Billing · Setup & configuration · 9 min read

Billing policies

Create, activate, change and retire grouping, approval, correction reason, issue profile and revenue recognition policies.

Before you begin

• You need billing.configure. Everyone with billing.view can read the lists.
• At least two people with this permission are needed: one prepares a policy and another activates it.
• Approval policies and Revenue recognition appear only when their feature is on.

Steps: create and activate a policy

1. Open the policy list under Billing > Configuration: Grouping policies, Approval policies, Correction reasons, Issue profiles or Revenue recognition.
2. Press New.
3. Enter the Code: 2 to 30 characters, a capital letter first, then capitals, digits, _ and -. Lower case is turned into capitals. It must be unique within its kind and cannot change later.
4. Enter the Name (up to 160 characters) and optionally the Arabic name.
5. Fill the fields of that kind (below).
6. Optionally tick Company default. Only one active default exists per kind; activating a new default clears the old one.
7. Optionally set Valid from and Valid to. Outside the window the policy does not apply. The end cannot be before the start: 'The end comes after the start.'
8. Press Save. The policy is a draft.
9. A different person opens the policy and presses Activate.

If the author tries: 'Somebody other than the person who prepared this <kind> must decide it.' The list shows Activated by.

Fields by kind

Grouping policy

• Group invoices by: one key per line from payment_terms, bill_to, branch, customer_po, order, price_list, salesperson. Customer and currency always count.
• At most this many orders on one invoice: 1 to 500, default 50.

Approval policy

• Documents: invoice, bill, credit_note, debit_note. Empty means all.
• Approval needed from this total (company currency): at or above this value, compared in AED. Default 0.
• Always approve invoices with no order behind them: on by default.

Correction reason

• For: Credit note, Debit note or Either.
• Must name the original invoice: a note with this reason and no original is refused at posting: 'The reason <CODE> needs the original invoice on the note.'
• At most this % of the original: 0.001 to 100.
• Needs approval: notes with this reason need approval before posting.
• Evidence required: stored, but nothing checks it yet.

Issue profile

• Country: two letters, for example AE. The profile applies when it equals the company's country.
• Documents: which kinds it covers.
• Required before issue: choose from the customer's tax number, address and Arabic name; the company's tax registration and address; the date of supply; a tax code on every line; and the customer PO.
• Only for customers with a tax number: skips consumers without a TRN.
• Language and Print template (up to 80 characters).

Posting a document that fails the profile is refused: 'The issue profile <CODE> needs: Customer tax registration number, ...'.

Revenue recognition policy

• Products: product codes or ids. 'No product NOPE in this company.' if unknown.
• Recognise over (months): 1 to 120, default 12.
• Starting: from the invoice date, the date of supply, or the first of next month.
• Deferred revenue account (code) and Revenue account (code).

Change or retire a policy

• An active policy is not edited: 'An active grouping policy is not edited. Archive it and create a new one.'
• Press Archive to stop it applying. Press Back to draft to make it editable again. A draft is then activated again by a second person.
• Example: you want the approval threshold to go from AED 10,000.00 to AED 20,000.00. Archive the old policy, create a new one with 20,000, mark it default, and have a colleague activate it.

What happens next

Active policies apply to the next action: grouping when invoices are created, approval and issue checks when an invoice is sent for approval or posted, and reasons when a note is raised. Documents already issued are not changed.

Good to know

• An archived policy that an issued invoice was checked against can be put back to draft and edited, so keep a note of changes yourself.
• Errors: 'A code is capitals, digits, _ and - (2-30).' and 'Choose between 1 and 500.'