After events and their corresponding services have been completely recorded in Service, they can be invoiced in so-called "invoice cycles", where both invoicing documents as well as billing data records are created. The invoicing documents can then be sent to the customers while the billing data is made available for attached financial bookkeeping systems (e.g. ORACLE Finance, SAP). One invoice cycle can comprise any number of events.

In the table Invoice Cycle, new invoice runs can be prepared (including basic settings, like time period to be covered, event types to be included etc.). In addition to this, all former invoice runs can be listed here to give you an overview of all billing processes that have previously been made.

A data record for a new invoice run is created by clicking the button Create a new object in the toolbar. Note that the new data record has to be stored in the database before you can adjust the parameters for the invoice run in other tables! This is done by either clicking the button Save or by switching to another line and then back to the new record.

Following parameters and data is available for each invoice run:

Station:*	Station to which this configuration applies; this column is only shown if you are logged in above station level.
No.:	Each invoice run is automatically assigned a unique number here. This number is used for internal reference purposes and cannot be edited.
Invoice Cycle Type:*	Type of the invoice run you want to perform. Following options are available: 1) Invoice: "normal" billing process 2) Credit: creation of credit notes for already issued erroneous invoices 3) Debit: creation of adjustment charges for already issued erroneous invoices 4) Cash: creation of invoices for cash payments 5) Credit+Debit: one invoice cycle for both cases Note: Invoice runs can only be performed for one of these types at a time!
State: (tab available depending on configuration)	Status of an invoice run. Following options are available: 1) Initial: invoice run prepared 2) To be Transferred: invoice run finished and data ready to be transmitted to financial accounting system 3) Transfer Error: an error occurred during data transfer, and 4) Transferred: invoice run data has been forwarded to the financial accounting systems.
Event Type:*	Event type you want to perform an invoice run for. Options are: 1) Flight: all flight-related events and 2) Non-Flight: all non-flight-related events.
Public Inv. Cycle Start: (tab available depending on configuration)	Invoice Cycle Start to be published.
Inv. Cycle Start/End:*	Time period to be included in the invoice run.
Invoice Date:*	Billing date which is to be printed on the invoice documents.
Booking Date:*	Booking date which is to be forwarded to an external financial accounting system.
Contact Person:	Name of contact person for this invoice cycle.
Customer:	ID/Name of the customer (from master data Contract → Customer)
Hot Run:	Information purposes only. Shows if a finished invoice run has been performed in the Hot Run (marked) or Preview (unmarked) mode.
Executed:	Date and time when the invoice run has been started are automatically logged here and kept for information purposes.
Remark:	Freely definable comment

Additional parameters for invoicing runs

The customers which are to be included in an invoice run are selected in the table Invoice Cycle -> Clients. The table Invoice Cycle -> Services is used to select the services to be included in the invoicing run. After selecting the required parameters, the invoice run can be started. The results are listed in the table Invoice Cycle -> Events, where a list of all events covered by the invoice runs is listed, and after an invoice cycle has been completed, the table Invoice Cycle -> Invoices lists all invoices created for the events covered by a run. The table Invoice Cycle -> Client/Events displays the number of events per client.

Executing an invoice run

After all parameter settings described in the previous chapters have been set, an invoice run can be executed. This can be done in two variants, either as Invoice Preview or as Invoice Hotrun.

An Invoice Preview is started by clicking the button . As implied in the name, this creates a preview of the concise invoice documents and data, giving you the opportunity to make a final check in order to make sure all invoices are correct. Performing a preview does not change any data in the database nor prepares any data to be forwarded to an attached financial accounting system.

Performing an Invoice Hotrun (button ) calculates the same data while creating final data including changes in database (e.g. the status of billing events is changed to the status invoiced etc.). This data is also prepared to be forwarded to an external accounting system.

An Invoice preview will be run until all possibly erroneous data have been identified. An Invoice Hotrun will be interrupted at the first error occurring.

Important notice: This means that no changes can be made to the service and billing data anymore! Any further corrections have to be made by performing new invoicing cycles for debits/credits or cancelling invoices.

The invoice documents which are to be sent to your customers can be printed from the table Invoice Cycle -> Invoices (see chapter The Table Invoice Cycle -> Invoices).

The core data of all individual invoices (invoice number, total amount etc.) is listed in the table Invoice Cycle -> Invoices.

After marking an invoice here, additional details can be accessed in the table Invoice Cycle -> Invoices -> Invoice Items, where all individual services comprised in the selected invoice are listed.

Particularities of cash invoicing

The calculation and final printout of cash invoices is performed already in Service. Because these invoices have already been handed out to and paid by the customer, they are handled differently under Billing.

As soon as the first cash invoice is created for an event under Service, a new invoice cycle record is created in Billing. This invoice cycle is assigned the invoice type Cash. All further cash invoices run under Service are then automatically stored under this invoice run and can be inspected in the tables Invoice Cycle -> Events and Invoice Cycle -> Invoices. Due to this special process, no settings in the tables Invoice Cycle -> Clients/Services have to be made for cash invoice runs!

The cash invoice cycle thus created can be forwarded to an attached financial accounting system (e.g. ORACLE Finance, SAP etc.) at any time by clicking the button ERP-Export (only for hotrun, the invoice cycle state is of no significance).

The button Transfer Data sets the state of the selected invoice cycles to To be Transferred.

After an invoice cycle has been forwarded and thus completely finished on the bookkeeping side, the next cash invoice under Service will create a new invoice cycle under Billing and the process is started anew.

Please note: If any errors in the creation of cash invoices under Service occur – e.g. if a service or price has not been recorded properly – the cash invoice can be repeated to create a correct invoicing document for billing the customer. Note that all these processes are recorded in Billing for bookkeeping purposes! Only the last cash invoice run for an event is actually taken into account, all erroneous invoices for the same event are stored with the state Cancelled in the table Invoice Cycle -> Invoices.

Please also consider the following videos:

Invoice preview and final invoice for cash payers:

How to create an invoice preview and provisional invoice:

Create invoice preview and final invoice(s) for credit customers: