Usually it is the supplier that invoices delivered parts; but in self-billing, the customer invoices or bills himself. It is practical and has some advantages assuming that the customer has good control over what was ordered from a specific supplier, what prices were agreed upon, and what was actually delivered. No invoices need to be sent from the supplier to get payments for the deliveries.
Both the supplier and customer can enjoy benefits such as reduced administrative costs, reduction of paperwork (specially with EDI). The customer can benefit from elimination of the need to receive and process supplier invoices. When different opinions about invoiced price or quantity are found, discussions will not be introduced by the customer but instead by the supplier. The supplier can benefit from the reduction of the time required to send the customer invoices and correct errors discovered by the customer, and also perhaps minimized payment delays.
Self-billing of customer orders in IFS Applications, makes it possible for you as a supplier, to receive and work with self-billing invoices from a customer.
The supplier's self-billing process is centered around the creation of a Customer Self-Billing Invoice, which contains lines to be invoiced. The lines to be invoiced are matched or added onto the customer self-billing invoice by the supplier (you), based on information provided by the customer. A customer self-billing invoice contains information about the invoiced price and quantity that will be used when the actual customer invoice is created. You will then create a customer invoice based on the customer self-billing invoice. These customer invoices are managed (posted and payments will be expected) in the same way as the customer invoices that are not created from self-billing.
Matching is performed on the incoming self-billing invoice message information received from the customer. This involves tallying delivered customer order lines in the system with invoice information in the incoming self-billing invoices. Matching can be performed in two ways: automatically and manually. You can manually initiate the automatic matching process from the incoming self-billing invoice header.
You need to set up the customer for automatic matching (even when initiated manually) by selecting an appropriate matching option and matching type. The matching option determines whether matching is performed based on the delivery note number, customer PO reference number, or reference ID. The matching type determines what happens to an incoming self-billing invoice as soon as it is received. You can set varying degrees of automation to match an incoming self-billing invoice upon receipt, create the customer invoice, and post it.
Note that the settings for automatic creating and printing of invoices on the order type of the customer orders, will not be applicable for self-billed customer order lines. Whether the aforesaid processes take place automatically for self-billed invoices depend solely on the matching type.
If matching is successful, a customer self billing invoice will be created with the matched lines. The match type of the lines are set to Automatic Match or Manual Match depending on how the matching was performed. As mentioned earlier, the customer self-billing invoice forms the base for creating customer invoices.
Instead of matching deliveries against incoming self-billing invoice lines to create a customer self-billing invoice, you can first create a customer self-billing invoice header and then directly add deliveries to it. This is when the selection of deliveries to be invoiced is based on the information received from the customer, for example, via telephone or e-mail. You can add deliveries to an existing customer self-billing invoice based on any further information received from the customer (This can be useful if the customer forgets to send any self-billing lines in the incoming self-billing invoice).
In the customer self-billing process, deviations may occur between price self-billed by the customer and the expected price. Deviations may also occur between the quantity self-billed by the customer and the expected quantity to be invoiced. Self-billing deviation reasons can be useful when investigating deviations. Each deviating self-billing line can be given a reason, entered manually, explaining why the deviation occurred, as well as any actions taken because of the deviation. Using predefined deviation reasons make it possible to group and categorize the deviations.
Additional cost received on an incoming self-billing line cannot be matched to customer order lines or sales charge lines. Any additional cost self-billed by the customer has to be managed manually. This can be done by increasing the self-billed unit price to include the additional cost. Another alternative is to add a sales charge to the customer order that will be matched to the incoming self-billing line. If this charge is connected to the matched customer order line, it will be included on the customer invoice that is created for the customer self-billing invoice.