One of the most fundamental decisions in the project billing process is determining the billing level. Some of the factors that should be considered when determining the billing level are the need for consistent billing formulas, and the affect of various contract values, retainages, ceilings, specific billing requirements, and task billing requirements.

For example, if your customer requires a separate bill after the completion of certain phases of the project, consider setting up unique tasks for each phase of the project and billing each phase separately. This will require setting up billing at the second level or below. If various tasks in the project require separate types of bills, such as fixed price or time and materials, you need to set up the project with the billing level at the second level or below to accommodate unique billing formulas at each node of the project because you can assign only one billing formula. These issues are part of the project setup plan; you should carefully evaluate your plan before initializing the project or charging to it.

Bills are printed and calculated at the billing level of the project. All transactions charged to tasks below the level where the billing formula has been assigned will be included in the billing calculation. You can use the Detail Levels subtask of the Manage Project Billing Information screen to enter each project node that for which you would like to print a supporting bill for the lower task levels. You can enter only project levels that are below the billing level.

Bills are posted to the general ledger at the level of the project where the billing formula was assigned on the Manage Project Billing Information screen. "The Posting Process" contains more specific information on the posting process in Costpoint.