All payment and payment clearing activities of vendor and customer result in Accounts Receivable documents (AR documents) in the system. AR documents serve for such accounting purposes as making financial statements, adjusting customer balance, determining the ageing invoices and other AR document and so on.
OA Billing uses the following types of AR documents:
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Invoice – this is the main billing document. Invoices are always created as a result of order processing. Generally, vendor requires order to be paid before the requested services provisioning starts. When customer pays for services in advance, the payment is created for order sum. Upon successful services provisioning, the invoice is generated the payment is applied to it. Order flow, however, can be configured to allow partial or no order payment. Invoice in this case is also created upon services are provisioned, yet leads to outstanding customer balance. Customer has outstanding balance until the invoice is and a payment should be received for it.
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Payment – this is the only AR document type which represents the money received from customers. Money can be paid by different means – cash, credit card, wire transfer and so on. In OA Billing, this is reflected by different payment methods. Besides classification, payment methods can be processed differently, for instance, credit cards can be processed online through special payment gateways while cash is always handled manually.
Payment can be created during order processing when invoice does not exist yet. When order processing is complete, the payment gets assigned to the invoice, keeping its link to the order.
Payment can also be created independently of any order (the so-called "standalone payments"). Such a payment decreases a customer's balance and remains open until it is applied to an invoice.
Although payment application does not change customer balance, this procedure is very important as it has direct effect on customer balance ageing and customer statements.
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Credit Memo – this document is used to credit a customer or reseller account. In this case, an account balance is shown with different signs in PCP and CCP (or RCP). From PCP an account balance is decreased by a credit amount. From CCP (or RCP) an account balance is shown as increased by a credit amount. Such adjustment can be necessary due to incorrect invoice pricing, promotion campaign, bonus pay-offs and so forth. Credit Memo can be generated by cancellation and downgrade order, when customer has pre-paid for services that are being cancelled or downgraded.
Similar to payments, credit memos should be applied to invoices to ensure proper ageing.
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Debit Memo – this document is used to debit a customer or a reseller account. From PCP, a debit memo increases an account balance. From CCP (or RCP), a debit memo decreases an account balance. Such adjustments are usually needed due to incorrect invoice pricing or to offset incorrect payment or credit memo.
Debit memos should be closed off by application of payments or credit memos.
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Void Check – this is a special type of transaction only applicable to payments.
One of the most common cases when a void check is created, is voiding a credit card payment processed online. The fact is that a payment confirmed by a payment gateway is treated as processed in Billing Management. However, a payment gateway does not settle the confirmed payment immediately. If during this time the payment is voided, OA Billing generates a Void Check document, unapplies payment from the order or invoice and applies it (the payment) to the void check.
Void request sent before confirmed capture does not generate Void Check as the payment at this moment is not yet processed. Void request sent after the payment gateway settles the transaction with banking network, is rejected by the payment gateway and no Void Check document is created.
Void Check document cannot be created manually by the operator.
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Refund – this document is similar to Void Check. After the payment gateway settles the payment, the payment can no longer be voided as money is already transferred from credit card to merchant account. Such payment can only be refunded. Upon receiving confirmation of successful refund, OA Billing generates a Refund document, unapplies payment from the order or invoice and applies it (the payment) to the refund.
Refund of earlier processed payment cannot be entered manually by the operator, it is always created automatically upon success response for refund request.
OA Billing also allows creating a refund manually as credit to customer credit card rather than as a reversal of earlier online payment. Such refund behaves similar to invoice or debit memo: it increases customer balance and should be applied to a payment or to a credit memo.