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

• A billing schedule tells Workday when to invoice the customer and how much to put on that invoice. They are related to customer contract lines which control the overall amount and drives the contract logic.
• A revenue (recognition) schedule tells Workday when to recognize revenue for accounting purposes. They can be related to a contract or invoice lines.

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 Maintain Schedule Types 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.

--- 
config: 
  theme: forest 
---
flowchart TD
    A{Consolidated ?} -->|Yes| B(Consolidated Billing)
    A -->|No| C{Input ?}
    C -->|Installment| D[Spread Even / Defined / Custom]
    C -->|Transaction| E[Project / Usage]
    C -->|Prepaid| F[PrePaid]

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 Generate Installment Information options.

The following billing methods are available:

• Spread Even. Divides the total contract line amount evenly across the number of installments you specify based on the billing frequency (monthly, quarterly, etc.). Pair it with Automatically Regenerate Installments and Workday reissues the schedule when the contract line amount changes, instead of leaving stale installments behind. The default for flat-fee subscriptions and retainers billed monthly or quarterly.
• Defined Installment. Schedules set amounts according to billing frequency with the last installment adjusted to make the total match the contract line amount.
• Custom. Lets the user (or integration) enter installments individually, with no automatic calculation. Use it for irregular billing events, when the contract line amount is unknown at schedule creation and will be determined later or when the autogeneration option is insufficient. Once you change a single installment on a Spread-even or Defined schedule, Workday converts it to Custom and stops auto-calculation.

What the header actually locks in

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? Let's talk.