Need Any Help For Business ?
Time To Improve Project Operational Strength? Register for an assessment today.
Experts in process improvement develop a custom invoice formatting system with extensions, solving billing discrepancies & requirements.
Challenge:
CDM Smith, an engineering & construction company that provides solutions in transportation and others, was looking to deploy Oracle Project Management to manage their decentralized project management model and minimize data loss. Revenue distribution lines (RDL) are grouped based on invoice format. With this grouping, CDM had an issue with currency rounding due to the individual invoice amounts being summed up into invoice lines. When multiple RDLS are summed up into an invoice line, the total line amount so derived may not be equal to the total quantity summed into invoice line times the bill rate used for the grouped EIs.
- CDM needed to store the total amount billed to date by any level of the WBS displayed on the invoice. In many invoice formats, the current bill amount as well as the amount since inception is summarized by task.
- CDM needed the ability to create customized invoice formats for specific customers. The invoice format assigned to a project needs to be automatically populated for invoice generation.
- CDM needed the ability to manipulate the bill rate basis based on the client contract which may allow for a minimum raw cost rate basis from which a multiplier can then be applied. CDM uses raw salary cost as the basis for a burden rate multiplier. On some client contracts, a standard rate can be used as the basis.
Solution:
Project Partners created sample invoice formats for CDM and then trained CDM staff to create complex invoicing formats. The invoice format project classification stores the invoice in print format which is automatically populated for the biller. All invoice formats are striped by Operating Unit. The following extensions were implemented:
- A post invoicing extension to create an event for any rounding delta and regenerate new invoice with corrected lines.
- A billing extension to updated the task DFF with total billed inception amount. The extension (during GDI) recalculates inception-to-date amounts including the new invoice/credit transaction.
- Using the labor billing extension, bill rates will be calculated only for exceptions that do not use the standard raw cost as the basis.
Outcome:
- The Rounding Extension, Bill Rate Basis Extension, and Total Amount Billed by Task Extension have solved the billing discrepancies and custom billing requirements.
- Three invoice formats were delivered along with extensive training on invoice format creation. The CDM team has created many more invoice formats with extensive logic and formatting to solve their complex and custom invoicing needs.
- Custom invoice formats are being used across the company and separated by operating unit to meet the specific invoicing needs of the different localizations.
