contains the following:

The bill total and the bill due amount (or the balance) on the parent bill updated for corrections made to the parent bill or to any nonpaying child bill.
Adjustment items.

If you do not include information from nonpaying bill units, the summary replacement invoice for the parent bill contains the following:

All bill items for the parent bill only.
Adjustment items for the parent bill only.

Detailed Replacement Invoice for a Nonpaying Child Bill

Whether you include or exclude items from the nonpaying child bill in the parent bill's invoice, the detailed replacement invoice for the nonpaying child bill contains the following:

The adjustment details, if a nonpaying child bill had a correction.
For the corrected bill items associated with a nonpaying child bill, the correction fields such as the previous amount and the corrected amount.
Content identical to the original invoice, if a nonpaying child bill had no charge corrections.
All the events for the nonpaying child bill.

Summary Replacement Invoice for a Nonpaying Child Bill

Whether you include or exclude items from the nonpaying child bill in the parent bill's invoice, the summary replacement invoice for the nonpaying child bill contains the following:

All bill items for the nonpaying child bill, whether or not the nonpaying child bill had a correction.
The adjustment details, if a nonpaying child bill had a correction.
For the corrected bill items associated with a nonpaying child bill, the correction fields such as the previous amount and corrected amount.
Content identical to the original invoice, if a nonpaying child bill had no charge correction.

About Invoice Correction Letters for Hierarchical Bill Units

You can configure the invoice correction letters for parent bills to include information from nonpaying child bill units by setting the SubARItemsIncluded business parameter. For information on SubARItemsIncluded, see the description for pricing and rating business parameter entries in BRM System Administrator's Guide.

Detailed Invoice Correction Letter for a Parent Bill

If you include information from nonpaying bill units, the detailed invoice correction letter for the parent bill contains the following:

The bill total and the bill due amount (or the balance) on the parent bill updated for corrections made to the parent bill or to any nonpaying child bill.
For event-level adjustments only, the corrected events showing the original and corrected amounts.

If you do not include information from nonpaying bill units, the detailed invoice correction letter for the parent bill contains the following:

The bill total and the bill due amount or the balance on the parent bill updated for corrections made to any nonpaying child bill.
Adjustment details for the parent bill only.

Summary Invoice Correction Letter for a Parent Bill

If you include information from nonpaying bill units, the summary invoice correction letter for the parent bill contains the following:

The bill total and the bill due amount (or the balance) on the parent bill updated for corrections made to the parent bill or to any nonpaying child bill.
Adjustment items.
Only the corrected bill items associated with a nonpaying child bill that has a correction. For each correction, the invoice correction letter displays the previous amount and corrected amount.

If you do not include information from nonpaying bill units, the summary invoice correction letter for the parent bill contains the following:

The bill total and the bill due amount (or the balance) on the parent bill updated for corrections made to the parent bill or to any nonpaying child bill.
Adjustment items for the parent bill only.
No bill items if no adjustment was made to the parent bill.

Detailed Invoice Correction Letter for Nonpaying Child Bills

If a nonpaying child bill does not have any corrections, BRM does not generate an invoice correction letter.

Whether you include or exclude items from the nonpaying child bill in the parent bill's invoice, the detailed invoice correction letter for the nonpaying child bill contains only the corrected bill items. For each correction, the invoice correction letter displays the previous amount and corrected amount. All adjusted events are shown.

Summary Invoice Correction Letter for Nonpaying Child Bills

If a nonpaying child bill does not have any correction, BRM does not generate an invoice correction letter.

For each nonpaying child bill with a correction, whether you include or exclude items from the nonpaying child bill in the parent bill's invoice, the summary invoice correction letter for the nonpaying child bill contains the following:

Adjustment items.
Only the corrected bill item associated with a nonpaying child bill that has a correction. Each such corrected bill item displays the correction fields, such as the previous amount and corrected amount.

How BRM Displays Manual Adjustments

BRM displays the adjustment details and corrected bill items for the manual adjustments that you enter at the account, service, bill, item, and event level. For adjustments at the event level, BRM displays the corrected events.

