Costpoint updates the Open Billing Detail for projects with a unit-based formula.

The only exclusively unit-based formula is Unit Transactions Only. When you use this formula, only units will appear on the bill; however, units can be included on any T&M type billing. You can bill hours and non-labor costs as well as units if you use any of the loaded labor formulas. You must be sure to charge the units in the Enter Unit Usage screen to an account that has been assigned a Function Code of UNITS on the Manage Account Groups screen. The program will not perform the unit calculations unless this function code is used. The calculations for unit-based billings are outlined below.

1. For unit-based transactions, Write off and Hold units are summarized in the Open Billing Detail table. The program compares these units to the total transaction units. If the transaction units are greater, this is the number of units eligible to be billed.

   You can partially bill transactions by selecting the Allow Transactions To Be Partially Billed check box on the Manage Project Billing Information screen, and the partial transactions are taken into consideration when arriving at allowable costs. Values are evaluated in the following manner:

   Write Off, Hold, and Previously Billed Units are summarized in the Open Billing Detail table. If the transaction quantity is greater than the sum of those fields, the difference is the number of units eligible to be billed.

2. Next, the program calculates allowable units. Eligible units that have been calculated using the formula outlined in the previous section are summarized by Project/Org/Account/CLIN. Unit Ceilings are entered on the Item Linkage subtask of the Manage CLIN Information screen. Ceilings are entered in the table by CLIN and are taken into consideration for billings if they contain a ceiling code of B or A.

   Units used for the month are entered and posted from the screens in the Units Usage menu in Costpoint Billing. If the Post To Billings check box is selected on the Manage Unit Usage screen, Units Used will update the Open Billing Detail table. The account entered in the Manage Unit Usage screen must have a Function Code of UNITS (on the Manage Account Groups screen) in order to be billed using unit price calculations. If the account entered on the Manage Unit Usage screen has a Function Code of NON-LABOR, the cost associated with the units will be billed. Units must be posted to the Open Billing Detail table to be included in billing calculations. Units in the Open Billing Detail table are summarized by Project, CLIN, and Item. Inception-to-Date (ITD) units billed are summarized on the Manage Project Bill Summary table. The program compares ITD units billed to the total unit ceiling set on the Item Linkage subtask of the Manage CLIN Information screen to obtain allowable units.

   The excess of ceiling units over ITD units billed is the number of units remaining to bill. The program compares this number to the sum of currently billable units in the Open Billing Detail table. If the units currently billable are less than the ceiling, all units are billed. If units are in excess of this ceiling, they are disallowed in the reverse order in which they were used. In other words, units are allowed on a First In, First Out basis up to the ceiling, and are therefore disallowed on a Last In, First Out basis, depending on the unit usage date. The allowable number of units is finally derived, based on the date and the ceiling.

   If you are partially billing transactions, a partial unit transaction may be allowed to arrive at a cost ceiling. Consequently, part of a transaction may be considered billable, and part of it may be considered over ceiling. In this situation, the number of billable units copied into Billing Edit Detail is reduced by the portion of the transaction that has been disallowed. If partial transactions are not billed, the entire transaction being evaluated at the time the ceiling is reached is disallowed.

   The program determines allowable units before performing transaction updates to the Billing Edit Detail table. In other words, transactions are summed and evaluated in the Open Billing Detail table against unit ceilings. If transactions are partially billed, the fully allowable transactions are copied into Billing Edit Detail first. If only part of a transaction is allowable, that portion is copied into Billing Edit Detail. Transactions over ceiling remain in the Open Billing Detail table. If transactions are not partially billed, the entire transaction used to arrive at the cost ceiling is disallowed and therefore is not copied into the Billing Edit Detail table. This allows units to be billed if the unit ceiling is removed or increased in a future period.

3. The program then updates additional fields in the Billing Edit Detail table. Write Off units, and units on Hold, are also copied into the Billing Edit Detail table. Therefore, for every billable transaction, the Billing Edit Detail table stores the part of that transaction that has been previously billed, written off, placed on hold, or is currently billed. The sum of these fields is the total transaction amount. The project ID that incurred the transaction (or source project ID) and the invoice project ID, or project level at which the invoice is posted, are stored for each transaction.
4. Next, the program looks at the Project Unit Pricing subtask of the Manage CLIN Information screen for unit pricing information. The Project/CLIN and Item used for pricing information is the Project/CLIN and Item to which units used were charged. If Project/CLIN pricing is not used, pricing information from generic product price catalogs is used for the Item and Revision to which units used were charged.

   Unit pricing may be fixed for all units (total pricing), or it may be incremental (incremental pricing). Select either the Incremental or Total option on the Configure Project Settings screen to determine the type of unit pricing. If you use incremental pricing, you can set price increments by date, or by number of units. If the unit price is fixed for all units, the program multiplies this price by the allowable units to arrive at a billing amount.

   If unit pricing is incremental, the program first looks at the date range of the price increments. Once it finds the correct date range to use, it looks next to the quantity for the unit price. It multiplies the number of allowable units less than or equal to the maximum units at that price by the corresponding price to arrive at a billing amount for that group of units. The unit price is also stored in the Billing Edit Detail file.

   Sales tax for units billed is also accrued by the Calculate Standard Bills screen. Unit transactions in the Open Billing Detail table store the sales tax code of the state associated with the units used in that transaction. The base amount used in the sales tax calculation is the price per unit multiplied by the number of units. The program multiplies this amount by the sales tax rate from the Sales Tax table for the designated sales tax code. The sales tax amount and code are stored in the Billing Edit Detail table.

5. Next, the program updates the Billing Edit Detail table with non-transaction based amounts. These amounts include costs over ceiling, and retainage amounts.

   The program sums the billing amounts and compares them to the Contract Value and Funded Value from the Manage Total Ceilings screen. If the amount has a code of B or A, this value is used as a total billing ceiling amount. If the total billing computed exceeds the billing ceiling, a record is added to the Billing Edit Detail for over ceiling total amounts. The program updates the Billing Edit Detail table at the level of the project where the ceiling was set on the Manage Total Ceilings screen.

The final step is to calculate retainage amounts. Retainage can be calculated on fee amounts, T&M labor, or billing amounts. Additionally, retainage can be withheld throughout the project, or from the final invoice. For unit-based invoices, retainage can be calculated only on total billing amounts. For retainage calculations, the program uses the formula and percentage from the Manage Project Billing Information screen at the invoice project level. A record is added to the Billing Edit Detail for the retainage amount; this record is added at the invoice project level only.