Top Billing Workflow

The top billing feature is used when you want charge for only the top most expensive items in an invoice. Items on the invoice that are not included as part of the top billing items are still included in the invoice, but not charged and will have a zero (0.00) amount.

Note: The top billing and the unbilled revenue features do not and cannot work together because reconciliation issues in the General Ledger can occur. View example.

For example, on the Item Group Setup page, ItemGroupA is set up with the Number of top lines set to 2. On the Billing Schedules page, three items are added. All three items belong to ItemGroupA. When the initial journal entry is created for the unbilled revenue feature, the amount for all three items are processed to the unbilled account. However, when the invoice for the billing schedule is created, only the amounts for the top two items are included. As a result, the invoice amount does not match the amount processed to the unbilled revenue account, and reconciliation issues in the General Ledger occur.

• If you want to use the unbilled revenue feature, do not set up the Item Group Setup page with any item groups, or ensure that all item groups have the Number of top lines set to zero (0).
• If you want to use the top billing feature, keep in mind that all Unbilled revenue actions are not available.

Setup

Ensure a system administrator completes the setup tasks:

1. In standard Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, set up the following areas: 
   1. On the Item Group Setup page, set up the item groups you want to use.
   2. Create a released product and apply the item group to the product.

      For more information, see the Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations documentation.

      • Create a released product for a single company
2. On the Item Group Setup page, set up the number of top billing items for an item group.

Basic Workflow

To create a billing schedule that has an item that uses the top billing feature, follow these steps: 

1. Ensure the setup is completed, including: 
2. On the Billing Schedules page, create a billing schedule as usual.
3. When using the Invoice Creator to create the invoices, ensure that Split by item group is set to Yes.

If necessary and before you create the invoices, select Preview to view a preview of the invoice items on the Invoice Creator Preview page.