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Invoice Creator

Modules > Advanced recurring contract billing > Periodic tasks > Invoice creator

Use this page to create mass monthly recurring invoices using the information that you set up on the Billing Schedules and the View Billing Detail pages.

When an invoice or quote is created, the sales order processing line item description is updated with the item description as well as the billing start and end dates for the schedule line being invoiced.

To set up a recurring batch job process, use the Invoice Creator Batch Processing page.

Revenue Split - Suppress Child Items

When the sales invoice includes items that use revenue split, you can select whether the child items appear on the invoice. When child items are hidden from the invoice, the parent line shows the summary value of the hidden child items. See example for details.

When the allocation method for the parent item is Equal amount, Percentage, or Variable amount, the Unit price, Net amount, and Discount would show zero (0) amounts.

For example, when the Allocation Method is Percentage and Suppress child items is No, the invoice shows all parent and child line items as follows:

Item	Unit Price	Net Amount
Parent	0.00	0.00
Child 1	50.00	50.00
Child 2	50.00	50.00

When the Allocation Method is Percentage and Suppress child items is Yes, simply hiding the child items shows the following:

Item	Unit Price	Net Amount
Parent	0.00	100.00

Determine Top Billing Items

To use the top billing feature on a sales invoice, ensure that Split by item group is Yes on the Invoice Creator page. The top items feature is applied to each separate invoice with the most expensive items determined by the net amount, not the unit price.

The process for determining the top items for invoices created from the Invoice Creator page is as follows:

All item group splitting and consolidation is performed.
For each individual sales order, the following validations occur:
1. The Split by item group option is set to Yes.
2. The item group is on the Top billing setup list with a value greater than zero (0).
After the validations pass, the top most expensive items are determine based on the Net amount.
The amounts for these lines remain unchanged.

If multiple lines have the same amount, the items that are used for the invoice are randomly selected. For example, the top billing for an item group is 3. The net amount for the top 3 items are:

Item A = 900.00
Item B = 800.00
Item C = 700.00
Item D = 700.00
Item E = 700.00

The top 3 items have the amounts: 900.00, 800.00, and 700.00. For the amount of 700.00, one of item C, D or E is selected at random to be included in the top 3.

The remaining items above the top billing are not billed and the unit price and net amount are changed to zero (0).

Notes: When the top billing feature is used (e.g., one or more lines on the Item Group Setup have Number of top lines greater than zero), the following features are not available.

The revenue splitting functionality in Multiple Element Revenue Allocation cannot be used.
The Revenue Allocation button for billing schedules on any page is not available.
The unbilled revenue feature cannot be used.
The Unbilled revenue button on the Billing Schedulespage is not available.
On the Invoice Creator, the Consolidate by Item and the Split by item group options cannot work together (Split by item group is Yes, Consolidate by Item is automatically set to No and cannot be changed to Yes). View example.

Item Group: Separating Invoices

To be able to create separate invoices for renewal schedules based on item groups, the following setup is needed:

As part of the standard Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations setup, items must be assigned to item groups.
On the Advanced Recurring Contract Billing Parameters page, Unique schedule type is set to Customer.
When creating invoices on the Sales Order or the Invoice Creator pages, set Split by item group to Yes.

For billing schedules with multiple item groups, separate sales orders are created for each item group.

Note icon. Note: For lines that use revenue splitting, all child items are on the same sales order as the parent item.

Unbilled Revenue Journal Entries

Lines that use the unbilled revenue feature appear in the list. However, only the lines that have a corresponding unbilled revenue journal entry created can be processed. Furthermore, lines that do not use the unbilled revenue journal entries feature and do not have an unbilled revenue journal entry created do not appear in the list.

The journal entries that are created for non-deferrable items and deferrable items posts a credit to different revenue accounts.

Non-deferrable item

An item is non-deferrable when the Deferrable check box is cleared. The following journal entries are created:

Unbilled Revenue account		DR
	Revenue account		CR

The unbilled revenue account is attached to each billing line item. The revenue account is the sales account for the billing schedule line. If the revenue account value is empty, the default account for the customer-item combination is used.

Deferrable item

An item is deferrable when the Deferrable check box is selected. The following journal entries are created:

Unbilled Revenue account		DR
	Deferral Revenue account		CR

The unbilled revenue account is attached to each billing line item. The deferral revenue account is the deferrable account for the billing schedule line. Also, the deferral schedule for the total extended amount with any discount is created.

