This topic explains how soft dates
Salesforce refers to soft dates as "relative date values". The soft date is resolved to an actual date. For example, Billing Central would resolve "ME-5d" as 5 days before the end of the month. are used to calculate billing periods and billing dates for billing schedules. For an introduction to soft dates, see Soft Dates.
A contract line item with a Billing Type of "Recurring Fixed" or "Recurring Variable" has a Start Date, First Bill Date, and a Billing Term:
- The Start Date and First Bill Date default from the contract header but can be overridden on the contract line item.
- The Billing Term is a soft date which defaults from the Plan Term if the contract was created from a plan. It can be overridden on the contract line item.
When you generate billing schedules for a contract, the Billing Term soft date on a contract line item is used with:
- The contract line item's Start Date to calculate billing periods for the schedules
- The contract line item's First Bill Date to calculate billing dates for the schedules
Example 1
A +1M soft date means that dates will recur monthly after the date specified.
| Billing Term | Start Date | First Bill Date |
|---|---|---|
| +1M | November 1 2019 | November 15 2019 |
The billing schedules for this contract line item will have monthly billing periods starting on the first day of each month (from November 1, 2019), and monthly billing dates on the 15th day of each month (from November 15, 2019).
When using the +1M soft date with the end of the month, the calculated dates vary depending on the month's duration. See Soft Dates for more information.
Example 2
A MB+16d soft date means that dates will recur 16 days after the beginning of each month.
| Billing Term | Start Date | First Bill Date |
|---|---|---|
| MB+16d | November 21 2019 | November 29 2019 |
The billing schedules for this contract line item will have monthly billing periods starting on the 17th day of each month and monthly billing dates on the 17th day of each month. Because the contract line item starts on November 21 and the first billing date is November 29, the first billing schedule will use those dates. After the first period, the billing dates and billing periods align with the soft date.
Example 3
This is the same as Example 2 but the first billing date is November 12, 2019.
| Billing Term | Start Date | First Bill Date |
|---|---|---|
| MB+16d | November 21 2019 | November 12 2019 |
The result is that the customer is billed in advance.
Example 4
This is the same as Example 2 but the first billing date is December 22, 2019.
| Billing Term | Start Date | First Bill Date |
|---|---|---|
| MB+16d | November 21 2019 | December 22 2019 |
The result is that the customer is billed in arrears.
Understanding which Billing Periods will be Billed
When you run the billing process by clicking Create Billing Documents for one or more contracts, you have to supply the date range (or a specific date) of items that are due to be billed. Only items with a billing date that falls in this date range (or on the specific date) are billed.
Let's illustrate this using Example 4:
- If you choose to bill everything On or Before December 20, 2019 nothing is billed because there are no billing dates for the contract line item before that date.
- If you choose to bill everything On or Before January 20, 2020 then periods 1 and 2 are both billed because their billing dates fall before that date.