About Generating Corrective Invoices

To generate corrective invoices, you include corrective bills when you run the pin_inv_accts utility. In addition, the pin_inv_accts utility automatically runs and generates corrective invoices when you run the pin_bill_day script. The pin_inv_accts utility can generate summary and detailed invoices for regular bills and summary and detailed corrective invoices for corrective bills.

When creating a corrective invoice, the pin_inv_accts utility does the following:

Validates the input parameters to ensure that a corrective invoice can be generated for the corrective bill. For example, it checks that there is a corrective bill.
Generates the corrective invoice with all the invoice data from the bill, with the account attributes and any additional data elements (for example new aggregations) required to be displayed on the customer invoice.

For a complete description of how invoices are generated in BRM, see BRM Opcode Guide.

About the pin_inv_accts Utility Parameters

The pin_inv_accts utility is used to generate regular and corrective invoices. For a complete description of the parameters associated with the pin_inv_accts utility, see "pin_inv_accts".

To generate corrective invoices, run the pin_inv_accts utility, provide values for the parameters that are common to both regular and corrective invoices, and provide values for parameters that are specific to corrective invoices.

Use the following input parameters when you generate corrective invoices:

-corr_bills. The -corr_bills parameter creates corrective invoices.
-corr_type type. The -corr_type parameter indicates the type of corrective invoice you require:
- replacement generates a replacement invoice.
- correction generates an invoice correction letter.
The pin_inv_accts utility uses the value input for -corr_type as the required type of corrective invoice for the corrective bill. This value overrides any previous value for the corrective invoice type.
-summary | -detail. BRM generates a summary corrective invoice if -summary parameter is set. It generates a detailed invoice if the -detail parameter is set.

For both regular and corrective invoices, use -summary or -detail to generate the respective summary or detailed versions of the invoice. If you do not specify either of these parameters, pin_inv_accts creates a detailed corrective invoice.

For example:

pin_inv_accts -corr_bills -corr_type replacement -summary

The pin_inv_accts utility calls the PCM_OP_INV_MAKE_INVOICE opcode to generate the invoice. For more information on the PCM_OP_INV_MAKE_INVOICE opcode, see BRM Opcode Guide.

About Corrective Invoice Templates

BRM uses Oracle Business Intelligence (BI) Publisher templates to format corrective invoices. If you plan to use BI Publisher to generate corrective invoices, ensure that you have set up your system appropriately. See "Designing and Generating Invoices in Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher".

Note:

BRM does not support versioning for corrective invoice templates. If you modify the template for replacement invoices or invoice correction letters, BRM uses the modified template.

Table 12-1 lists the default corrective invoice templates for corporate customers.

Table 12-1 Default Corrective Invoice Templates for Corporate Customers

Corrective Invoice Type	Default Template	Report File
Replacement Invoice	BRM_Corporate_Replacement_Invoice.rtf	BRM_Corporate_Replacement_Invoice_Report.xdo
Invoice Correction Letter	BRM_Corporate_Correction_Invoice.rtf	BRM_Corporate_Correction_Invoice_Report.xdo

Table 12-2 lists the default corrective invoice templates for noncorporate customers.

Table 12-2 Default Corrective Invoice Templates for Noncorporate Customers

Corrective Invoice Type	Default Template	Report File
Replacement Invoice	BRM_Consumer_Replacement_Invoice.rtf	BRM_Consumer_Replacement_Invoice_Report.xdo
Invoice Correction Letter	BRM_Consumer_Correction_Invoice.rtf	BRM_Consumer_Correction_Invoice_Report.xdo

Configuring Corrective Invoice Templates Based on Business Profiles

You specify the corrective invoice templates in the /associated_bus_profile object for each bill unit. BRM determines the corrective invoice template type for each bill by using the following fields in the /associated_bus_profile object.

PIN_FLD_TEMPLATE_NAME specifies the template name.
PIN_FLD_REPORT_NAME specifies the report name.
PIN_INV_TYPE specifies whether the invoice is for a regular bill or a corrective bill.

After you enable the BRM-BI Publisher invoice integration, BRM associates each bill with an invoice template. When you create a customer account, BRM creates one /associated_bus_profile object for each bill unit.

