How Invoices Are Generated

You can generate invoices by using contracts. Each contract line processes eligible transactions charged to its associated projects and tasks. Invoice amounts are calculated when you either submit the process to generate invoices or manually create an invoice for a contract.

You can generate invoices more quickly by specifying a number of instances of the process that would run in parallel. In the Manage Administrator Profile Values task, use the Number of Parallel Invoice Generation Programs profile option to specify a value between 2 and 5. Each instance processes a subset of the contracts, using a system-generated contract number range.

Settings That Affect Invoice Amounts

Depending on the security settings, the application restricts the business unit and contracts that you can select when you enter the parameters to generate an invoice.

The following table explains several key parameters of the invoice generation process.

Parameter	Description
Create Billing Transactions	Validates and maps eligible project transactions to the contract and contract line to create billing transactions. Updates consumed funds on the contract and determines the billable amount based on the invoice method. Select No if you want to create the billing transactions when generating revenue instead of during invoice generation.
Create Invoice	Create invoice distributions from the billing transactions. Groups the invoice distributions into invoice lines and an invoice header using the rules defined on the invoice format.
Previously Invoiced Items Only	Create an adjustment invoice that includes only retroactive adjustments for transactions that were previously invoiced.
Project Number	If you enter a project, the invoice includes only transactions charged to the entered project and excludes transactions from other projects associated with the contract.

Note: If you don't enter a value for the contract number, the application creates invoices for all eligible contracts in the business unit. If you don't enter any parameters, all currently or previously active contracts are processed for invoicing, ordered by contract number.

How Invoice Lines Are Created

The two major components of invoice generation involve creating the billing transactions and creating the invoice.

The first step of the Generate Invoice process evaluates the eligibility of expenditure items and events for invoicing, maps them to contract lines, and updates the funding amount for the contract line. If an expenditure item or event passes the billing controls, a mapping record is created for a combination of the transaction, contract line, and funded amount. This intermediate mapping record, the billing transaction, is placed on the invoice and is updated each time that you generate an invoice for the contract until the sum of its mappings are 100 percent.

Next, invoice lines and distributions are created from the eligible billing transactions during the Generate Invoice process. Distributions are grouped into invoice lines and the invoice header using the rules defined on the invoice format. Optionally, create distributions manually by attaching the eligible expenditure items and events on the invoice to the invoice lines.

For sponsored projects funded by multiple awards and funding sources, users can invoice sponsors and generate accurate revenue using the costs charged to a specific project and award combination. Cost transactions for sponsored projects store the contract as specific attributes, because there can be multiple awards or contracts for a single sponsored project. This is available only for sponsored project transactions, not for non-sponsored projects or regular, non-award based contracts. When you use this contract on the project cost transaction, the invoice generation and revenue recognition processes now select the project costs specific to the award or contract.

All transactions for an internal funding source are non-billable. Users cannot make any adjustments to an internal funding source cost transaction so as to mark it as a billable transaction.