Service Billing Items
In addition to retail items, services are also mapped as items in DYCE Project Billing. These can be offered and billed via sales documents. People perform these services and report their times for this purpose. Subsequently, Project Billing is used to check and approve these time recordings and finally to invoice the services provided.
Service Billing Items are used to provide and sell Services to customers. They describe the actual service, but do not specify which person will actually perform the service.
Differences in Service Billing Items
A Service Billing Item differs from other items in that the Service Billing Type field contains a value. It is responsible for how the service will be charged to the customer. The options available for this are Time & Material, Budget and Fixed Price. The field can only be edited for items with Type=Non-Inventory. The table below explains the differences between the Service Billing Types in detail:
| Option | Meaning |
|---|---|
| EMPTY | This selection means that this item is not used as a Service Billing Item. |
| Time & Material | This selection describes a service that is billed to the customer exactly based on the time recordings provided. A deviation of the invoiced quantity compared to the related time recordings is not possible. This goes so far that even the quantity in an order line is automatically increased in case of overbooking. |
| Budget | For items with this Service Billing Type, the quantity to be billed to the customer may differ from the sum of the time recordings. The quantity in a Sales Order line will not be automatically increased in case of an overbooking. In Project Billing, overbooked budgets are displayed in red so that the user can decide to increase the order quantity (manually) if necessary. |
| Fixed Price | This selection behaves similar to Budget. Here, however, the deviation of the time recording from the (internal) calculation quantity is the rule rather than the exception. At the same time, for positions with Service Billing Items, this setting can be used to format the print documents so that only "one piece" is ever shown (see info below). A partial invoice for a Fixed Price item is not possible. If this is desired, the Payment Plan from DYCE IT-Business Toolkit can be used for this purpose. |
The sales department sells a service for 5000 EUR flat. The respective item is entered in the Sales Quote / Order with the quantity based on hours or days calculated for it. In the print documents (independent of the entry in the sales line) shows the quantity 1, the total price and a fixed unit of measure, which can be defined in the Sales & Receivables Setup. Also, no time recording is output on the Detail Overview for the invoice for this position.
The Sales Unit of Measure provides the possibility to specify a unit of measure different from the base unit of the item, which will be used in the sales transactions for the item. For example, for Service Billing Items, the base unit of measure should always be hours. At the same time, for services that are offered and sold in days, the unit of measure used for days can be specified here.
Suggestions for naming Service Billing Items
A uniform naming scheme contributes to general clarity. The following is therefore a suggestion for such a scheme for Service Billing Items. The first part of the code (two letters) defines the type of service, the second part of the code (three letters) defines the skill, and the third part (two/three letters) defines the billing type.
| Code | Description |
|---|---|
| CN-JUN-HRS | Junior Consulting hour |
| CN-MAN-HRS | Management Consulting hour |
| CN-SEN-HRS | Consulting hour |
| CN-DAY | Consulting day |
| CO-WU | Coaching work unit |
| DEV-WU | Development work unit |
| DEV-COA-HR | Development Coach hour |
| DEV-JUN-HRS | Junior Development hour |
| DEV-SEN-HRS | Development hour |
| DEV-DAY | Development day |
| PJ-MAN-WU | Project Management work unit |
| SU-1ST-HRS | 1st-Level Support hour |
| TR-EXT-DAY | External Training day |
| WS-EXT-DAY | External Workshop day |