When revenue splitting is used, the deferred amount is the contract revenue amount, which is the total period revenue of the billing schedule line item. The recognition type is credit, and the distribution type is revenue.

After the journal entries are created, the deferral schedule for the extended amount (without any discount) is created, and the information is copied to the Renewals tab of the billing schedule for reference.

The distribution for the invoice is as follows:

Accounts Receivables		DR
	Unbilled Revenue account		CR

The distribution for the deferral schedule is as follows:

Deferred Revenue account		DR
	Recognition account		CR

Create Invoices

To create invoices, follow these steps:

In Date Range:
1. In Filter by, select to filter the records by billing start or end date.
2. Specify the the From date and To date range of the records to appear in the list.
Select the Select button to apply the Select query, enter additional filter criteria as needed, and select OK.
Back on the Invoice Creator page, the line grid is updated with the records that match the select query specified.
In Consolidation, select whether to consolidate the invoice by customer, item, billing code, or any combination of the options.
If you want to use the top billing feature, set Split by item group to Yes.
Note: The top billing feature is not available for items that use revenue splitting in Multiple Element Revenue Allocation.
In Invoice Processing, specify the following:
1. Invoice transaction type
2. Posting option
  To save time and post the invoice immediately, select Show posting invoice form or create invoice proposal or Post invoice automatically.
3. Invoice date
If you use revenue splitting, select whether to suppress the child items.
In the line grid section, select any lines that you do not want to create an invoice, and select Remove.
To review the invoice on the Invoice Creator Preview page before it is created, select Preview.
Select Batch to add the lines to a batch job, which you can process later.
Select OK.

After the records are processed, you can view the sales orders on the Sales Order page and view the billing schedule numbers from which the sales orders originated.

The bill-to address for the resulting sales order is based on the invoice account specified for the billing schedule and the Invoice address setting on the customer record:

When Invoice address is Invoice account, the bill-to address and payment term information is from the invoice account selected on the billing schedule.
When Invoice address is Order account, the bill-to address and payment term information is from the customer account for the billing schedule.

Technical note: For these sales orders created from billing schedules, the BssiArcbCreatedFromSB boolean field is set to True. When the sales orders do not originate from billing schedules, the BssiArcbCreatedFromSB boolean field is set to False.

Top billing feature

On the sales order, the lines that appear in the list are based on whether the top billing feature is used.

When the top billing feature is used, the lines appear in the following order:

Descending order according to the net amount, where the largest net amount is at the top
Ascending order according to the end date, where the earliest date is at the top and the furthest future date is at the bottom
Ascending order by the original billing schedule number.
Ascending order by line number.

When the top billing feature is not used, the lines appear the following order:

Ascending order according to the end date, where the earliest date is at the top and the furthest future date is at the bottom.
Ascending order by the original billing schedule number.
Ascending order by line number.

Different bill-to addresses

Sales orders for billing schedule lines that use different bill-to addresses are processed as follows:

If all lines have the same bill-to address, one sales order with all the lines is created.
If the bill-to address is different for some lines, a sales order is created for each bill-to address with all corresponding lines on the correct sales order.

Consider the following examples, one billing schedule has three billing schedule lines:

All lines use the same delivery and bill-to address: One sales order with three lines is created.
All lines use the same bill-to address, but have three different delivery addresses: One sales order with three lines is created.
All lines use three different bill-to addresses and deliver address: Three different sales orders with one line each are created.
Two lines use the same bill-to address, but different delivery addresses: Two different sales orders are created: one sales order has two lines, the other sales order has one line.

The bill-to address appears on the generated pro forma invoice and the sales invoice report.

Invoices with Project IDs

When creating an invoice with a project ID, the typical process is as follows:

When creating the invoice, set Posting option to Create sales invoice and process the transaction.
On the Sales Order page, you can review the sales order and check the project ID.
From the All projects list, select the project ID that has the newly created sales order, and select Manage > New > Invoice Proposal.
On the Create invoice proposal page, in the Transaction types, ensure that Sales order line with the All option is selected.
In the grid, all the sales order lines appear, and you can select them for the invoice.

Working with project IDs is standard Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations functionality. For more information, review the Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations documentation.

