NetSuite provides flexible billing options for project billing. You can bill projects based on completing project work, achieving project milestones, or according to a schedule of dates. The project billing type determines which method of billing to use. The project billing schedule provides the details for when and how to bill the customer over a range of time. 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.
Note: You can use a standard billing schedule to bill a project, if that meets your business needs. When you create a project, select Fixed Bid, Interval as the billing type but do not select a billing schedule. Then on the sales order, edit the project line and assign a standard billing schedule (one that is not Fixed Bid, Interval, Fixed Bid, Milestone, or Time and Materials). The billing schedule assigned on the sales order overrides the billing schedule on the project, if entered.
When an order includes work that has been completed and is 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.
BillSalesOrds
The recommended 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.
Important: Using the Invoice Billable Customers page is not recommended to bill time for Time and Materials projects that have associated sales orders because the invoice is not linked to the originating order. The Invoice Billable Customers page is ideal to process time that is not associated with an order.
When creating invoices, all approved, billable time entered against the project is automatically selected to be 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 do not 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.
The billing schedule for a project can be viewed on the sales order by clicking the Schedule subtab under the History subtab.