We render event management services and use ARM. Our booking which is the Sales Order generally has invoicing AND payment terms of 50% upon contract signing, 25% 60 days before the event and 25% 14 days before the event. What is the most effective/convenient way to approach this? Since the gap between the SO date and the actual event date varies, I don't think I can use billing schedules. If I manually create an Invoice for the 50%, 25% and 25% as needed, it's inconvenient to change every item's quantity to 50%, 25% and 25% of the ordered quantity. If we invoice the SO at 100% and create Customer Payments for 50%, 25% and 25%, then the Deferred Revenue would be recognized at 100% upon invoicing which is incorrect. Or do we create Customer Deposits for the 50%, 25% and 25% and create an invoice at 100% when the event is over and apply those Customer Deposits to the Invoice? But we don't get the payment right away, we invoice then expect payment. Note: Revenue is recognized through Item Fulfillments or when the service is rendered. We'll probably create custom invoice pdf because it won't look like the item sublist in the NS UI.

you essentially need to bill on fulfillment i.e. your billing should follow your revenue. if you had projects you could leverage them but it does not sound like you do (and you do not need them if you already do not). Billing script with fulfillment trigger (and some calculation off those fulfillment dates) sounds like the way to go.

Sorry, but I don't quite get it. We invoice in 3 different dates in advance of fulfilment. And we cannot fulfill the SO at the time of invoice if that's what you meant because we haven't rendered the service and delivered the goods yet. In fact, it's 100% billed/invoiced before the event takes place or we render/fulfill the service.

so you know the event date. first invoice is easey/standard. Second invoice date is (event date - 60 days), third invoice is (event date minus 14 days)

That's what I'm afraid of. That would result in a lot of custom billing schedules. Maybe it is best to script this? No native functionality could help? Also, sorry for a segue, I have another question just in case you have an idea. We have a custom transaction line field in the Sales Order. It is automatically copied to the Item Fulfillment and to the Revenue Arrangement (native functionality). But, it does not appear in the Revenue Recognition JE anymore. What could be the reason?

yes, that’s why a lot of people resort to scripting in cases like yours…. still you will have those multiple billing schedules, you just won’t have to create them manually for every sales order

Gotcha. Thank you.

you are welcome!