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Approving and Locking Bills - Managing Bill Lifecycle

Account Bills can be taken through a lifecycle and be moved through three stages:

• Pending.

  • When Bills are first generated they have a Pending status.

  • You can move a Bill into Approved from Pending status.

  • You cannot move a Pending Bill directly to Locked status.

  • This first stage of Pending allows you to review and check an Account Bill before moving it to Approved.

• Approved.

  • An Approved Bill can be moved to Locked.

  • If you recalculate an Approved Bill, such as running a Bill job that includes an Approved Bill or recalculating an Approved Bill directly in Bill Management, the Bill is automatically moved back to Pending status.

  • When you are satisfied a Bill on an Account is correct and complete, you can move it to Approved meaning it is ready for sending out to invoicing systems.

• Locked.

  • Only Approved Bills can be moved to Locked.

  • A Locked Bill cannot be changed - it can no longer be:

    • Selected in the Bill Management list.

    • Unlocked.

    • Updated.

    • Recalculated, and is therefore excluded from any billing runs.

This topic explains how to work in Bill Management to move Bills through their lifecycle;

• Approving Bills

• Auto-Approving Bills

• Locking Bills

• Setting Global Lock Date

Approving Bills

When Bills are first generated, they have Pending status. For Pending Bills, you can:

• Select Bills directly in Bill Management and then approve the selected Bills.

• Approve a set of Bills by a specified invoice date period.

To approve Bills:

1. Select Billing>Bill Management. The Bill Management page opens and lists Bills for the default Invoice Date setting of the current month.

2. If you want to approve Bills for a different period, use the Invoice Date calendar pop-ups to adjust the period accordingly. See Running Bills and Viewing Bill Details.

• If you want to review the details of a Bill before approving it, select the REFERENCE hotlink text to open the Bill.

3. Use the checkboxes to select the Bill or Bills you want to approve.

• Note that if you've selected a Bill which is already at Approved status. the Approve selected button is automatically disabled.

4. Select Approve selected. The selected Bills are moved to Approved status and the Lock selected button is now enabled for these Bills.

5. If you want to approve a set of Bills by date range, select Approve bills. The Approve bills modal appears:

6. Use the Calendar pop-ups to select the Invoice start date and Invoice end date to define the date range for Bill approval.

• Note to clarify: start and end dates for Bill approval date range:

  • The Invoice start date is inclusive. This means, for example, if you've set the Invoice start date for Bill approval date range as April 1st, any Bill with an INVOICE DATE of April 1st or later will be approved.

  • The Invoice end date you select for the date range is exclusive. This means, for example, if you've set the Invoice end date for Bill approval date range as April 30th, any Bill with an INVOICE DATE of April 29th or earlier will be approved. However, a Bill dated April 30th will not be approved.

7. Select Approve bills. The modal closes and all Pending status Bills dated within the defined date range are moved to Approved status.

Auto-Approving Bills

You can enable auto-approval for Bills, which allows you to specify a time period (in minutes, hours, or days) following the Bill date after which Bills will be automatically approved:

• For example, suppose you are using a monthly billing frequency for an end customer Account and Bills are created at 12 midnight on the the last day of each month. You then enable Auto-approve bills and set it to 2 hours. Each month's Bill is approved automatically at 2 a.m. on the first day of the month following.

To set up auto-approval for Bills:

1. Select Settings>Organization. The Organization page opens with the Configuration tab selected.

2. On the Organization Configuration Details panel, select Edit. The Organization Configuration page opens.

3. Under Auto-approve bills, select the Enable auto-approval checkbox. Two time period settings fields are activated.

4. Use the time period settings fields to define the time-period following the Bill date you want Bills to be auto-approved:

• Use the drop-down field to select Minutes, Hours , or Days.

• Use the numeric field to enter the number of minutes, hours, or days.

5. Select Update Organization Configuration.

Locking Bills

You can only lock Bills that have an Approved status. When you've locked a Bill it can no longer be changed and is excluded from any billing runs.

To lock Bills:

1. Select Billing>Bill Management. The Bill Management page opens and lists Bills for the default Invoice Date setting of the current month.

2. If you want to lock Bills for a different period, use the Invoice Date calendar pop-ups to adjust the period accordingly. See Running Bills and Viewing Bill Details.

3. Use the checkboxes to select the Approved Bill or Bills you want to lock.

• Note that if you've selected a Bill which is at Pending status. the Lock selected button is automatically disabled.

4. Select Lock selected. The selected Bills are locked. Note that Locked Bills can no longer be:

• Selected in the list.

• Unlocked.

• Updated.

• Recalculated.

Setting Global Lock Date

You can also set a Global Lock Date, after which all Bills will be locked.

To set a Global Lock Date:

1. Select Billing>Bill Management. The Bill Management page opens and lists Bills for the default Invoice Date setting of the current month.

2. Select Set global lock date. A Set global lock date modal appears:

• Note that the default date used in the Modal when it's first opened is dependent on the end date set in Bill Management for the Invoice Date range - in this example, the end date was set at 04/30/2023 and the default global lock date is set as the following day.

6. Use the calendar popup to select the date on which you want all Bills to be locked and then select Save. The modal closes and any Bill with a service period end date on or before the date you've set will be locked.

Next: Adding Credit Line Items to Bills

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