Coordinating CAR and CIR
Because the steps of call invoicing build on one another, coordinate these activities carefully:
• Recording activity in CAR
• Generating an invoice
• Reviewing the invoice in CIR
• Posting and printing the invoice
These activities must occur in the proper sequence to prevent unexpected results.
Establish procedures to ensure that you synchronize printing and posting invoices. When you post the invoice, the system clears amounts in CIR. New activity then generates a separate invoice.
The system manages invoicing through the Ready to Invoice field in Call Invoice Recording, which determines if the invoice can be selected for posting and printing.
This field is normally set by the system as you use CAR and CIR. However, you may need to manually set it under special circumstances.
Setting Ready to Invoice Field for New Activity
When Invoice from Recording is Yes in SSM Accounting Control, you are prompted in CAR to generate an invoice for invoiceable activity. If you respond Yes, the invoice is generated and Ready to Invoice is set to Yes so that the invoice can be selected the next time Invoice Post and Print is executed. You do not need to access Call Invoice Recording (CIR) unless you need to review or modify the invoice.
When Invoice from Recording is No in SSM Accounting Control or you respond No to the Generate Invoice field in CAR, Ready to Invoice remains No. You must access CIR to generate the invoice. In this case, CIR sets the Ready to Invoice field to Yes after the invoice is successfully generated.
Setting Ready to Invoice Field for Additional Activity
The invoicing process varies when an invoice for a call already exists and you add more invoiceable activity to it.
Important: If you make changes to a line in CAR for which you have generated an invoice, a warning displays. Make changes to this line with caution.
If you ignore the warning that a pending invoice exists and make changes to the call line, you must regenerate the invoice to reflect these changes. If Invoice from Recording is Yes in SSM Accounting Control, the system automatically regenerates the invoice when you complete CAR.
Note: When the system regenerates an invoice, it does not delete the old one. It simply replaces changed lines. This approach preserves any adjustments you made in Call Invoice Recording.
If you do not generate invoices in CAR, the system does not regenerate the invoice until you access the call in CIR. To ensure that a new invoice is generated, the system resets the Ready to Invoice from Yes to No. This is because the existing invoice is now invalid; it does not reflect all of the invoiceable activity in the call so it should not be posted. Invoice Post and Print ignores the invoice until you regenerate it.
You must then manually set Ready to Invoice to Yes in CIR in order to view the invoice; otherwise, an error displays.
This situation points out the importance of close coordination and well planned procedures to manage these two activities.