Billing Classification and Recurring Free text Invoice in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations

In this blog, I will explain a very good feature for customer invoice using free text invoice. This feature can be helpful in reducing manual effort and wrong data entry during invoice creation. This can be achieved through billing classification and then using billing classification as recurring invoice where customer has same invoice to be generated every month to the customer.

Here is the scenario:

Let us say customer has property for lease, for which customer must collect deposit from customer and raise monthly rent invoice automatically. In this customer also wants to capture “Lease start and End date” which is not available by default.

For this we can use billing classification and recurring invoice.

Advantage of Billing classification and recurring Invoice:

1. Reduce manual effort
2. Better control on selecting wrong Main account of dimensions
3. Reduce wrong data entry
4. Automation of Customer invoice generation without user intervention

Now, let us start how we can achieve this, I will be explaining this flow for scenario defined above.

1. Deposit Amount using Billing classification by creating one-time invoice
2. Month rent invoice generation using recurring invoice

1. Billing Classification

Step-1: Enable Billing classification

Navigate to, Account Receivables > Set up > Parameters

Step-2: Create Custom fields (Optional, only if require)

I have created two date fields to capture Lease start and end date at the time of customer deposit

Navigate to, Account receivable > Setup > Billing code custom field

Step-3: Create Billing Code

Navigate to, Account receivable > Setup > Billing code

Step-4: Create Billing classification and Map billing code

Navigate to, Account receivable > Setup > Billing classification

Step-5: Create Invoice and Post using Billing Classification

In this we will select Lease deposit billing code where we will enter amount manually and first month rent.

Navigate to, Account receivable > Invoices > Free text Invoice

This is how, we can create and post invoice using billing code.

2. Recurring Free Text Invoice

Now, we will se how we can utilize recurring invoice feature for this scenario. Here let say, now customer must raise monthly rent invoice which will be of same amount, same main account, same customer etc… except billing date. In this case we can use recurring invoice feature.

Step-1: Create Free text Invoice template

Navigate to, Account receivable > Invoice > recurring Invoice > Free text Invoice template

Step-2: Mapp template to Customer

Navigate to, Account receivable > Customer > Select Customer

Step-3: View Customer Mapping for template

Navigate to, Account receivable > Invoice > recurring Invoice > Free text Invoice template

Step-4: Generate Recurring Invoice

Navigate to, Account receivable > Invoice > recurring Invoice > Generate recurring invoice

Step-5: Post Recurring Invoice

Navigate to, Account receivable > Invoice > recurring Invoice > Post recurring invoice

That is, it for this blog. Hope this will help you to utilize this feature for your implementation.

Thank You!!! Keep reading sharing with your network.