Use the Eclipse Lot Billing application to effectively manage large jobs that require a bid for the customer and quotes from multiple vendors. For example, if you have a customer who has a contract to install lighting in a large building, you can obtain quotes from several vendors for the necessary parts, such as wiring, bulbs, and fixtures, add those parts to a lot item, and, based on the best quoted cost, determine a lump sum to charge the customer. Lot billing helps you to:
Manage quoting, tracking, expediting, and billing for both the customer and vendor sides of a lot order.
Track shipments of both inventory and non-inventory items needed to complete a project or job.
Reconcile shipments as they come in, whether you receive one shipment for all of the materials on a lot order or multiple shipments for various quantities.
When you create an order that includes a lot item, you have three options for pricing that lot item. You can:
Calculate customer billing based on a formula.
Bill customers an exact amount you specify.
Calculate customer billing based on actual costs.
You can include several lot items on the same order but only on separate order generations.
You can include stock items on an order that includes a lot item, but only on a separate order generation.
You cannot add lot items to work orders.
Tax can be calculated only at invoicing; because lot items frequently span several generations, you cannot add taxes to a pre-pay order.
Begin by setting up the lot item as a product in Product Maintenance. You can then enter that product on a bid or direct sales order, add the pricing and costing details, and list the needed materials. If the lot item is entered on a bid, all of the materials will have the same shipment date. After you convert the bid to an order, you can then schedule the materials for multiple shipments. For example, if a customer is installing lights on each floor after the drywall is in, you can schedule the shipments to arrive as they are needed, over a period of several days, weeks, or months.
After you complete the order, you can then monitor the shipments using any of the logs, ledgers, and queues provided in the system.
When vendors ship the products to the customer, they send the bill to you for payment. You reconcile the vendor's invoice to the actual quantity shipped, Accounts Payable pays the vendor for the items received, and the system generates an invoice to send to the customer.
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