EDI BILLING

This topic discusses EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) billing in general and provides specifics on how it is accomplished in Costpoint. The topic discussion is broken down as follows:

Within Costpoint, you can print your bills and send the hard copy documents to your customers using the mail system or another delivery method. You can also send your bills to your customers electronically. This electronic method, called EDI, is the computer-to-computer exchange of business information using a public standard. When you use EDI, bills are calculated and modified as usual in Costpoint. You can optionally print hard copies of the bills any time before posting them. Using EDI translation software selected by your company, you can match these files to public standard transaction sets to form EDI envelopes. You then use a computer and modem to send these envelopes, which contain your invoices, to your customers.

EDI Setup

This EDI setup discussion assumes that you have already established the billing screens necessary for generating hard copy bills. Before you can create the EDI files, you must calculate the bills in either the Calculate Standard Bills, Calculate Progress Payment Bills, or the Calculate Retroactive Bills screens. Make any modifications to the bills before creating the EDI files.

To set up your bills to use EDI, you must complete the Configure Billing EDI Settings screen because it contains your company's CAGE Code and DUNS No., which identify your company to your trading partners. The CAGE (Contractor and Government Entity) Code is required by the government in invoice files sent to them. The DUNS (Data Universal Numbering System) No. is assigned and maintained by Dun & Bradstreet to uniquely identify companies. You can also use the Configure Billing EDI Settings screen to enter default government invoicing system codes, which are required on government invoice files. Default codes entered in this screen do not default to the Manage Project EDI Information screen but, rather, are used in the absence of any codes entered in that screen.

Before you can bill a project using EDI, a record must exist on the Manage Project EDI Information screen. Use this screen to designate the EDI file format that is used for this project and the customer ID to which the bill is transmitted. You can also enter project-specific government invoicing system codes, which override any default codes that have been entered on the Configure Billing EDI Settings screen. Finally, you can enter project-specific information such as the task order number and a final shipment flag. Only those project/customer combinations found on the Manage Project Billing Information screen are available via or entry in this screen. If a project is shared by more than one customer, be sure to complete a record for each customer that you want to bill.

If you plan to transmit EDI files to the government, complete the Manage Government Contract Information screen. Enter data in the Administrative Officer and Contractor Representative fields and the telephone and fax numbers on the Telephone Numbers subtask. You can enter the phone numbers with parentheses, hyphens, and spaces; the Create EDI Files process removes them when creating the files. For invoices using Government Form 1443, Contractor's Request For Progress Payment, you do not have to fill in the Contractor Representative field in this screen if you have entered the Contractor Rep Name on the 1443 Info tab on the Manage Project Billing Information screen.

Creating the EDI Files

Use the Create EDI Files screen to create the EDI files for transmission to your customers. As noted previously, the bills must have already been generated using either the Calculate Standard Bills, Calculate Progress Payment Bills, or the Calculate Retroactive Bills screens. You cannot create EDI billing files for any of the manually entered bills, such as the Customer Product Bills, Project Product Bills, Manual Bills, or the Milestone/Percent Complete Bills. In addition, a bill must be in a Select status before you can create an EDI file for it. You can create EDI billing files only for bills that have not been posted.

To create the EDI files, complete the following steps:

  1. In the Customers and Projects group boxes, select the range of customers and projects for which you want to create files.

  2. In the Select Invoices to Transmit group box, select the invoice type (Commercial, Form 1034, Progress Payments) that the range uses to format the EDI files.

Costpoint creates a separate file, representing a transmission envelope, for each customer for the project range selected. A given envelope can contain multiple invoices for the same customer, but all the invoices must be of the same type. For projects that are shared, an invoice is included in the file of each customer that has a share of the project. If you want to create a file for a specific customer of a shared project, you must select only that customer. If your company has multiple invoice types to transmit, you must execute a separate creation process for each invoice type. Only EDI files for Actual bills are created; backup, or supporting bills, are not created.

  1. In the Indicate Data Type group box, select the data indicator, Production Data or Test Data, which appears in the file header to indicate to your customers whether the file is a test transmission or an actual invoice submitted for payment. In a typical EDI arrangement, your customer may want an initial period in which invoices are submitted using both electronic transmissions and hard copies. Note that all files generated for a given create process contain the same data indicator. Execute different create processes as needed to ensure the files contain the correct data indicator.   

  2. Using the Output Path group box, select a path to which the files are exported. Note that the output path does not contain the file name. Because Costpoint does not know how many files you plan to create, you cannot designate the file name. As noted previously, the program creates a separate file for each customer in the selected range; therefore, the file name consists of the first eight characters of the customer ID with an *.EDI extension. For example, if the customer ID is "SUPERTECH," the file name is SUPERTEC.EDI. If the program finds a file with this same path and name, it displays a warning. You can overwrite the file or cancel the process.

If no EDI files can be created during a given process, the process stops and Costpoint displays a message to this effect. If at least one file can be created, the process executes as usual, but only the one file is created. Here are some of the reasons why a file cannot be created:

Transmitting the EDI Files

Once you have created your EDI billing files, you can transmit them to your trading partners (or customers) using an EDI translation software package selected by your company. The translation software maps the files into public standard transaction sets so that the data is in the proper sequence to form EDI envelopes. You then transmit the envelopes through a modem using a VAN (Value Added Network) that serves as your electronic post office. Within moments, your trading partner receives the transmission through their NEP (Network Entry Point), which is their electronic post office.

To transmit your billing files, you must match them to a transaction set so that the data can be formatted in the proper order. You use your translation software to map each data line of the billing file to the segments and data elements of the transaction set. The translation software company provides the public standard transaction set; you can then customize it, if necessary, to fit your trading partner's requirements. Typically, you can designate segments as optional or mandatory. Specific data elements, within segments, can be designated as mandatory, optional, or conditional on other data elements.

Costpoint creates the billing files per the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) using version 3050. Any files created for transmission to the government (Forms 1034 and 1443) have been modified to include the government's requirements as well. If your trading partner has a specific data element that needs to be added or subtracted from the Costpoint file, you can use your translation software to include or exclude that information.

Costpoint creates a separate EDI billing file for each customer for each invoice type. The file can contain more than one invoice for that customer, but the invoices are of the same type. You can create additional files, each containing a different invoice type, and send them separately. EDI billing files are identified by the first eight characters of the customer ID with an *.EDI extension. This allows you to match the files to the appropriate transaction sets within your EDI translation software and transmit them to the correct customer.

As noted previously, your customers probably want a trial period in which invoices are submitted using EDI and in hard copy.  For companies transmitting to the government, additional steps may be involved, such as registration and certification by DISA (Defense Information Systems Agency) and approval by the DCAA (Defense Contract Audit Agency). You should coordinate this process through the appropriate government contracting officer. Costpoint EDI files for government invoices support only contracts using MOCAS (Mechanization of Contract Administration System). MOCAS is used to process payments on contracts administered by the DCMC (Defense Contract Management Command). At this time, Costpoint does not support SAMMS (Standard Automated Material Management System), which is used to process payments on relatively low dollar contracts (typically less than $25,000).