Project Billing

NetSuite gives you flexible options for project billing. You can bill projects when work is done, when milestones are hit, or on a set schedule. The billing type you select determines how you’ll bill, and the billing schedule gives you details for when and how to bill the customer. For more on the three types of billing schedules For information about the three types of project billing schedules, read Project Billing Schedule Types.

You must enable Project Management and Advanced Billing to bill projects.

You can create a billing schedule specific to the project or select an existing billing schedule. After a billing schedule is set on the project record, the billing schedule is associated with the sales order when you source items from the project. The rules that determine when the order is ready to bill depend on the billing schedule type.

When an order includes work that's already done and ready for billing, that order automatically shows in the bulk billing queue or shows the Next Bill button on the sales order form. Use the Bill Sales Order page as the primary place to invoice for project work associated with an order, including project billable time that is billed on a time and materials basis. Project time must be entered and approved to be billable.

The best practice is to create sales orders for your projects and then bill the sales orders individually or in bulk on the Bill Sales Order page. A sales order doesn't contain the Next Bill button when it's connected to an inactive project.

You shouldn't use the Invoice Billable Customers page to bill time for Time and Materials projects that have associated sales orders. That's because the invoice won't be linked to the originating order. Use the Invoice Billable Customers page to process time that isn't associated with any order.

When creating invoices, all approved, billable time entered against the project is automatically included on the invoice. The Billable Time subtab also displays approved billable time not related to a sales order, such as time entered against a case. Select any non-sales order time that you want to include on the invoice. Project totals don't include non-sales order items billed to the customer.

To bulk bill projects, go to Transactions > Sales > Bill Sales Orders. For details about the bulk billing process, read Billing Customers Using Billing Schedules.

For details about project billing using all billing schedule types, read Project Billing Schedule Types.

You can view the billing schedule on the sales order by clicking the Schedule subtab under the History subtab.

Invoice Schedule Recalculation

Changes to projects, tasks, or time entries can affect sales order invoice schedules if the project has a billing schedule. These changes trigger a recalculation of both the project plan and the invoice schedule.

For example, you may have a weekly billing schedule associated with a sales order for a 2-week project. The invoice schedule lists two expected bill dates. If a project task is changed in a way that the project duration becomes 4 weeks, then the invoice schedule on the sales order also updates. The updated schedule will include four expected bill dates.

Project Billing Schedule Types

To set up billing for a project, select a billing type and billing schedule on the Financial subtab of the project record. The billing type and the billing frequency of the associated schedule determine how Advanced Billing executes project billing.

Billing types include:

• Projects and Time and Materials Billing – Bill customers for project expenses, such as resource time and materials

• Fixed Bid, Interval Billing Schedules – Bill customers for work completed at predefined intervals

• Fixed Bid, Milestone Billing Schedules – Bill customers based on percent of work completed, or preset milestones

  

• Charge-Based Project Billing — If you use Charge-Based Billing, you can set up charge rules for more flexible billing. Billing Rate Cards let you set rates for Charge-Based projects.

General Notices