Sales Order > Advance Billing > Create Advance Billing

The Advance Billing function allows you to create an advanced bill for your customers prior to shipment of the inventory items in a sales order. Creating an advance bill will generate a document for the billed inventory items in a sales order; however, it is not a valid invoice until the billed items are shipped using the Ship SO function.

You can create multiple advance bills for an inventory item in a sales order. Each advance bill is treated as a separate invoice during shipment of the billed items.

To amend an advance bill, please see the discussion in the Amend Advance Billing topic.

Notes:

•Advance bills are numbered by the same numerical sequence as invoice numbers. You can set the invoice number sequence in the AR Module Setup function.

•Although advance bills share the same numerical sequence as AR invoices, you cannot print advance bills in the Print Invoice function until after the advanced billing is shipped.

To create an advance bill, perform the following steps:

1.Access the Advance Bill function from the Advance Billing group in the Transactions menu in the Sales Order module. Click the New button to create a new advance bill.

Note: If the Advance Bill function is accessed for the very first time and there are no existing advance bill records, the Create New screen is automatically displayed; otherwise, the Search screen is displayed. In the Search screen you can search and locate an existing advance bill.

2.In the SO # field, enter the number of the sales order for which you want to create an advance bill. Alternatively, you may click the List box button to display a list of sales order numbers with open items that are not yet completely billed; then, click a sales order number to select. Once you have entered a sales order number, the sales order details will be displayed in their respective fields.

3.In the Warehouse field, accept or amend the default warehouse code. You may click the Lookup button to search for the warehouse record that you want to use. Warehouse records display are those which are not restricted for you to use; then, click to select a warehouse.

Note: The line items that will be displayed in the grid will only be those coming from the warehouse entered in the Warehouse field above the Line Items grid.

4.Accept or amend the date entered in the Bill Date field. The default date is the current computer date.

5.Enter in the Bill Quantity field the quantity of the line item that you will bill against the sales order.

5.1. If you want to bill all the ordered quantities of the item, you may click the Bill All button in the grid toolbar. The total ordered quantities will be automatically entered in the Bill Quantity field. If you have previously created advance billing or made shipments for this sales order, the value in the Bill Quantity field will be reduced by the quantity previously billed and/or shipped.

5.2. You may manually enter in the Bill Quantity field the item quantities that you will include in the billing.

5.3. You may click the Bill None button in the grid toolbar to clear the values entered in the Bill Quantity field.

6.You may click the Show () button beside the Item # field to display the item Details and Tax Amount nested tabs.

4.1. Review the item tax details information in the Details tab.

4.2. The Tax Amount tab area contains the Tax Code and Tax Entities assigned to the line item currently selected in the grid. The default value comes from the the sales order for which the advance billing is being created for. If you want to amend the tax code and/or tax entity for any line item in the advance bill, you must first cancel or void the advance bill(s) created for the sales order; then, amend the values in the sales order using the Sales Order function.

7.In the Freight field, review and accept or amend the default freight charge. To amend the freight charge value, click the Overwrite Freight () button to display the Overwrite Freight window where you can enter a new freight charge for this advanced billing. The default freight charge in this field is defined in the sales order.

Note: If you have configured AccountMate to calculate freight charges by weight, it will compute the freight amount based on the weight entered in the Weight field in the inventory item maintenance record. To set the system to calculate freight charges by weight, mark the Calculate Freight Charge by Weight feature in the SO/AR Module Setup function.

8.In the Adjustment field, review and accept or amend the default value in this field. The default adjustment amount comes from the sales order. To amend the adjustment amount, enter the new value directly in this field.

9.When you are done entering the information for the advance billing, click the Save button in the function toolbar to proceed. In the Advance Billing save confirmation window that is displayed, perform the following steps:

•If the User Input (Numeric) option is selected in the AR Module Setup function, follow these steps:

5.1. Enter a number in the Advance Billing # field.

5.2. Click the Save button to save the transaction; otherwise, click the Cancel button.

Note: If the Automatic option is activated for Invoice Numbering in the AR Module Setup function, AccountMate will automatically provide an advance billing number in the Advance Billing # field, which follows the same number sequence as that of the sales invoices. Both the Save and Cancel buttons are also disabled.

10.When you have saved the transaction, you can choose to perform any of the following options:

oPreview

Click the Preview button if you want to view the advance bill before you print it.

oPrint

Click the Print button if you want to print the Proforma Invoice. Printing of this report, however, is subject to validation of the user's access right to this report.

oNew

Click the New button to create another advance bill transaction.

oClose

This is the X button in the upper right corner of the save confirmation window. Click this button to close the window and the main function screen.

Note: The Preview, Print and New buttons are enabled only if the user has the necessary access rights to these functions. To manage user access rights, use the Groups access rights function in the System Administrator module.

Q. Can I amend advance bills?

A. Yes, you can amend an advance billing as long as the items in the advance bill are not yet shipped. Refer to the Amend Advance Billing discussion for more details.

Create Advance Billing

Create Advance Billing

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