Page 31 - Millennium U4F Brochure 2021

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• Set-up rules to calculate the exact payment due dates.
• Set-up dedicated data extracts for EDI or for use as invoice portals.
• Configure internal review/ approval rules based on the line of business, a user hierarchy or threshold amounts.
Invoice information can either be manually keyed into MBilling or, where required, derived from an
external source system using a data bridge in which case MBilling can receive data directly from these other systems thereby ensuring accuracy and avoiding the need
for manually intensive duplicate processing.
MBilling supports both ‘pushed’ master and invoice data and is able to connect with these external databases for master data, transactions, alerts and reporting as well as enabling them to trigger actions such as the generation
of drafts, approvals or postings. During a data bridge connection
if MBilling encounters any new or changed data it will be uploaded automatically, and processes exist within the application to look for and avoid duplicate entries.
By supporting webservices MBilling is able to data bridge/connect with these other systems. Significant benefits are provided by using the webservices technology such as platform independency (operating systems and database systems) and reduced cost of support as
all webservices are validated against data and business layer rules. In cases where webservices technology is not suitable or able
to be used then other connection techniques are available such as via direct database links.
After data collection the MBilling rules engine can be configured to determine the information required for invoicing, ascertaining exactly what needs to be split out and determining what details the invoice should contain. The rules engine is highly flexible and can be configured during the implementation phase to
ensure that any specific customer needs are met.
Invoices can also be configured
to display specific messages concerning discounts or with information about previous invoices or payments. In the MBilling Order book manual one-off and recurring invoices can be prepared, with automatic lookups in pricelists, with discount tiers etc. taken into account.
The final part of the process is the approval of invoices. Mbilling has been built with a clear distinction between the roles of production staff, account management and the finance department. The rules engine mentioned above can
also be configured with so-called pre-processors acting at every process step. Where necessary these pre-processors can prohibit the finalising of an invoice if certain conditions are not met. Upon finalised and approval invoice can be printed or emailed out to the customer and a copy stored in a document management system for future reference. The Invoice layouts are created by using XSLT which allows customers to configure an exact match to any invoice formats that they wish to create or any existing formats that they wish to keep using.
Once invoices have been generated and sent, the billing process
then posts invoice data to the
Unit4 financial system and the algorithms within MBilling define the appropriate account codes to be used for posting.