Providing Custom Templates for Corrective Invoices

You can create custom templates in BI Publisher to suit your requirements. For information, see the Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher documentation.

To be able to generate a corrective invoice using a custom template for an account's corrective invoices, specify the custom template name in the business profile for the account in the pin_business_profile.xml file. If you use both replacement invoices and invoice correction letters for an account, you need to define both sets of templates for the business profile associated with that account.

Consumer Invoices: Specify the custom corrective invoice templates for consumer invoices in place of the following default entries in the pin_business_profile.xml file:

          <InvoiceType type="RepInvoice" />
          <NameValue key="RepInvoiceReport_Name" value="BRM_Consumer_Repl_Invoice_Report"/>
          <NameValue key="RepInvoiceTemplate_Name" value="BRM_Consumer_Repl_Invoice"/>
          <InvoiceType type="InvoiceCorrLetter" />
          <NameValue key="InvCorrLetterReport_Name" value="BRM_Consumer_Invoice_CorrLetter_Report"/>
          <NameValue key="InvCorrLetterTemplate_Name"
          value="BRM_Consumer_Invoice_CorrLetter"/>

Corporate Invoices: Specify the custom corrective invoice templates for corporate invoices in place of the following default entries in the pin_business_profile.xml file:

          <InvoiceType type="RepInvoice" />
          <NameValue key="RepInvoiceReport_Name" value="BRM_Corporate_Repl_Invoice_Report"/>
          <NameValue key="RepInvoiceTemplate_Name" value="BRM_Corporate_Repl_Invoice"/>
          <InvoiceType type="InvoiceCorrLetter" />
          <NameValue key="InvCorrLetterReport_Name" value="BRM_Corporate_Invoice_CorrLetter_Report"/>
          <NameValue key="InvCorrLetterTemplate_Name" value="BRM_Corporate_Invoice_CorrLetter"/>

About Corrective Invoices and Collections

Collections Manager processes bills by the POID value in the /bill object and not the bill number, which differs for the regular bill and its corrective bill. Collections Manager uses the POID value to keep track of the payments and the resulting effect on a bill (that is, whether the bill enters, stays in, or exits collections).

When a corrective bill has been created for a regular bill not in collections, Collections Manager checks the new bill balance against the threshold you defined for collection eligibility. If the bill balance after adjustments goes above that threshold, BRM automatically moves the corrected bill into collections.

When a prior bill is already in collections, BRM suspends actions on that prior invoice until the corrections are entered and processed. After the corrections are processed, BRM generates the corrective invoice and checks the new bill balance against the threshold you defined for collection eligibility. If the new bill balance goes below that threshold, BRM automatically moves the corrected bill out of collections.

For more information on Collections Manager and its pin_collections_process utility, see the discussion on how Collections Manager processes bill units in BRM Collections Manager.

Corrective Invoices and General Ledger Posts

BRM posts the difference between the original and corrected amounts to the open general ledger (G/L) period only. It does not post such adjustment amounts to the prior G/L period to which the original amounts were posted.

For more information on general ledger, see BRM Collecting General Ledger Data.

Setting Up Corrective Invoicing in BRM

To set up the corrective invoicing process in BRM:

Ensure that all the preliminary configurations required for regular and corrective billing are completed. See BRM Configuring and Running Billing.
Ensure that BRM is set up according to your requirements:
- To use the default templates for corrective invoices, verify that BRM is set up with the required templates to generate the required type of corrective invoice. See "Setting Up Your System to Generate Invoice Documents Using BI Publisher".
- To use custom templates for corrective invoices, verify that BRM is set up with the required templates to generate the required type of corrective invoice. See "Providing Custom Templates for Corrective Invoices".
Specify the required type of corrective invoice, if necessary. See "Specifying the Type of Corrective Invoice".

Specifying the Type of Corrective Invoice

The /event/billing/corrective_bill object created by BRM contains the settings for the corrective invoice type (replacement invoice or invoice correction letter) and the format for the invoice (summary or detail). See BRM Configuring and Running Billing for more information.

