Importing Open AR, Job billings and Customer Credits

The requirements for accounts receivable imports during the vista implementation process are as follows:

• Open Jobs need accurate billed to date amounts by contract item (in JBID)
• Open Jobs need accurate received to date amounts by contract item (in JBID)
• Open Progress Billed Jobs Need an Accurate Progress Billing History
• The General Ledger Open AR account(s) Needs to Match the Actual Open AR amount
• Customer balances should be accurate (including credits)

Open Jobs Need accurate Billed to Date Amounts

An accurate billed to date amount is necessary for producing a work in progress report. To obtain accurate billed to date amounts, ALL job invoices need to be brought into AR Invoice entry, and posted with exclusively the job cost interface on (This includes AR that has been received already! not just open AR)

For contracts with Progress Billing, these AR Invoices must include the amount broken out by contract item.

For T&M Bills it can be a lump sum, rather than by contract item, since future T&M bills do not depend on an accurate percent complete by contract item.

Open Jobs Need Accurate Received to Date Amounts

Since all historical invoices are brough in as open AR, it is necessary to receive against the paid invoices to close them. This has the dual purpose of creating an accurate received to date quantity in job cost reporting. To ensure accurate received to date amounts on each open job in Vista,  all cash receipts need to be entered for the paid invoices that were brought in on each job. all interfaces other than job cost should still be off at this time.

Open Progress Billed Jobs Need an Accurate Progress Billing History

Since more progress bills will be generated going forward, it is necessary to include at least one summary invoice with the total amount billed so far for each open job. If you are a technical implementor with SQL ability, it is better to insert all of the job billing history for reporting purposes. 

In most cases, the progress bills (summary, or individual) will need to include a billed amount per contract item. The only time this would not be necessary, is if the contracts are brought into Vista from the prior accounting system with a single contract item. 

The General Ledger Should Match Open AR

Since the trial balance is brought in separately, and the GL interfaces are off while bringing in the AR invoices, it is import to ensure that the open balance ties out with the balance of the revenue GL account. If dealing with retainage, there may be multiple accounts that must tie out separately.

The Customer Balances should be accurate

If Open AR ties out with the general ledger, and each invoice is assigned to the correct customer, then the remaining scenario that can cause the customer balances to not match is credits. If there are negative invoices included in Open AR, rather than being entered as invoices, these should be entered as cash receipts on the account of the customer with the interfaces off. Once completed the customer balances should tie out with those in the original accounting system.

About Retainage

In Accounts Receivable, retainage is recorded in invoice entry as the portion of the total invoice amount that is not due until agreed upon terms have been fulfilled (typically the terms are completion). Retainage is sometimes recorded as a percentage per invoice, and other times recorded externally and billed at the end of the project.

In the below example, the invoice has a $10,000 line, with 5% retainage, resulting in $500 of retainage on the invoice. This changes the GL entry by subtracting the retainage from the amount added to accounts receivable and instead adding it to the retainage receivables account.

Once the agreed upon terms have been met, the retainage from each invoice to a customer/project can be "released" thus moving the retainage receivable from the retainage receivable account to accounts receivable, and creating a new invoice to be sent to the customer (or tracked internally)