Projects, Task and Employees –
The basic codes used in the P/I system that are used to track revenues from professional activity would be the Projects that are worked on, the Employees performing the work, and what Tasks were performed that are charged to the customers.  Once these codes are established, chargeable, or non-chargeable, activity may be recorded.  Note that an Employee might also be a machine or an internet service that is used to accumulate charges.
 

Charge-Out and Costing Rates –
The system is designed to provide for the entry of employee Work-In-Progress, (WIP), activity, comprised of chargeable or non-chargeable time sheet information, with little or no knowledge of charge-out rates.  To accomplish this feat, an algorithm is employed to examine possible Standard Rates associated with Projects, Customers, or Tasks, and to search for any Special Rates that might have been defined.  When the time sheet information is entered, the system determines both the Chargeable and/or Non-Chargeable rates, and the internal Cost rate for each item.  Revenue and Costing G/L accounts are also automatically assigned.
 

Project to Customer Relationship –
A Project Code is used to define a collection of Work-In-Progress activity and Disbursements associated to a Project.  A Project belongs to a Customer for which chargeable activity is being performed.  You may define multiple Projects for a given customer.  Projects can be long term; that is, they might span a time frame of several years.  A given job performed by your company that will be charged to a customer, should be entered under a defined Project. A simple way of categorizing the definition of a project is that one or more Invoices are generated for each Project.  Projects may also be deemed as non-charageable.  These might be used to capture employee non-chargeable activity, or even sick and/or vacation time.
 

Special Rates and the Rate Class –
The Professional Invoicing system provides for the definition of Special Rates to be used for unit Costs or Billing rates.  These would be special cases which differ from that of the Standard Rates that might be assigned to Projects or Tasks.  There are five Special Billing Rate types and two Special Cost Rate types, that can be defined:
  • Billing rate by Employee
  • Billing rate by Employee Group
  • Billing rate by Task Group
  • Billing rate by Employee for a given Task
  • Billing rate by the Stardard Task adjusted by a %
  • Cost Rate by Employee
  • Cost Rate by Task
Special rates are allocated to a Rate Class.  When Projects are defined to the system, they can be associated to a Rate Class.  A Rate Class might be considered as a column of rates found in matrix if all the Special Rates are represented by rows in a matrix.  You may then define a class of rates that a given Project, or set of Projects, are going to use.
 

Revenue Allocation –
The Professional Invoicing system provides for the option of having revenue determined at the point that Time Sheets and/or data is interfaced, or at the time that Invoices are generated and printed.  (On some systems, this difference could effect the P&L statement significantly).  Revenue is accumulated by assigning a G/L Revenue Account for either a Project, a Department, Groups of Tasks, or Groups of Invoice Sections.  For special cases, a Revenue Account can be defined for specific Tasks when used on specific Projects.  At all times during the billing cycle, an accurate account for both time and revenue charges is available to the General Ledger system utilizing WIP, assorted Revenue, Unearned Revenue and Deferred Revenue accounts.
 

Project Deposits –
The P/I system provides for a Project Deposit to be recorded, prior to any activity or billing.  A special WIP record will record the amount of the deposit.  When an invoice is eventually generated, any deposit found on file will be applied, and the appropriate Balance Due Total will be computed and printed.
 

Project Budgeting –
The P/I system provides for a number of different ways to set up and maintain Project Budgets. Budget versus Actual figures are kept for WIP # of Units, WIP Costs and Revenues, and Disbursement Costs and Revenues for user defined periods of time. Budgets can be set up as follows:
  • by Project so one record holds all amounts for WIP, Disbursements and Cost Plus amounts
  • by Project for just WIP # of Units, WIP Revenue, Cost-Plus and/or Disbursements for all activity associated to the Project. (Each tracked separately)
  • by Project for just WIP # of Units, WIP Revenue, Cost-Plus and/or Disbursements for specific Budget Groups assigned to Tasks and/or Employees
  • by Budget Groups associated to Tasks, regardless of the Project, so budgets can be established for a single, or group of different types of activity
  • by Budget Groups associated to Employees, regardless of the Project, so budgets can be established for a specific employee or group of employees
The budgets may be established for a specified period of time, which may be broken down by week, month, quarter, year, (for up to 26 periods), or for the life of a project.
 

Automatic Calculation of Cost-Plus Charges –
For companies dealing with government contracts, or when revenue needs to be determined based on fixed fee percentages, the P/I system offers the capability to automatically computed Cost Plus Charges.  As a part of the billing procedure, after all Work-In-Progress and Disbursement items have been selected for billing, the Cost Plus Generation option is selected to be executed.  Based on Selected and Un-selected items, Cost Plus Factors are applied to compute predefined Cost Plus charges.  These Cost Plus charges are recorded as special WIP items and will be printed on the invoice, and available for the assorted analysis reports.  The percentages used in the calculations are pre-determined, by Project, and the formulas customized per site.  Up to six different Cost Plus factors may be defined.  Budgets may also be established for Cost Plus revenue.
 

