Summary
This article covers how to manage invoices on accounts. It includes but is not limited to, closing, voiding, emailing and rendering invoices.
Invoices Page
When you load an account and access the Invoices page you will see invoices that have been created and their details. Various functions are available on this screen which are described below.
Note: not all of the options listed below/shown in the image above may be displayed to you in the EngageIP AdminPortal. The options presented will depend on the role you are accessing the system with and its role permissions
List Actions
The list actions shown above relate to all items in the invoices list/table (not just invoices that are selected). These features are explained below:
Reset: resets the view back to the default data displayed (the standard columns on the Invoices list). This 'reset' list action only appears when the list view has been altered from the default view. For instance the list of invoices shown in the image above has been altered to hide columns which display credit and payment details, clicking reset will bring these columns back
View: allows you to alter and filter the data displayed in the invoices list (hide columns, show only data that falls within a specific date range, etc.). For more information on configuring views see the Customizing Data Displayed on Lists/Tables Using View Filters article
Export: allows you to export the list/table details as XML or CSV data. The export will observe the 'View' you have configured and only export the details shown in the AdminPortal
Print: displays the list data in a printable format. Print will observe the 'View' you have configured and only print the details shown in the AdminPortal
List Select Actions
The list selection actions shown above only act upon the invoices that you have selected in the list. If you do not select an invoice in the list these buttons will be greyed out. What each list action does is explained below:
Email - emails the selected invoice(s) to the billing contact on the account. This will render and close the invoice selected
Close - closes the invoice(s) selected. This will render the invoice and mark it as closed, you can then email the invoice or mark it as printed as needed
Printed - marks the invoice(s) as printed and close them so that they will not be sent to the print queue during billing. You can manually send/email invoices or print them if they need to be delivered to the customer. When you select this option you will be prompted to supply a 'Sent Date'
Void - voids/reverses an entire invoice and creates a new closed invoice that has the reversals on it. Both the voided and the new invoice will be closed. The 'Void' column will display 'Yes' for the invoice that was voided and 'Voids InvoiceID' for the invoice that voids (or cancels out) the invoice that was voided. Voiding marks both invoices as 'Sent' as well so that they are not automatically delivered to the customer. Voiding an invoice will result in the following:
A reversal of the entire invoice, generating a new set of reversals to zero out the original invoice
A reversal of taxes according to the current rates. It will not reverse taxes simply by using the tax rates that were originally applied, it will use the existing tax configuration even if the rates have changed since the invoice was originally created
The 'Usage Next Bill Date' on the Usage Billing Frequency component will be rolled back so that usage is not billed beyond the reset period
Alert: prior to EngageIP 8.6.2 the Usage Next Bill Date on accounts was not set back when voiding an invoice. You will need to manually reset the Usage Next Bill date if you are running an older version of EngageIPRecurring and non-recurring package next bill dates will be reset. E.g. if a monthly user-package was billed on for Oct 1st, the next bill date on the user-package would be updated to Nov 1st. If the October invoice is voided, the user-package next bill date would be reset back to Oct 1st so that it can be billed out again. If an invoice contains billed charges for multiple billing periods the user-package next bill dates will be reset back so that it will bill for the initial billing period of the series the next time billing is run
A reversal of ticket transactions. Charges will need to be added manually if you want to keep ticket transaction charges on the account
The UDRBiller InvoiceID and UDRBillerBucket.InvoiceIDs will be set to NULL for rebilling purposes. For UDRBillers (billing period specific usage charges) and UDRBillerBuckets (billing period specific usage buckets), each of the records billed on the voided invoice will also be cleared out so that they can be billed again
One Time fees will be reversed on void, and when rebilled, the one time fees will bill out again
Open - opens the selected invoice (only one invoice can be open at a time). This allows you or the system to make adjustments, or add more transactions onto the invoice. You likely will want to close the invoice after you're doing making adjustmentsCaution: be sure you are only opening and modifying invoices that have not been sent to the customer
OpenUnsent - allows you to open the selected invoice provided it was not sent to the customer ('Sent Date' is not set). To prevent sent invoices from being opened the 'Open' list select action can be disabled using role permissions
PrintQueue - sends the selected invoices to the Print Queue for printing. The print queue can be viewed by accessing the Reports -> Invoice Print Queue report
ReTotal - updates the InvoiceSummary of the selected open invoice (developer tool). This option should be hidden using role permissions
XML - exports the data in the selected invoice as XML
Ticket - allows you to add ticket references
Rendering an Invoice
Rendering an invoice means refreshing it or loading the display of the invoice again to factor in a new invoice template or new charges that were added to the invoice. If an invoice is already open, every time you view it, it will render again. If an invoice is closed, it will have rendered once on close and if the template was changed after you would need to follow the options below to have the system redraw the invoice to see the new charges or template changes;
Options to render an invoice:
Invoice Date link - click the invoice date link, on the next screen, simply click save with no updating of the date. This will trigger EngageIP to draw the invoice again to take into account a new template associated to the invoice configuration on the account. View the invoice to confirm it contains the updated details/template
Open and Close the invoice - check the box beside the invoice you want to render, click 'open' button at bottom. When it's open, then check the invoice and click 'close' button at bottom. This process will also redraw/render the invoice again
Note: if you're opening and closing invoices that are not the LATEST (most recent) on the account, opening and closing may cause tokens on the invoice to recalculate and take into consideration current account balances rather than historic so this should be a last option for rendering the invoice
Splitting an Invoice
A case may arise where an invoice was not closed from a previous month, especially when manually billing an account. You can perform the following steps to split the invoice into two periods:
Void the invoice that has two periods on it (this will reset the billed usage and reverse any charged amounts
Reset the next bill dates on the accounts packages (and any sub accounts) to the first period you would like to bill for
Run billing manually from the Tools page for that single period
Review the invoice
Close the invoice
Run billing for the next period from Tools page
Review the Invoice
Close the invoice
The charges at this time should be separated into the correct periods and can be billed normally going forward. Usage should bill again as well per invoice.
Note: For more detail, please see Credit Card Processing - Executing Refunds, Processing and Test Mode