If you use both the Project Management and Advanced Billing features, you can use milestone billing to bill customers in increments when project milestones are reached.
To use milestone billing, you must create a milestone billing schedule from within the context of a project. The schedule identifies the amount to bill as milestones are completed. Each milestone billing project has its own Fixed Bid, Milestone billing schedule.
Note
Milestone billing schedules cannot be marked public.
To create a milestone billing schedule:
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Go to Lists > Relationships > Projects. Click Edit next to the project you want to create a schedule for.
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Click the Financial subtab.
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On the Financial subtab, select Fixed Bid, Milestone in the Billing Type field.
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Click Add New next to the Billing Schedule field to create a schedule for the project.
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On the billing schedule form, enter a name for this billing schedule.
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NetSuite fills in the Initial Amount and updates it automatically as you add billing milestones. If the total percentage amount for all milestones is less than 100%, then the remaining percentage is the initial amount to be billed.
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In the Initial Payment Terms field, select the terms to be used on the first invoice to be created from the sales order.
To add new payment terms, go to Setup > Accounting > Setup Tasks > Accounting Lists > New (Administrator). Select Term.
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Add a line for each milestone to be billed by this schedule.
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In the Amount field, enter the percentage of the total project amount to be billed when the milestone is reached.
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Optionally select payment terms to apply to this milestone.
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Optionally, in the Task field, select the task that must be completed for this milestone.
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In the Estimated Completion date, enter the date you expect this milestone to be reached. This is used for forecasting calculations.
If you entered an estimated completion date when you created the project task, that date shows here.
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If you don't identify a project task for a milestone, then check the Completed box only when this milestone is completed and this milestone can be billed.
If you specify a project task for a milestone, then NetSuite automatically marks the task complete here when the project task is marked complete.
Important
Milestones cannot be billed unless they are marked as complete. If you do not specify a project task for the milestone, then you must check the Completed box manually.
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Optionally enter comments regarding this milestone.
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Click Add.
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Repeat step 8 for each milestone you want to add to this schedule.
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Click Save.
Each milestone billing schedule you create is private, applies only to one project, and can be viewed only from the project record. Upon completion of each milestone task, that portion of the project becomes eligible for billing.