Advance Customer Billing – Prebill

There has been a need among our wholesale distribution clients, to be able at times to bill a customer in advance of the shipment of the inventory while tracking the open order to the customer. The way we resolved this complicated logic in our account receivables software was as follows:

1. Allow the usual entry of an order into the system, yet flag it as a prebill order

2. When invoicing and posting this order to the customer, a detailed invoice prints with all the detailed items as usual, yet a special adjustment record is created in the account receivables system for the amount of the invoice which also debits the checking account and credits the accrual prebill account in the General Ledger system.

3. When the finalize invoice is processed after the inventory is shipped, the system credits the original account receivable invoice and posts the actual new invoice to the AR system. Any variance between the original prebill invoice and the actual one, is properly adjsuted to the General Ledger system.

Another simple and innovative solution to a complicated problem.