Fields

This page contains the following fields:

Field

Description

Date range

Filter by

Select how records are included in the list grid:

Start date: Records that have the billing start date within the specified from/to date range appear in the list grid and are available for processing.
End date: Records that have the billing end date within the specified from/to date range appear in the list grid and are available for processing.

This default value is specified on the Advanced Recurring Contract Billing Parameters page.

From/To date

Specify the date range for the records for which you want to create invoices. Based on the option selected in Filter by, the records that have a start date or end date within the specified date range appear in the list.

The default value for From date is no value, and the default To date is the current date.

Exclude zero consumption

Select whether to include the billing schedule lines that are usage items with a zero (0) consumption amount and use the free quantity feature.

Yes: Billing schedule lines that have a zero consumption and use the free quantity feature do not appear on the Invoice Creator page. No invoices can be created for these lines.
No: Billing schedule lines that have a zero consumption amount appear on the Invoice Creator page.

Consolidation

The default consolidation settings are from the Advanced Recurring Contract Billing Parameters page.

Consolidate all periods

Select whether the billing periods for which invoices are to be created are consolidated into a single sales document:

Yes: Invoices for multiple billing periods are consolidated into a single sales document. These lines must be the same for the item of the same billing schedule. View examples.
Note: Consolidating all periods and consolidating by items cannot work together. When this option is set to Yes, lines cannot be consolidated by items.
Also, this feature is not available for deferrable items or items that use the tier or flat tier pricing methods.

Review the following examples to understand how the periods are consolidated.

Single Item

A billing schedule has one line item, S0110. The billing frequency is monthly for 12 months, from January 2021 to December 2021. The invoice is created for the first three periods (January to March).

The billing schedule is as follows:

Schedule number	Item	Start date	End date	Quantity	Unit	Unit price	Net amount
USMF-000397	S0110	01 January 2021	31 December 2021	1	Each	100.00	100.00

The billing details for the line are as follows:

Line	Start date	End date	Quantity	Unit price	Net amount
1	01 January 2021	31 January 2021	1	100.00	100.00
2	01 February 2021	28 February 2021	1	100.00	100.00
3	01 March 2021	31 March 2021	1	100.00	100.00
4	01 April 2021	30 April 2021	1	100.00	100.00
5	01 May 2021	31 May 2021	1	100.00	100.00
6	01 June 2021	30 June 2021	1	100.00	100.00
7	01 July 2021	31 July 2021	1	100.00	100.00
8	01 August 2021	31 August 2021	1	100.00	100.00
9	01 September 2021	30 September 2021	1	100.00	100.00
10	01 October 2021	31 October 2021	1	100.00	100.00
11	01 November 2021	30 November 2021	1	100.00	100.00
12	01 December 2021	31 December 2021	1	100.00	100.00

The lines for the first three periods are consolidated with the total quantity of 3 (1 for each month) and a net amount of 300.00 (100.00 for each month):

Line number	Item ID	Quantity	Unit price	Net amount
1	S0110	3	100.00	300.00

Two Identical Items

A billing schedule has two identical line items, S0110. The billing frequency is monthly for 12 months, from January 2021 to December 2021. The invoice is created for the first three periods (January to March).

The billing schedule is as follows:

Billing schedule number:			USMF-000397
Line number	Item	Start date	End date	Quantity	Unit	Unit price	Net amount
1.00	S0110	01 January 2021	31 December 2021	1	Each	100.00	100.00
2.00	S0110	01 January 2021	31 December 2021	1	Each	100.00	100.00

One sales order is created with two sales lines: one for each item, consolidated 3 periods for each.

One sales line is created with a total quantity of 3 (1 for each month) and net amount of 300.00 (100.00) for each month.

Line number	Item ID	Quantity	Unit price	Net amount
1.00	S0110	3	100.00	300.00	Consolidated January to March for line 1.
2.00	S0110	3	100.00	300.00	Consolidated January to March for line 2.

No: Invoices for multiple billing periods are not consolidated.

Consolidate by customer

Select whether sales documents are consolidated by customer:

Yes: Consolidates invoices by customer ID, document ID, customer reference, project ID, and currency ID when an invoice is created.
No: Does not consolidate invoices by customer.

Consolidate by item

Select whether sales documents are consolidated by item:

Yes: Consolidates the invoice lines for matching items and project IDs when an invoice is created. This feature is not available for deferrable items.
No: Does not consolidate invoices by item.

