Using Third-Party Billing

Often in situations such as warranty work, a service organization needs to bill someone other than the customer site where the service work was performed. You can select a different customer and/or address to invoice for service work. You can also create credit memos for third parties.

A customer's billing address for service work can come from four different places in Service Management:

The Customer window contains the default Bill To address for a customer. You can only select one of the customer's addresses at this level; you cannot specify a third party for the default customer Bill To address. This is the most general billing address, which can be overwritten by a more specific entry in another area.
The Location window specifies the Bill Customer and Bill Address to use for a customer location. At the location level, you can enter a third-party customer for billing. When a service call is created for this location, the billing customer and address for the location defaults.
The Service Call window specifies the Bill Customer and Bill Address to use for a service call. When a call is created, billing information defaults from the location. If no billing information is specified for the location, the billing information defaults from the customer record. You can edit this information per service call.
The Service Invoice window specifies Bill To information for the service call, including the billing customer and address. This is the last chance before invoicing to edit any information that was specified on the service call or that defaulted from the location and customer records.

You can set up third-party billing at the level of your choosing. If you specify a third party at the location record level, that third party will default for all service calls that are created for that location. You can also select a third party to bill when creating an individual service call or invoice. Using third-party billing involves the following steps:

Step 1: Select a Customer to Bill

Create a service call as you normally would, changing the Bill Customer and Bill Location as necessary.

Step 2: Complete the Invoice

When you are ready to invoice the service call, select Invoice. Complete the service invoice in the usual manner. Note that the master tax schedule is based on the new customer. As you add costs, the price matrix and labor rate used are based on the new customer.

Step 3: Edit Individual Transactions

If you want to apply a price matrix or labor rate to individual transactions, select the Billing Rates button in the Service Invoice window.

You cannot edit individual transactions if the Signature Multicurrency Management module is registered. The Billing Rates button will not be present.
Select a Customer ID if you would like to bill a customer other than the current customer.
Select which cost categories you would like recalculated by marking the checkboxes. You must mark a cost category for changes to occur.
Select which pricing method to use for inventory items. This defaults based on invoice setup.
If you want to edit individual transactions, select the Edit Records button to open the Update Billing Amount window. Here you can select which transactions to recalculate. The calculations are based on the cost categories marked in the Recalculate Billing Rates window. You can also edit the Billing Amount and Cost Code fields. Select Save or close the window to save your changes.
If you made changes in the Update Billing Amount window, do not select Billing Rates in the Recalculate Billing Rates window. If you do, your changes will be overwritten. Instead, select OK. Select the Billing Rates button if you did not make changes in the Update Billing Amount window.

When a price matrix or labor rate other than the one assigned to the original customer is used, the transaction information reflects the original price matrix and labor rate, though the new information is used to calculate the billing amount.
If the service invoice has been saved, you cannot change the customer ID from the Service Invoice window. Select the Billing Rates button to change the customer ID.
You cannot edit individual transactions if the Signature Multicurrency Management module is registered.
All costs associated with a service call remain with the customer ID chosen for the service call.