DBD: Unbilled Costs - Operational & Troubleshooting Guide

Part 1: Standard Workflows by Order Type

Workflow A: Single-Vendor Orders

For standard orders relying on a single vendor fulfillment, the process is linear:

1. Cost the Invoice: Process the incoming vendor invoice through standard PO Receiving. This immediately establishes the unbilled cost baseline.
2. Price Adjustments (Optional): After costing is complete, you are still permitted to modify or update the customer's sell price on the order before finalizing the billing.
3. Bill the Customer: Process the order through the Accounts Receivable invoicing when ready. This completely relieves the unbilled balance.

Workflow B: Multi-Vendor & PO Extension Orders

Projects requiring multiple vendor fulfillments or PO extensions require a staged coordination approach:

1. Cost Invoices Sequentially: As individual vendor bills arrive, enter them into PO Receiving. Each posting is added as an unbilled cost that accumulates in the order line and against the master order.
2. Hold the Bill: Do not invoice the customer until the entire project execution is finished. Billing the customer before all vendor costs are received results in incomplete COGS, skewed margins, and inaccurate historical profit reporting.
3. Execute Final Billing: Once the final vendor invoice is posted, process the customer invoice via A/R. This flushes all accumulated unbilled costs out to COGS simultaneously.

📊 Tracking Tools for Workflows A and B: The Unbilled Cost Report This report is required for managing your open pipeline is the Unbilled Cost Report, which extracts all live orders containing recorded vendor costs that have not yet cleared A/R billing.

• Navigation: DB Distributor > Order Processing > Reports > Order Reports > Open Sales Orders – Select options to show Unbilled Cost.
• Filtering by Salesperson: Use the staff filter options to generate targeted printouts for specific account executives so managers can easily hand off clean action lists to reps.
• Automated Scheduling: The system includes a reporting utility that can handle recurring automated print runs (e.g., automatically delivering a PDF compilation to the accounting team inbox every Thursday morning). Contact Support to establish the automated background schedule for your system variables.

Workflow C: Bill as Shipped (B-Type) Orders

B-type orders bring inventory into a warehouse on behalf of a customer. Unlike standard orders, PO Receiving is performed without a vendor invoice—this records costs in the inventory lot record and establishes the unbilled cost, but no A/P vendor invoice has been posted yet.

• Monitoring: Use DB Distributor > Order Processing > Purchase Orders > Reports > Open Purchase Order – Select POs to print P/O Pending AP to monitor B-type orders and follow up on vendor invoices

Part 2: Troubleshooting Validation Blocks

Error: "This Order Has Unbilled Costs and Cannot Be Deleted"

This validation block triggers automatically whenever a user attempts to purge an order that has already undergone a PO Receiving execution. The system blocks deletion to prevent creating an orphaned, one-sided general ledger entry on your balance sheet.

Common Root Causes:

• An order was mistakenly entered under the wrong customer account.
• A test scenario was accidentally processed on a live environment.
• An order was partially fulfilled, and the remaining balances need cleanup.
• A duplicate order was generated, and the vendor invoice was accidentally costed against the wrong order.

Resolution Pathways

Option 1: Process and Invoice (Standard Path)

If the recorded cost is legitimate and the transaction belongs on the ledger, process the order completely through the standard A/R invoicing routine. Once the customer bill is posted, the unbilled cost is successfully flushed to COGS, the file status updates, and the order can be closed or archived normally.

Option 2: Contact Support for File Cleansing (Bypass Path)

If the order was created completely in error (such as a test order or an incorrect customer assignment) and must not be invoiced to an end client:

1. Stop processing immediately. Do not attempt to force data entries.
2. Submit a request to Support.

Part 3: Handling Interrupted Sessions & Data Discrepancies

If a network connection drops, a workstation times out, or a system crash occurs mid-process during a PO Receiving execution, the data files can drop into an inconsistent state.

1. The Ghost Reporting Symptom

• Symptom: The Unbilled Cost Report explicitly displays an unbilled dollar amount against an order, but when an operator opens the live order panel, the fields display completely blank or show no costs present.
• Cause: This represents an incomplete database write. The interrupted session successfully appended records into the background report tables but failed to update the master order viewing panel before the crash.
• Resolution: Submit a request to Support.

2. Doubled Unbilled Costs

• Symptom: A single $500 vendor invoice results in an unbilled cost display of $1,000 against the order line.
• Cause: When a user re-runs a failed or interrupted receiving batch without realizing the initial attempt successfully wrote data to the files, the second attempt duplicates the entries.
• Resolution: Do not invoice the customer. Submit a request to Support.

3. "Previously Received" Validation Exception

• Symptom: When attempting to cost an item, the entry screen blocks input, stating the items have been previously received, despite physical stock not being updated.
• Cause: An incomplete transaction write locked the lines into an active "received" flag state without finishing the operational loop.
• Resolution: Submit a request to Support.

Part 4: Data Entry Corrections

Scenario: Incorrect Cost Amount Posted

• Symptom: A user typos a cost value during entry (e.g., typing $2,450   instead of $245  ) and posts the PO Receiving batch.

If the Batch is Still Open (Unposted):

Immediately open your active receiving batch, navigate to the line, overwrite the value with the correct amount, and save.

If the PO Receiving Batch Has Been Posted:

• Correction Path: Additional "Cost Only" lines can be manually added to the A/R customer Invoice to negate the additional cost.

🛑 Accounting Note for Path B: If using the manual line adjustment method, you must closely audit the resulting G/L Postings to ensure they perfectly match the actual correct amount intended for Unbilled Cost and COGS.