Trade Billing

Trade Billing (known as Invoices in the Trade Portal) is a key feature of maintaining good relationships with our Trade Partners and ensuring that project costs are accurate. At Homebound we can release some Bills after the task is marked complete in the schedule. This is known as Click to Pay as these Bills are auto-generated. Some of our Trade Partners are not using Click to Pay and there are other types of Bills (see Bill Types) that can be Drafted and submitted for approval manually.

Bill Statuses

• Draft - Bills that can still have items added to them. This could be Click -to-Pay Bills that were just created or Manual Bills that have been added to the Bill Review Log
• Unreleased - Click 2 Pay Bills that have not been released to the Trade Portal for Approval
• Cancelled - This is a terminal state where the Bill is cancelled and funds are released back to the PO
• Release Scheduled - Click 2 Pay Bills that are scheduled to be released for Approval to Trades
• Pending Approval - This could be Trade Approval or Approval by PM for Manual Bills
• Rejected - Final State and the Funds are released back to the PO
• Changes Needed - The Trade or PM has requested that Changes be made to the Bill
• Pending Conditional Lien Waiver - For some Bills we required a signed Lien Waiver before the Bill is ready to be paid
• Ready to Pay - When a Bill is Ready to be Paid after it is have been approved and a required Lien Waiver has been signed if applicable
• Partially Paid - Only a portion of the Bill has been paid. 
• Reversed - A Bill can now be Reversed if it is still Processing
• Paid - Pending Unconditional Lien waiver - After a bill is paid, an unconditional lien waiver is sent to the trade for signature
• Paid - A Bill has been fully paid

The Finances Page - Bills & Credits

Hero Metrics

We now have metrics across the top of our Bills & Credits page under Finances where we call out the number of open Payable Bills, the amount of Bills that have been Aging and the number of Bills awaiting approval. The colors represent the market that the Bills are associated with

Filters

Filters can be updated by Market, Status, Type, Trade Partner, Project and a number of other criteria. The Hero metrics at the top will be updated as the Filters are changed.

Creating new Bills

Manual Bills are now created from the Finances page and not from within the PO or Trade Commitment itself. Normally AP will be the ones to create a new Bill using the "Create Bill" button on the Bills & Credits pages. 

The "Create" button will be greyed out until all required fields are completed. Trade Partner and Project are key fields as well as "Bill Type" which will dictate if the Bill should be connected to a PO or Trade Commitment. For more on "Bill Types" see below...

Bill Types

• Standard - These Bills must be connected to a Trade Committment or Purchase Order
• Overhead - These are things like Utilities and Temp Services. These Bills do not need to be connected with a PO but will affect Project Budgets. The "Add Commitment" button will be greyed out and instead the user will simply "Add Line Item". Overhead Bills will normally not require a Lien Waiver.
• Repair & Maintenance - These Bills are on projects that have reached Vertical Complete but we have ongoing expenses on. An example may be cleaning the home. These Bills can be entered but are not restricted by and do not affect project budgets. They will be approve by the ConOps PM.
• Warranty - These Bills are for projects that are Under Warranty. They are not restricted by project budgets and do not impact the project budget. These Bills will be approved by the Warranty Manager on the Project.

Lien Waivers

If a Bill requires Lien Waiver signature the the waiver will be automatically uploaded to PandaDoc and sent for signature. Here is more on Lien Waivers

Bill Review Log

If there is no PO or not enough budget on the PO or in the project to create a Bill then it can be added to the review Log as a Draft Bill. The Purchasing Agent on the project will be notified in order to create a Change Event to add funds to the Revised Internal Budget so that the Bill can be sent for approval.

Questions? Feedback? Email us at Product-Support@Homebound.com or chat with us in Blueprint!