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Environmental & Risk Management / Energy Management / Cost Administrator or Accounting Supervisor

Enter Bills

Bills are the cornerstone of the Energy Management application. Each bill must have at least one line item to be processed for approval. Line items capture the Bill Type, Bill Units, Cost, and Quantity for each line on a given bill. Each time the bill line is saved, the Quantity entered is converted to the appropriate Storage Unit based on the selected Bill Unit. This data also rolls up to the appropriate Storage Unit on the corresponding bill.

Use the Enter Bills task to enter bills and line items for the vendors and vendor accounts you have added.

After entering a bill, you send the bill for approval. See Sending a Bill for Approval.

The Enter Bills task is available for both the Accounting Supervisor and Cost Administrator roles.

Guidelines for entering billing information

When entering data for energy bills, you must follow precise sequencing for dates so that the application has the information needed to archive the bills and calculate energy use.

To ensure that a Bill is archived so that it can be used in the Analytics portion of the application, ensure that bills:

Note: You receive a warning message if there are any gaps in Service Dates or Billing Periods. If there are such gaps, you are able to Save Bills and Route Bills for Approval; however,you cannot archive bills that have gaps in Service Dates or Billing Periods. Only archived bills are included in the Analytic reports.

Adding or Editing Bills and their Line Items

To add or edit a bill:

  1. Access the task in one of the following ways:

The Define Bills form appears. All existing Energy Vendors, Vendor Accounts, Bills and Bill Lines appear in the drill-down selection list.

Note: The selection list is filtered to show only Vendors with a Vendor Type of “Energy”, and only bills with a Status of Completed, Pending Review, or Rejected. Bills with a Status of Pending Approval are only visible in the Approve and Archive view.

  1. Click the arrows next to the vendors to see the accounts for that vendor. Select the vendor in the drill-down selection list, and then select the Bills tab.
  2. To edit a bill:
    1. Select the bill in the list of bills at the top of the form.

      The bottom pane fills in with details for the selected bill.

    2. Edit any items as necessary.
    3. Click Save to save your changes.
  3. To add a new bill:
    1. Select a vendor and then a vendor account from the selection list; from the Bills tab, click Add New.

      The form shows the data for the vendor you selected.

    2. Enter the following required bill data.

      Bill Code: A unique identifier for the bill.

      Date Service Starts/Date Service Ends. When bills are processed for approval, the application checks that the Date Service Starts for a bill is equal to the Date Service Ends for the bill for the previous billing period. You should enter these dates so that the Date Service Starts for a bill is equal to the Date Service Ends for the bill from the previous Billing Period.

      Billing Period: Select the month and year you would like the bill assigned to. This is critical to the reporting functionality of the Energy Management application. Bill service dates can span months; for this reason, you use the Billing Period to let the application know which month to assign the energy use to. Typically, this is the month that has the most service days.

      Date Payment Due: Select the due date.

    3. Click Save.
  4. To add a document to a bill:
    1. Save the bill record.

      The Document field now shows the Check In New Document button. This button is an arrow pointing up.

    2. Click the Check In New Document button and browse to select the file.

      The document is now saved with the record. See Using the Document Management System.

      Note: You can view the attached documents from the Bills and Line Items, Archived Bills and Line Items, and the Measurement and Verification (when viewed as data) reports .

To add or edit a bill line:

Before a bill can be sent for approval, it must have at least one line item entered for it.

  1. Drill-down to the bill level.
  2. From the Bill Line tab, click Add New.

    The form shows the data for the bill you selected (Vendor Code, Bill Code, and Bill Type).

  3. Enter the following required Bill Line data.

    Bill Line ID: Enter a unique identifier for the bill line.

    Bill Units: Select the bill units. This specifies the type of unit that will be tracked on a utility bill. See Defining Bill Units.

  4. Enter the Amount Expense or Amount Income (in the case of a credit), and a Description of the bill.
  5. Click Save.

Sending a Bill for Approval

After entering a bill and its line items, you send the bill for approval. To ensure that bills have the correct dates for archiving, so they can be included in the analytic reports, see the above section Guidelines for entering bill information. Also, a bill must have at least one line item before it can be sent for approval.

To send a bill for approval:

  1. Click on the selection lists to drill-down to the bill you wish to send for approval.
  2. Select the check boxes for the bills you want to send for approval.
  3. Click Send for Approval.

    Note: Once a Bill has been sent for approval it will no longer be available in the Enter Bills view. Bills with a Status of Pending Approval are only visible in the Review and Approve Bills view.

Adding Vendors and Vendor Accounts

From the Enter Bills task, you can also add a vendor and a vendor account, if needed.

Note: The Business Process Owner for Accounting can also add vendor accounts, using the Define Vendor Accounts task.

To add a vendor using the Enter Bills task:

  1. Select the Vendor tab, and click Add New.
  2. In the Vendor panel, enter the following required information:

    Vendor Code: Enter a unique identifier for the vendor.

  3. Enter the following recommended fields:

    Email Address: Enter a current email address that matches the email address in the A/FM User's table. This ensures that the vendor will receive email notifications.

    Vendor Type: For energy vendors, make sure to set the Vendor Type to “Energy” as some forms and reports in the Energy Management application are restricted to include only vendors with a Vendor Type of “Energy”.

    Company Name and Contact: Enter this information if needed.

  4. Click Save.

To add a vendor account:

  1. Select a vendor account from the drill-down list.
  2. From the Vendor Account tab, click Add New.

    The form for adding a new vendor account shows information for the selected vendor.

  3. Enter the following required field:

    Vendor Account Code: Enter the unique identifier for this vendor account,

  4. Enter the following required validated fields:

    Vendor Code: If the vendor is not already added, select the vendor from the Select Values list.

    Bill Type: Select the type of utility bill from the Select Values list.

    Site Code: Select the site for this bill.

    Building Code: Select the building for this bill.

  5. Enter additional information, including the Billing, Service and Remit To address information.as needed.
  6. Click Save.
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