Monthly Invoices – Japan Specific Function

In this blog, I want to introduce how the system handles Monthly Invoice in SAP Business One. The functionality is only used in Japan Localization. It is used to generate and print a summary list of individual invoices for a Business Partner. In the Online Help, it is referred to as ‘Monthly Invoice Report’.

In Japan, it is a common business practice to consolidate all the Invoices issued within a period and present them in a single summary report for collection from customer rather than sending individual invoices. Though this is not a legal requirement, the process is used very often and is important in the business.

Let’s take this scenario. A company agrees that they will provide a summary of all the AR Invoices on a monthly basis to their customer. In this case, at the end of every month, the company has to print and send a summary list to the customer for payment. The summary list is called Monthly Invoice since it is usually prepared monthly.

Generating Monthly Invoice Report

1. Generating Monthly Invoice Report

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• Closing Date Code – Specify an easily identifiable code for the closing date
• Based On – ‘Posting Date’ and ‘System Date’ are available.
• Start From – Specify when you want to initiate the monthly invoice

Blank: The same date as the Based On date

Month Start: The first day of the month

Half Month: The 15^th  or the last day of the month

If the Based On date is earlier than 15^th , then 15^th is the Half Month date; otherwise, it is the last day of the month. For Example, if the Based On date is 11^th May, the Half Month date is 15^th; if the Based On date is 16^th May, the Half Month date is 31^st May.

Month End: The last day of the month

• + … Months + …Days – The closing date is calculated according to the date of the invoice and the values specified in the closing date

In above case, the Closing Date will be calculate as the Last Day of the month of Posting Date + 0 Month + 5 Days.

When creating a Monthly Invoice, the system will automatically calculate the Closing Date according to the settings in the BP Master Data. For an AR Invoice with Posting Date of 2012/05/07, this will be tagged as included in the ‘Closing Date’ of 2012/06/15 (the month-end + 0 Month + 5 Days). This value will be displayed in the Accounting tab of the AR Invoice.

2. Generate the Monthly Invoice

Access the Sales-A/R -> A/R Monthly Invoice -> By Customer tab. For AP Monthly Invoice, go to Purchasing-A/P -> A/P Monthly Invoice -> By Vendor tab.

For BP ‘MON01’, there were three (3) AR Invoices created in May 2012. Using the Closing Date Procedure settings, all of these AR Invoices’ Closing Dates are calculated as 2012/06/05.

The 3 AR Invoices can be summarized in one Monthly Invoice at the date 2012/06/05 or later. In the A/R Monthly Invoice -> By Customer tab, specify the criteria for the report.

• Series – Choose the Document Numbering Series of Monthly Invoice as defined in Document Numbering Setup window.
• Closing/Due/Posting Date – The range of dates in which documents should be included.
• Customer – Range of BPs for whom a Monthly Invoice should be created.
• Issue Date – The creation date of the Monthly Invoice. In this field, the system date is displayed by default.
• Document Types for Inclusion – Invoice, Credit Memo and Reserve Invoice.

Once done, click on  ‘OK’.  Then, the Monthly Invoice creation window opens up showing the Invoices within the selected range.

Tick the documents that should be included and click on ‘Save’. The Monthly Invoice will be added.

Notes:

• Only one Monthly Invoice is created per Business Partner.
• Only one Monthly Invoice can be saved for one BP per Issue Date.

Monthly Invoice Report Printout

The only way to check the detailed data of a Monthly Invoice is to Print or Print preview it.

Access to AR/AP Monthly Invoice -> Summary Tab.

Click on ‘OK’, the list of created Monthly Invoices are displayed.

To view more information on the selected Monthly Invoice, you can use the Print or Print Preview buttons.

Tick the Monthly Invoice which needs to be printed, print or print preview .

A printed Monthly Invoice is divided into two (2) sections. The Header section includes information on the last Monthly Invoice such as: amount billed, payments made, balance carried forward, current charges for the period, tax amount and the current billed amount. The current billed amount is the sum of what remains unpaid from the previous billing (Carried Forward) and the current charges (Current Amount).

On the other hand, the Details section lists all the row details of documents included in this Monthly Invoice. Taxs are listed in separate lines.

Paying a Monthly Invoice

A Monthly Invoice can be paid in Monthly Invoice Summary window. Choose the Monthly Invoices to be paid and click on ‘Payment’ button. The payment window opens where you can pay all or some of these invoices.

An invoice which is included in a Monthly Invoice can also been paid through usual Incoming/Outgoing payment function under Banking module. After the invoice included in a Monthly Invoice is paid, the paid amount will also be displayed in Monthly Invoice list.

It will also be reflected in the ‘Paid’ field of this BP’s next Monthly Invoice. For example, there is one AR Invoices created for this BP in the next Month and a new Monthly Invoice is added. If we print preview the next Monthly Invoice, we can see the payment amount.

• Last Billed –  The Billing Amount of last Monthly Invoice.
• Paid – Paid Amount of last Monthly Invoice.
• Carried Forward – Last Billed – Paid = JPY 253,535 – JPY 96,600 = JPy 156,975
• Billing Amount – Carried Forward + Current Amount  = JPY 156,975 + JPY 36,225 = JPY 193,200

Cancelling a Monthly Invoice

Once a Monthly Invoice is created, the amounts in the report cannot be altered or updated. For example, if a payment is created on the same report date of the Monthly Invoice, the created Monthly Invoice will not reflect the payment amount. The only way to update the values in the report is to cancel and re-create the Monthly Invoice.

To do so, access the Monthly Invoice -> Summary Tab and open the Monthly Invoice list. Tick on the Monthly Invoice which needs to be cancelled, click on the ‘Cancel MI’ button to cancel the document.

The next time the user opens the Monthly Invoice list again, the cancelled report will not be displayed anymore. The user can then create a new Monthly Invoice at the same Issue Date to update all the information.