The Billing Schedules You Need to Master in Workday

Every Workday Billing deployment eventually comes down to one key task: the Create Billing Schedule for Customer Contract task. It looks like a routine task. How you use it decides whether invoices track the contract cleanly for the next three years, or turn into a manual fix every single month.

While Customer invoices can be created as a standalone task, most companies use the option to generate them from a customer contract via billing schedule for recurring events. By using billing schedule templates the number of steps involved in the creation process is reduced and consistency is increased.

Most of the confusion isn't about the task itself. It's not knowing which billing method actually fits the deal in front of you, and confusing the billing schedule controls with revenue recognition. Get those two things straight and the system will be in sync with your business.

Note: While similar functionality exists for Sponsors/Grants as well, this post focuses exclusively on Customer Contracts.

A billing schedule and a revenue schedule do different jobs

Workday keeps them as separate objects on purpose, so a business can bill on one timeline and recognize revenue on another without one process distorting the other.

The classic case: an annual subscription contract. You bill the full amount on day one through the billing schedule. A separate revenue schedule spreads that same revenue evenly across the twelve months of service. Same contract line, two different clocks.

The billing schedules, and where each one earns its place

While the schedule type is optional in the task, it is a helpful way to flag its usage for reporting purposes or audit/business process controls. The 

 task lets you configure the billing schedule types for your tenant. You can inactivate ones you don't want your users to see or supply your unique description.

Consolidated or not: decide it when you build the schedule, not after

A billing schedule can group contract lines that span multiple contracts, or projects for the same company and customer, into a single schedule. That grouping decision, made when you build the schedule, determines whether one invoice is created across multiple contracts (i.e. consolidated) or not. Later, when you run Create Customer Invoices from Contracts, you choose a consolidation level for that run: by customer, by customer and billing schedule, or by customer and contract.

A consolidates billing schedule does not have all the same features as individual billing schedules. Hence it is important to make the decision carefully. Group too broadly and one correction on a single line forces a credit and rebill across the whole schedule.

Billing input and methods orchestrate the schedule

Another key factor is the input: is  it installment, transaction or prepaid based (also known as billing type). If the input is installment based then the billing schedule will create amounts to be billed on a set schedule. If the input is transaction based then the billing schedule will create invoices based on the actual transactions that have been logged against the contract line. A unique case is the prepaid option becuase it not only schedules the installments based a schedule for the full amount or a defined block but also triggers the  accounting for a prepaid balance.

If the schedule's billing type is installment, you can determine the installment creation via the 

The following billing methods are available:

The header of the billing schedule isn't administrative overhead. It's where Workday derives every date and process rule to be applied. Each billing schedule can for example have different PO numbers or generate different invoice type, which then can determine a different print form to be used. Leave it empty to default to the contract billing data.

Auto-Submit Invoices for Approval allows you to bypass business process approval steps for invoice generation since the scheduled installment have already been approved.

Automatically Submit Schedule via Contract Amendment only matters once Automatically Regenerate Installments is on. Skip it and every contract amendment leaves you with regenerated installments sitting unsubmitted, waiting for someone to notice and push them through approval by hand.

Templates carry the header so you don't rebuild it

A billing schedule template saves the header configuration (billing method, frequency, invoice date option, statutory invoice type, delivery overrides) once, so a new contract inherits it instead of forcing someone to re-enter Spread Even, monthly, 15th-of-month invoicing on every deal. For a firm signing contracts across several people and teams, that consistency is the difference between a clean schedule and one that needs review after every go-live.

With all these billing schedule options, it become important to know which one your contract actually calls so that invoices are processes accurately, timely and consistently. That decision, made during setup and in your day-to-day operation, is what determines whether your invoices match the deal for the life of the contract or fight it every cycle.

Reviewing your own billing schedule setup? 

Workday billing schedules control how and when you invoice, not how you recognize revenue. Here are the schedule options to know and where each one fits.

Looking for ways to make the Workday system your own? There are a few options to consider.

When Workday was a early pioneer in the Cloud ERP market, their differentiation was built on "one-code line" in stark contrast to legacy providers. Many SAP and PeopleSoft customers dreaded the costly upgrade projects that introduced risk and cost and provided very few tangible benefits. A "self-upgrading system" was to tale of dreams.
In order to facility this single-code line approach, customizations were non-existent. Instead a configurable standard software approach allow customer to make fast decision and adjust the features to their needs.

Many companies find that they need to augment standard software to improve user experience and feature functionality. Either the delivered features are incomplete or too complicated.
Adding custom fields to an existing Workday object may be a solution for some, but it comes with limitations (such as UI, busines process, etc.)

The quickest way to get new processes supported is by creating your own applications and integration them via applications. This could be done on any web application platform (such as Heroku or Next Js). This may be attractive for organziations that already have a development staff in house.

Workday has built out substantial capabilities over the past years that make it possible for customer and implementers to build Workday experience directly within the tenant.

Many vendors are now offering their applications on the Workday marketplace. Those are pre-packaged solutions that have been fully developed and tested.

As the Workday marketplace grows and matures, expect a lot more offerings from small to large solutions. Vendors such as ourselves are constantly looking to provide Workday customers with the tools they need.

How can your organization take advantage of the growing capabilities of the Workday Platform

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The Billing Schedules You Need to Master in Workday

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