Billing Schedule enables you to define billing decisions you want to execute over the life of a project. You can define the amount, trigger date, retainer applied and so on. You can attach a billing schedule to projects having fixed-type contracts. When you know the amount to be billed each period, Billing Schedule enables you to define as many billing records as needed (each record will become an invoice), define the bill amount for each period, apply part of the retainer to the net bill, and optionally, set a reminder date for when to bill it. Working with a project contract amount, you can bill different amounts or a percentage of the contract on specific dates. If desired, you can allocate a portion of a project's retainer balance to each scheduled billing. In addition, you can choose whether expenses and "extra" time are part of the contract amount or charged separately.
You do not need to complete all billing records at one time. Thus, you can have a contract extending for two or three years, but only the immediate billing records need to be completed (for example, the next two or three months). Even if you schedule invoices many months or years into the future, you can always change any unbilled record.
Projects with Billing Schedule are added to Billing Review automatically, if the date of bill is due and falls within the date range specified there. When a user chooses a range of dates on the Billing Review screen, and a project has a billing schedule associated with it that contains a billing record with a date within the date range, the billing record is brought forward in the Billing Review. A project must have at least one time entry during the billing period to generate a billing record in Billing Review.
When you begin the billing process in Billing Review, it checks the list (generated by the criteria you chose) for projects with Billing Schedule, then for unbilled billing records for the current billing cycle (date range you select). If found, the records are brought forward as billing information for your review and processing. In Billing Review, you can change amounts, exclude specific time and expenses from being relieved with the invoice and more. Though quick, straightforward and simple to set up, Web Suite does not require that you define billing records for months or years ahead of time. Setup the first few, and then leave yourself a reminder in your Employee profile. You can add or edit billing records at any time.