Project Billing –
Work-In-Progress items may be selected for billing using two different methods.  First, a Generalized Billing process is available which automatically selects all eligible WIP and Disbursements within a specified date range.  Alternatively, a Selective Billing and Adjustments option may be used to individually select WIP items for billing.
When using Selective Billing, a scrolling screen of up to six WIP items are displayed.  Individual items can be selected using the mouse.  Once an item is selected, it’s invoice amount can be Marked Up or Marked Down, it can be Partially Billed, Deferred, or even Written Off.  If the WIP item selected has Budgets defined, the Budget Actual, Committed and Remaining amounts are displayed.
When WIP items are billed, both the Original Rate and Amount and the Invoiced Rate and Amount figures are kept with the item.  These amounts are available for inquiry or reporting purposes. Also, when invoiced, each WIP and Disbursement charge retains the Invoice Number and Invoice Date for future reference.
 

3rd Party Billing and Multi-Client Billing –
Invoices are normally generated for a given Project that is associated to a particular Customer. As an additional feature, the P/I system supports 3rd Party Billing, on behalf of the customer associated to the Project. Charges accumulated to the Project, as one of their properties, has a Bill-Code. The Billing Code is used to identify which items belong to which 3rd Party Customer. Two variations exist.
First, for 3rd Party Billing, a given invoice is sent both to the primary customer and to the 3rd party customer. However, the receivable is only registered for the primary customer associated to the Project. This approach may typically be used by large legal firms.
In the second variation, invoices are only sent to the 3rd Party Customer and the receivable is registered to that customer. This approach may be used where charges are recorded by a head office on behalf of a number of branch offices.

 

Invoice Printing –
The P/I system provides for a number of different types of Invoices to be printed.  That is, for a given project, WIP and/or Disbursement items may be grouped in various was to produce one or more invoices.  An Invoice Layout Maintenance application allows you to configure a number of different types of Invoices by selecting from the following characteristics.
  • WIP grouped by Project, Employee, Department, Task Group, Reference, (or Job), or Date
  • WIP detail with Task description, Employee name, or WIP Description
The invoices may be generated as either raw ASCII text files, or as MS Word Documents, and printed. When MS Word documents are generated, they may be associated to an MS Word Template that defines font, margins, headers and footers, or even a watermark.
 

Automatic Emailing of Invoices –
Projects, and their associated Customers, may be set up to have their invoices automatically emailed to them. The invoices are generated as PDF documents and emailed to the designated individual of the Customer company. This saves on printing costs, time and postage.
 

Electronic Invoices –
Projects may be set up to produce electronic Invoice data files, as well as a printed Invoice.  Different types of EDI invoices may be generated at the same time, for different Projects.  The following types of invoice may be generated:
  • Ariba cXML Invoices
  • Ariba CSV Invoices
  • Traditional ANSI X12 4010-810 EDI
  • Excel Workbook Invoices (with separate summary and a detail worksheets)
  • LEDES 98B Invoices
  • LEDES 2000s Invoices
  • Paymentech 120-Byte Batch Processing for Cedit Card paid services
  • Paymentech "Orbital Gateway" XML Batch Processing Credit Card Processing
  • For custom user defined Invoice Interface files for your customers' A/P system
 

Invoicing Wizard –
A wizard program is one that handles a number of standard repetitive functions.  There is a wizard that handles the interface of data, the billing process, the printing of Invoices, and the posting to Accounts Receivables.  It examines specific folders for the presence of specific files, and process them accordingly.
 

On-Demand Invoicing –
Invoices may be generated "On-Demand". For web-based, or phone operator services, a request consisting of details of the charges, may be submitted. Charges will be immediately recorded into the system, with an invoice generated, and emailed as a PDF document to the agent and/or the customer. Applicable information is also recorded in Accounts Receivable and the General Ledger.
 

Extensive Import/Export to/from Spreadsheet –
The Series 5 system provides for the loading or dumping of data from or to your favorite spreadsheet.  Data can be read or written directly to Microsoft's Excel, or tab-delimited text files.
Data Export is offered for the following transactions, master records or analysis:
  • Project Master record data
  • Task Master record data
  • Cost Center Credit Card Numbers (kept on the system as encrypted fields)
  • Invoice Group Master record data
  • WIP Period Analysis Summary Totals