Invoicing Master Contracts

The functionality of maintenance invoicing changes when you are using the Master Contract feature. Billing schedules are still created for each maintenance contract, whether it is assigned to a master contract or not. Each maintenance contract updates Receivables Management as part of the master contract distribution.

When master contracts are used with billing control, the maintenance contracts assigned to the master contract will print on one invoice. If maintenance contracts are not attached to a master contract that controls billing, these invoices will print separately.  

The creation of a master contract invoice batch focuses on grouping by period due to the fact that contracts on a master contract may have different billing dates. For example, billing for January 2023 could have Contract 1's billing date of 01/01/2023 while Contract 2's billing date of 01/15/2023.  Building invoices for the master contract takes the approach of grouping by period.  Since both dates fall in the same period, it will combine them.

Maintenance contracts appear on the master contract invoice beginning on their start dates. The division selected for each maintenance contract in the Maintenance Contract window determines which accounts are posted to when the master contract is invoiced.

To invoice master contracts:

1. Select Microsoft Dynamics GP > Tools > Routines > Service Management > Maintenance Contract > Create Invoices.
2. Complete the following fields, as necessary.
   • Date
     Use the drop-down lists in the From and To fields to select the range. You can select from the following ranges: enter date (the ability to enter a starting and ending date), current date, beginning of month, and end of month.
   • Invoice
     Select to create invoices for:

     • All customers, or a Branch Range of customers, or by Contract Type, both master contracts and unassigned maintenance contracts are invoiced.
       When filtering and then invoicing for a contract type, if individual contracts under the same master contract have different contract types, only the contracts with the filtered contract type will be invoiced.

     • An Individual Customer, the criteria entered in the Individual Customer fields determine which contracts are invoiced.
       • Select Contract Owner or Bill To Customer.
       • Select the Customer Name and then select Create to invoice all master contracts and unassigned maintenance contracts for that customer. 
       • If you also enter a Location Name, only the unassigned maintenance contracts for that customer and location are invoiced. Master contracts can span multiple locations, and therefore would not be invoiced.
       • If you use the lookup window in the Contract Number field to select a contract, all maintenance contracts display. You can only select unassigned maintenance contracts in this field. If you select or enter an assigned maintenance contract number, you receive an error message alerting you that the contract cannot be invoiced separately.
   • Options
     • Mark the Calculate Taxes and/or Calculate Commissions checkboxes if you wish to calculate taxes and commissions. Processing is faster when taxes and commissions are not calculated. 
     • Mark Include Non-Auto Billed Contracts in Preview to display the non-auto billed contracts in the Preview report. This check box defaults to marked.
3. Select Preview to preview a list of invoices for the selected period.
4. Select the Create button to create the invoice(s).
5. Select the Print button on the Maintenance Invoicing window to print the invoices. Select one of four invoice format options for maintenance billing. All four invoice formats include customer and address, date, contract number, purchase order number, contract type, billing date, invoice number, amount, tax, and total. If the contract contains a billing note, it prints on all invoices. Minor differences include: when using Multicurrency Management with maintenance contracts and master contracts, invoice 1 prints originating amounts instead of functional amounts; when printing multiple invoices for the same customer, invoice 2 and 3 print the invoices on one page. For invoice examples, see Maintenance Contract Invoice.

If you did not mark the Automatically Create Invoices option during setup and did not mark the Automatically Bill field on the Maintenance Contract window, maintenance invoices will not be previewed or created.

After the invoices have been created, a summary report prints, listing the invoices created. 

You can view the periods you have created and posted invoices for by choosing the Billing button on the Maintenance Contract window. If the billing amount has been posted, the posted date appears in the Posted column, and the Year and Period columns fill in accordingly. If a period has not been posted, 0/0/00 appears in the Posted column.