Project Billing: General Information

In MYOB Advanced, you run project billing to automatically generate customer invoices based on the accounting data related to the projects.

Learning Objectives

In this chapter, you will learn how to do the following:

  • Select the type of the document to be prepared.
  • Make sure that the project is pending billing
  • Make sure that the project is ready to be billed
  • Run project billing for a single project or multiple projects
  • Process the documents that have been generated during the project billing
  • Review how the project’s actual amounts are updated with the billed amounts

Applicable Scenarios

You run project billing at a time that depends on the project billing period defined for the project to prepare an invoice for the customer. You can bill the customer based on the current progress of the project, or for the time and material spent on the project.

Project Configuration

The type of the document that the system will generate during the project billing procedure depends on the state of the Create Pro Forma Invoice on Billing check box on the Summary tab:

  • If the check box is selected, the system creates a pro forma invoice and opens it on the Pro Forma Invoices (PM307000) form.
  • If the check box is cleared, the system creates an accounts receivable invoice and opens it on the Invoices and Memos (AR301000) form.

The date of the created document is the Next Billing Date specified for the project on the Summary tab (Billing and Allocation Settings section). If On Demand is specified as the billing period of the project (in the same section of this tab), the date of the prepared invoice is the current business date.

Billing Process Preparation

The billing procedure in MYOB Advanced is straightforward and depends on the type of the step of the billing rule that is specified for each project task on the Tasks tab of the Projects (PM301000) form as follows:

  • For the Time and Material steps of the billing rules, the system selects all the project transactions and generates an invoice for the customer based on these transactions and the billing rule.
  • For the Progress Billing steps of the billing rules of project tasks, the system generates an invoice with the billable project revenue.

For the billing process for a project to be run successfully, the project must meet the following criteria:

  • The project is an external project (that is, a project associated with a customer).
  • The project status should be Active, Completed, or Suspended.
  • The status of the project tasks should be Active or Completed, and a billing rule should be specified for these tasks.
  • The project should have a provision for billing, such as a billable line of the revenue budget associated with the task for progress billing, or an unbilled project transaction associated with the task within this billing period for time and material billing.
  • The steps of the billing rule should be applicable to the billing provisions. For example, the billing rule of a task that is supposed to be billed by a revenue budget line should have a Progress Billing step.
  • The rate table must be specified for a project task if the related billing rule contains the @Rate parameter.
  • Sales prices must be configured for non-stock items if the related billing rule contains the @Price parameter.

Billing Procedure

You run the project billing procedure for a project that is pending billing by opening the project on the Projects (PM301000) form and clicking Run Project Billing on the form toolbar. The billing procedure can be run only for a project that is pending billing—that is, only if at least one of the following exist for the project:

  • A revenue budget line billed by amount with a nonzero Pending Invoice Amount on the Revenue Budget tab of the Projects form; the amount may be positive or negative.
  • A revenue budget line billed by quantity with a nonzero Pending Invoice Quantity on the Revenue Budget tab of the Projects form.
  • A revenue budget line with a Pending Invoice Quantity of 0 on the Revenue Budget tab of the Projects form if the corresponding billing rule has the Create Lines with Zero Amount and Quantity check box selected in the progress billing step on the Billing Rules (PM207000).
  • An amount postponed to the next billing from a pro forma invoice on the Pro Forma Invoices (PM307000) form for which the corresponding accounts receivable invoice is released.
  • A project task for which a recurring billing item is defined on the Recurring Billing tab of the Project Tasks (PM302000) form.
  • An unbilled project transaction that is ready to be billed on the invoice date—that is, the date of the transaction is not later than the invoice date. Transactions with a date the same as the invoice date are billed if Include Trans. created on billing date is selected in the Billing Cut-off Date box on the Projects Preferences (PM101000) form; if Exclude Trans. created on billing date is selected instead, the system skips the transactions with a date on the billing date.

    The invoice date for all the projects except those that are billed on demand is the Next Billing Date on the Projects (PM301000) form (in the Billing and Allocation Settings section of the Summary tab); for the projects that are billed on demand (that is, for which the Billing Period, which is specified in the same section of the form, is On Demand), the invoice date is the business date.