If any items belong to item groups that have a Number of top lines greater than zero on the Item Group Setup page, this option is automatically set to No.

Split by item group

Indicates whether renewal items are also put into item groups for invoice purposes:

Yes: Item groups are used for renewal items.
No: Item groups are not used.

When this option is set to Yes and Number of top lines on the Item Group Setup page has a value greater than zero (0), the top billing feature is used and only the top items in the transaction are charged. The remaining items not included in the number of top billing items have an amount of zero (0.00). For more information, see Top Billing Workflow.

Consolidate by billing code

Select whether invoices are consolidated by billing code:

Yes: Consolidates the invoice lines by billing code.
No: Does not consolidate the invoice lines by billing code.

Invoice Processing

Invoice transaction type

Select the invoice transaction type you want to process.

Posting option

Select the action for posting the invoice after the sales order is created:

Create sales order: Creates the sales order only. At a later time, you can manually create and post the sales order invoice.
When a project ID exists for any of the lines, the project ID is attached to the sales order.
Show posting invoice form or create invoice proposal: Creates the sales order, and opens the posting invoice page. You can then choose to manually post the invoice or save it and manually post it at a later time.
When a project ID exists for any of the lines, a project invoice proposal is created for the sales order.

Note icon. Note: When this option is selected, the invoice must be manually processed . As a result, you cannot process the sales order within a batch job.

Create free text invoice: Creates a free text invoice. Available when Invoice transaction type is Free text invoice.
Post invoice automatically: Creates the sales order, and automatically posts the sales order invoice.
When a project ID exists for any of the lines, a project invoice proposal is created and then posted.

Invoice date

Specify the date on which to create the invoice.

The default date is the session date for Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, which can be set on the calendar that appears on the left of the home page.

When Posting Option is Create sales order, the invoice date is not applicable and cannot be edited.

Suppress child items on print

Indicates whether child items of a revenue split appear on a sales invoice:

Yes: All child items are hidden from the sales invoice. Only the parent item appears on the invoice.

If the net amount of the (hidden) child items has a non-zero sum, the net amount of the parent line shows a summary of the child lines. For more information, see Revenue Split - Suppress Child Items.

No: All child items appear below the parent item on a sales invoice. The net amount for each child item appears on the invoice.

This option can be used only when all (parent and child) items in a revenue split are included on the invoice.

Line Grid
Billing Schedule number	Displays the billing schedule number.
Description	Displays a description of the billing schedule.
Customer	Displays the customer account ID or number.
Customer name	Displays the customer name.
Variant number	Displays the variant number for the item.
Item number	Displays the item number for the line.
Product name	Displays the product name.
End user account	Displays the end user account.
End user name	Displays the end user name.
Billing start date	Displays the billing start date.
Billing end date	Displays the billing end date.
Quantity	Displays the quantity of the item.
Unit	Displays the unit for the item.
Unit price	Displays the unit price for the item.
Discount	Displays the discount applied to the item.
Net amount	Displays the net amount, which is a calculated value. Read-only.
Auto Renew	Displays whether the billing schedule is set to automatically renew.
MEA type	Displays the MEA type. Available when Multiple Element Revenue Allocation is installed and used.
MEA number	Displays the MEA number. Available when Multiple Element Revenue Allocation is installed and used.
Period revenue	Displays the calculated period revenue value, which is calculated based on the quantity per billing period: (Contact Revenue / Total Quantity) * Period Quantity.
Project ID	Displays the project ID for the billing schedule. The project ID is attached to the sales order that is created as part of the invoice creator process. Free text invoices are excluded because they do not have a project ID field. The project ID is considered when consolidating invoices by customer or item.

Buttons

This page contains the following buttons:

Button	Description
Select	Opens a query form, where you can select the records you want.
Remove (Line Grid)	Removes the selected rows.
OK	Processes all records or queue in the batch job. Note: If any of the lines are selected, this button is not available.
Cancel	Cancels any changes you made and closes the form. When you open this page from batch jobs, this button is not available.
Batch	Opens the page for batch processing. Batch processing is a standard Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations feature. For more information, see Batch processing overview. When you open this page from batch jobs, this button is not available.
Preview	Opens the Invoice Creator Preview page, where you can review the invoice before posting it.