Set up automatic invoice creation

Applies To: Core deployment - deal to proforma invoicing, Project Operations Integrated with ERP

You can configure automatic invoice creation in Dynamics 365 Project Operations. The system creates a draft proforma invoice based on the invoice schedule for each project contract and contract line. Invoice schedules are configured at the contract line level. Each line on a contract can have a distinct invoice schedule, or the same invoice schedule can be included on every line of the contract.

When you create an invoice, the system always creates at least one invoice per project contract. In some cases, there may be multiple invoices created. For example, if the contract has multiple customers, the same number of invoices are created as the number of customers that have billable transactions to invoice on that project contract.

Understand how transactions are included on an invoice

Sometimes, each project-based contract line specifies a separate invoice schedule. For example, implementation services for the Adatum contract have the following contract lines:

• Prototype work that is a fixed price with two manually created milestones.
• Implementation work that includes Time and is billed bi-weekly on Mondays.
• Expenses incurred that need to be billed monthly on the first Monday of each month.

Invoice schedules defined on each of these two line items look like the following table:

Contract line	Invoice run date	Transaction cut-off date	Milestone date	Milestone amount
Prototype work	October 5, Monday	-	October 5, Monday	5,000 USD
-	November 3, Tuesday	-	November 3, Tuesday	12,000 USD
Implementation work	October 5, Monday	October 4, Sunday	-	-
-	October 19, Monday	October 18, Sunday	-	-
-	November 2, Monday	November 1, Sunday	-	-
-	November 16, Monday	November 15, Sunday	-	-
Expenses incurred	October 5, Monday	October 4, Sunday	-	-
-	November 2, Monday	November 1, Sunday	-	-

In this example when the automatic invoicing runs on:

• October 4 or any date before: No invoice is generated for this contract because the Invoice Schedule table for each of these contract lines doesn't call out October 4, Sunday as an invoice run date.

• October 5 Monday: One invoice is generated for:

  • Prototype work that includes the milestone, that's marked as Ready to Invoice.
  • Implementation work that includes all Time transactions created before the transaction cut-off date of October 4, Sunday, that's marked as Ready to Invoice.
  • Expense incurred that includes all Expense transactions created before the transaction cut-off date of October 4, Sunday, that's marked as Ready to Invoice.

• On October 6 or any date before October 19: No invoice is generated for this contract since the Invoice Schedule table for each of these contract lines doesn't call out October 6 or any date before October 19 as an invoice run date.

• October 19, Monday: One invoice is generated for implementation work that includes all Time transactions created before the transaction cut-off date of October 18, Sunday, that is marked as Ready to Invoice.

• November 2 Monday: One invoice is generated for:

  • Implementation work that includes all Time transactions created before the transaction cut-off date of November 1, Sunday, that'is marked as Ready to Invoice.
  • Expense incurred that includes all Expense transactions created before the transaction cut-off date of November 1, Sunday, that's marked as Ready to Invoice.

• November 3, Tuesday: One invoice is generated for prototype work that includes the milestone for 12,000 USD, that's marked as Ready to Invoice.

Configure automatic invoicing

Complete the following steps to configure an automated invoice run.

1. In Project Operations, go to Settings > Recurring Invoice Setup.
2. Create a batch job, and name it Project Operations Create Invoices. The name of the batch job must include the words, "create invoices".
3. In the Job Type field, select None. By default, the Frequency Daily and Is Active fields are set to Yes.
4. Select Run Workflow. In the Look Up Record dialog box, you see three workflows:

• ProcessRunCaller
• ProcessRunner
• UpdateRoleUtilization

5. Select ProcessRunCaller, and then select Add.
6. In the next dialog box, select OK. A Sleep workflow is followed by a Process workflow.

Note

You can also select ProcessRunner in step 5. Then, when you select OK, a Process workflow is followed by a Sleep workflow.

The ProcessRunCaller and ProcessRunner workflows create invoices. ProcessRunCaller calls ProcessRunner. ProcessRunner is the workflow that actually creates the invoices. The workflow goes through all the contract lines that invoices must be created for, and creates invoices for those lines. To determine the contract lines that invoices must be created for, the job looks at invoice run dates for the contract lines. If contract lines that belong to one contract have the same invoice run date, the transactions are combined into one invoice that has two invoice lines. If there are no transactions to create invoices for, the job skips creating an invoice.

After ProcessRunner has finished running, it calls ProcessRunCaller, provides the end time, and is closed. ProcessRunCaller then starts a timer that runs for 24-hours from the specified end time. At the end of the timer, ProcessRunCaller is closed.

The batch process job for creating invoices is a recurrent job. If this batch process is run many times, multiple instances of the job are created and causes errors. Therefore, you should start the batch process only one time, and then restart only if it stops running.

Note

Batch invoicing in Project Operations only runs for project contract lines that are configured by invoice schedules. A contract line with a fixed price billing method must have milestones configured. A project contract line with a time and material billing method needs a date-based invoice schedule set up.