You can override these settings when you run the pin_inv_accts utility. See "About the pin_inv_accts Utility Parameters" and "pin_inv_accts".

Providing Custom Templates for Corrective Invoices

The default BI Publisher templates for replacement invoices or invoice correction letters have been described in "About Corrective Invoice Templates". You can select an appropriate corrective invoice template for customer accounts from the default corrective invoice layout templates that BRM provides.

Alternatively, you can design a corrective invoice template to suit your business requirements and associate that template with specific accounts.

If you plan to use custom templates for corrective invoices, do the following:

Create the required corrective invoice template. See the Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher documentation for instructions on how to create and design layout templates.
Load the custom invoice template into BI Publisher. See "Designing and Generating Invoices in Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher".
Modify the pin_business_profile.xml file to associate the name of this custom invoice template with the default replacement invoice or invoice correction letter template. See "Providing Custom Templates for Corrective Invoices".

For more information on pin_business_profile.xml, see "Designing and Generating Invoices in Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher".
Load the pin_business_profile.xml file into /config/business_profile objects in the BRM database by using the load_pin_business_profile utility. See "Creating and Managing Business Profiles " and "load_pin_business_profile" in BRM Managing Customers.
Update the /associated_bus_profile objects for the modified /config/business_profile objects by using the PCM_OP_CUST_SET_ASSOCIATED_BUS_PROFILE opcode. See BRM Opcode Flist Reference for more information about this opcode.
Complete the steps listed under "Generating Corrective Invoices". When you submit the corrective bill, set the corrective invoice type to the required type.

For information on designing and generating invoices in BI Publisher, see "Designing and Generating Invoices in Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher".

Generating Corrective Invoices

To generate corrective invoices:

Verify that the required corrective bills have been generated:
1. Open Billing Care.
2. Review the contents of the corrective bills.
The required templates should be available. Verify that the templates are successfully stored in the business profiles. See "Providing Custom Templates for Corrective Invoices".
Run pin_inv_accts with the required input parameters to generate the corrective invoice either automatically as part of daily billing or separately. See "About the pin_inv_accts Utility Parameters". For a description of the pin_inv_accts utility, see "pin_inv_accts".
Use pin_inv_doc_gen to generate the corrective invoice documents through BI Publisher. See "Designing and Generating Invoices in Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher".
(Optional) If you plan to use custom programs (such as DOC1) to generate and publish corrective invoice documents, run pin_inv_export with the required input parameters and export corrective invoices to a file in a format you can use with other programs. See pin_inv_export in BRM Developer's Reference.

Post-Processing Actions

After the corrective invoice is generated:

View the Corrective Invoice. See "Viewing Corrective Invoices".
Send the corrective invoices to your customer. See "Sending Invoices to Customers".

Viewing Corrective Invoices

BRM supports the BI Publisher client of the BRM-Business Intelligence Publisher Integration framework for displaying corrective invoices.

For more information, see the description for displaying invoices in "Displaying Invoices".

Adjustments and Corrective Invoicing

Any account adjustments or service adjustments for a past bill must be allocated to the prior bill before BRM generates the corrective bill for that bill. To ensure that the totals and balances for the bill item and the bill correctly reflect the corrections, enter all adjustments either manually or automatically through the rerating process before you generate the corrective invoice for such a bill.

When it generates the corrective bill for such a prior bill, BRM includes all the A/R actions applied or allocated to that bill. It does not enable you to select some allocated A/R items and exclude others to be included in the next bill or the bill in progress.

The AllocateReratingAdjustments business parameter is used to specify whether BRM should allocate automatic adjustments from rerating to original bills. When you enable AllocateReratingAdjustments business parameter, BRM allocates adjustments to the corrected bill items in the following manner:

For open item accounting, the adjustment items are allocated to each bill that was corrected. And allocation is made to each of the original bills which included events or items that were corrected by these adjustments.
For balance forward accounting, corrections are posted to the last bill only. Therefore, the rerating allocation is made to the final bill only. This final bill carries over the balances for all prior bill periods.

The value of the subARItemsIncluded business parameter determines how BRM displays the adjustments in the summary and detailed versions of a Replacement Invoice or an Invoice Correction Letter.