New Features and Enhancements in Billing Central Spring 2023

The following new features have been introduced in the Spring 2023 release of Billing Central.

If you are upgrading from a previous version, see Upgrading to Billing Central Spring 2023. This provides a summary of the items that have been added for each feature and details of any required upgrade steps.

Before you upgrade to Spring 2023, we recommend you also check the new features and enhancements information for each incremental release. This information for the two most recent Billing Central releases can be found here:

FinancialForce is Now Certinia

We have made the following changes to align with our new Certinia brand:

  • The publisher name has been updated to Certinia
  • Package names no longer reference FinancialForce
  • In most cases, text referring to FinancialForce has been replaced with Certinia

For more information about these updates and related text changes, see the Package Name Updates article in the Certinia Community and the Technical Documentation Pack.

To learn more about our rebrand, visit the Certinia Community for a message from our CEO, Scott Brown.

Note:

Major versions include updates to both package and publisher names. In service packs, only the package name has changed. Some elements, such as theming and logos, have not been updated and other references to FinancialForce might remain visible in your org.

Dependencies on other Certinia Packages

This release of Billing Central requires the following Certinia package to be installed:

  • Foundations Spring 2023

You must install this package before installing or upgrading to this release of Billing Central.

Apply Price Amendment When Next Billed

When using the Amend Prices feature in Winter 2023, the new unit prices were charged immediately from the Effective from Date. This meant that if a contract line item had already been billed beyond the Effective from Date, it was credited and rebilled at the new unit price. This is still the default behavior.

However you can now configure your org to charge the new unit prices when contract line items are next billed. In this mode, contract line items are charged at the new unit price from the next unbilled billing period that falls on or after the Effective from Date. This means that there is no crediting of contract line items that have been billed beyond the Effective from Date.

To switch to charging new unit prices when contract line items are next billed, you must select the Apply Price Change When Next Billed field in the Billing Central Settings custom setting.

When amending prices, information text on the Amend Prices window indicates which mode is in use. Either:

  • The new lines will start on the Effective from Date, meaning that the new prices are charged immediately. Or,
  • The new lines will start at the beginning of the next unbilled billing period that falls on or after the Effective from Date, meaning that the new prices will be charged when the contract line items are next billed.

The way contract line items are changed to reflect price amendments varies depending on which mode your org is configured to use. For more information about the two modes, see Amend Prices Overview.

Amending Prices at Contract Line Level

When using the Amend Prices feature at contract line level, the Amend Prices window now allows you to:

  • Specify a percentage price change on individual contract line items.
  • Search for particular contract line items.

If your org is configured to apply price changes when contract line items are next billed, the Amend Prices window includes the Price Charged From column which displays the date from which the new unit price will be charged for a line.

For instructions on how to amend prices, see Amending Prices on Active Contracts.

Linking a Contract to Its Renewal Automatically

You can configure Billing Central to link a contract to its renewal automatically. When you renew a contract, Billing Central then populates the Renewal Contract field on the original contract with a lookup to the renewal.

To use this feature, you must enable the Automatically Populate Renewal Contract field in the Billing Central Settings custom setting.

Invocable Action to Renew Contracts via a Salesforce Flow

You can now renew contracts automatically by creating a Salesforce flow to call the Renew Billing Contracts Asynchronously invocable action.

When creating the flow, Salesforce allows you to specify conditions that must be true for the flow to run. For example, the contract must be active, due for renewal, and not already renewed.

When configuring the Renew Billing Contracts Asynchronously action in the flow, you can pass input parameters to specify how the renewal's contract duration and contract line duration are calculated, and whether prices on the renewal are updated by a percentage or from a price book.

For more information about using this action, see Custom Action to Renew Contracts.

Note:

Due to platform restrictions, Certinia cannot include sample flows with Billing Central. For ideas about how you might design a Salesforce flow to renew contracts, see Sample Flows to Renew Contracts. For information about how to create Salesforce flows, please refer to the Salesforce Help.

Invocable Action to Activate Contracts via a Salesforce Flow

You can now activate contracts automatically by creating a Salesforce flow to call the Activate Billing Contracts or Activate Billing Contracts Asynchronously invocable action.

When creating the flow, Salesforce allows you to specify conditions that must be true for the flow to run. For example, the contract must be draft, and must have been approved.

When configuring the Activate Billing Contracts action in the flow, you can pass an input parameter to specify whether billing schedules should be generated (via a batch job) for the activated contract. If you use the Activate Billing Contracts Asynchronously action, billing schedules are generated according to the Billing Schedule Number of Months field in the Billing Central Settings custom setting.

For more information about using these actions, see Custom Actions to Activate Contracts.

Note:

Due to platform restrictions, Certinia cannot include sample flows with Billing Central. For ideas about how you might design a Salesforce flow to activate contracts, see Sample Flows to Activate Contracts. For information about how to create Salesforce flows, please refer to the Salesforce Help.

Billing Term Is Optional on One-Off Contract Line Items

Billing Central no longer requires you to specify a billing term on one-off contract line items. If you do not specify a billing term, the billing schedule generated for the one-off line is created as follows:

  • If the one-off line has an end date, the billing schedule spans the line's duration.
  • If the one-off line does not have an end date, the billing schedule starts and ends on the line's Start Date.

For more information, see Billing Schedules.

Note:

You might need to continue to specify billing terms on one-off lines if you have customizations that require it.

Annual Recurring Revenue and Monthly Recurring Revenue on Contracts

The Help descriptions for the Annual Recurring Revenue and Monthly Recurring Revenue fields on contract headers have been updated to clarify that they are theoretical maximum amounts assuming that all the contract line items run concurrently for at least a year.

For example, a contract might have two contract line items: Line 1 spans a full year, Line 2 spans July - December. The contract's Monthly Recurring Revenue field will sum the Monthly Recurring Revenue from both lines even though during January - June only the first contract line item applies. The contract's Annual Recurring Revenue is its Monthly Recurring Revenue multiplied by 12. Hence these values might not reflect the actual recurring revenue that is billed monthly or annually for the contract.

For information about all fields on contracts, see Billing Contract Fields.

Notice of Deprecated Sencha Pages

Since Spring 2021 Billing Central has been optimized for Lightning Experience, and Certinia has recommended all customers use Billing Central in Lightning Experience to take advantage of new functionality. No further development has being undertaken on the Enhanced View pages (otherwise known as Sencha), and as of Summer 2023 they will be removed from the product.

Please be aware that:

  • From Spring 2023, Billing Central no longer supports Salesforce Classic.
  • From Summer 2023 it will no longer be possible to reinstate the Enhanced View pages.

You can switch to using Billing Central in Lightning Experience by enabling the Switch to Lightning Experience feature in Feature Console. This feature was introduced in Billing Central Spring 2021. For more information, see Switch to Lightning Experience.

Certinia Trailhead: Release Highlights

If you want to learn more about the new features in this release, see the ERP Cloud - Spring 2023 Release Highlights Certinia Trailhead module. This module will guide you through the new features in our ERP Cloud products.

Fixes

Fixes are listed on the Known Issues page of the Certinia Community. You can access this page from the Community Support Hub. For a brief description of the issues that have been fixed in this version of Billing Central, see the relevant section of the Known Issues page.