Use Case: Validation on Ready for Invoice Date

This use case explains how Conga Billing validates the Ready for Invoice Date on the Define invoice date and amount page while creating a billing plan.

• If you enter the Payment Term at the billing plan line item, you must enter it on all line items.

• You must select the Ready for Invoice Date in a linear manner (that is, select it for the first instalment before the second instalment). This is the primary validation for Ready for Invoice Date.

1. Go to your quote page, go to the Billing Plan related list, and click New Billing Plan. The Select Line Item(s) page is displayed.

2. Select the following products for which the billing plan must be created. 

   Line Item	Start Date	End Date
   LI-001	1-Mar-22	30-Nov-22
   LI-002	15-May-22	30-Nov-22

3. Click Next. The Define Billing Plan page is displayed.
4. From the Plan Type drop-down, select Fixed.
5. Leave the Billing Start Date and Billing End Date fields blank and click Next. 

6. On the Number of Installments field, enter 3. The Define invoice date and amount page is displayed.
   

   Plan Item Name	Period Start Date	Period End Date	Ready for Invoice Date	Payment Term
   Installment 1	1-Mar-22
   Installment 2
   Installment 3		30-Nov-22

   

   Conga Billing populates Period Start Date and Period End Date by default, based on the following logic:

   • Period Start Date of the first instalment = MIN (Billing Start Date of all lines on the billing plan). You can overwrite it with a different date, but it must be greater the default date and less than the Period End Date.
   • Period End Date of the last instalment = MAX (Billing End Date of all lines on the billing plan). You can overwrite it with a different date, but it must be less than the default date and greater than the Period Start Date.

7. Select the Ready for Invoice Date for each installment. Refer to the scenarios in this section.

8. Click Finish to complete the billing plan creation.

Scenario 1: Payment Term is not Available

If payment term is not available on the account, location, quote header, or cart line item, you cannot set the Ready for Invoice Date before the Period Start Date of the first instalment or after the Period End Date of the last instalment.

• In the previous example, Ready for Invoice Date for the first instalment defaults to 1-Mar-22. You can overwrite it to a date that is > 1-Mar-22 but <= 30-Nov-22.
• Ready for Invoice Date for the last instalment defaults to 30-Nov-22. You can overwrite to a date that is < 30-Nov-22 but >= 1-Mar-22.

After you select dates for all periods (or change them), Billing validates that the Ready for Invoice Date for a particular instalment is within the range of [Period Start Date, Period End Date] for that respective instalment. If you select any date outside this range, Billing displays an error message.

Scenario 2: Payment Term is available on Account, Location, Quote Header, or Cart Line Item

If a payment term is available on the account, location, quote header, or cart line item, you can select a date for Ready for Invoice Date subject to a range. Except for the first instalment, the Ready for Invoice Date for every subsequent instalment must be the same or greater than the previous instalment’s date.

• For the first instalment, the Ready for Invoice Date range = [Period Start Date – Offset days in the Payment Term, Period End Date + Offset days in the Payment Term].
• For the subsequent instalments, the Ready for Invoice Date range = [Max (Previous instalment’s Ready for Invoice Date, Current instalment’s Period Start Date – Offset days in the Payment Term), Period End Date of the current instalment + Offset days in the Payment Term].

For example, the Payment Term = NET 30 with 30 days as the offset.

• Ready for Invoice Date for the first instalment can be anywhere between [30-Jan-22,31-Mar-22]. In this example, you selected a date from this range, so the validation is passed.
• Ready for Invoice Date for the last instalment can be anywhere between [31-Oct-22,30-Dec-22]. In this example, you selected a date from this range, so the validation is passed.

If you select any date outside this range, Billing displays an error message.

For the second instalment, the next scenario provides a better explanation.

Scenario 3: Payment Term is Available on All Billing Plan Line Items

In addition to the validations in Scenario 2, Billing performs additional validations in populating the Ready for Invoice Date from the second instalment onwards. For example, a billing plan has four instalments with a custom period range. All plan line items have varying payment terms. The following example is an extreme case with a corner case for the third instalment, based on its proximity of the offset with reference to the previous instalment’s offset.

For the first instalment, the Ready for Invoice Date range = [31-Dec-21,30-Apr-22]. If you select 31-Dec-21, Billing allows it because this is in the allowable range.

For the second instalment, the earliest Ready for Invoice Date can be 1-Nov-21. But this causes problems because it will be invoiced before the first instalment. Because the Ready for Invoice Date from the second instalment must be the same or greater than the previous instalment’s Ready for Invoice Date, its Ready for Invoice Date cannot be earlier than 31-Dec-21. Therefore, the Ready for Invoice Date range = [31-Dec-21,13-Jul-22]. If you select 13-Jul-22, Billing allows it because this is in the allowable range.

For the third instalment, the range looks like [16-May-22,25-Jun-22]. However, this does not fulfil the primary requirement that the Ready for Invoice Dates must be linear. The Ready for Invoice Date for the Period End Date (25-Jun-22) of the third instalment is less than the Ready for Invoice Date of the second instalment (13-Jul-22). Therefore, the third instalment cannot be on any date other than 13-Jul-22. If you select any other date, Billing displays an error message.

For the last instalment, Ready for Invoice Date = [Max(13-Jul-22,2-Apr-22),8-Feb-23] = [13-Jul-22,8-Feb-23]. If you select 25-Nov-22, Billing allows it because this is in the allowable range.

• Ready for Invoice Date for the first instalment = [Period Start Date – Offset, Period End Date + Offset]
• Ready for Invoice Date for any subsequent instalment = [Max(Previous instalment Ready for Invoice Date, Period Start Date – Offset), Period End Date + Offset]