How bulk invoices are processed

The billing run generates and sends bulk invoices then schedules automatic payments. Each billing run generates a bulk invoice for accounts and subscriptions with an invoicing period that ends on a specific date.

Understanding how Smile processes bulk invoices helps you troubleshoot problems with the billing run. When the billing run starts, the following occurs:
  1. Smile calculates the following charges for an invoicing period:
    • usage and recurring charges for subscriptions
    • recurring charges for accounts
  2. Smile creates an invoice and checks for any other charges associated with the account. For example, if an account and three subscriptions have the same invoicing period, Smile collates the charges for the four invoicing periods into the same invoice.
  3. Smile calculates any discounts for the account, subscription or invoice items, then calculates GST and applies rounding to the invoice total if configured to do so.
  4. Smile changes the status of each processed invoicing period to Approval. If Smile cannot process an account or subscription, it changes the status of the invoicing period to Error and continues with the billing run.
You can approve invoices manually or automatically. After the invoice is approved, Smile does the following:
  • changes the status of each invoicing period to Closed
  • adds the value of the invoice to the account balance
  • adds the invoice to the dispatch queue
  • schedules an automatic payment, if configured to do so
  • makes the invoice available to customers in CAT

Invoices and invoicing cycles

Smile only raises invoices against accounts; any charges for a subscription are added to the invoice for its associated account. If an account has two subscriptions with different invoicing cycles, Smile raises an invoice for each cycle against the account. However, if an account has multiple subscriptions, by default Smile sets all subscriptions to use the same invoicing cycle as the account.

If you add a recurring charge to an account, Smile raises the charge on the account's invoicing period end date.

Smile does not raise an invoice for an invoicing period if no activity occurs during the period. However, after you process the billing run, invoicing periods with no activity have a status of Approval. You can approve or cancel these periods if you wish to do so. For example, you can cancel and reprocess an invoice period if you need to raise a charge against it.