Payment allocation plans
A payment allocation plan is a set of values associated with accounts that determine how money in unapplied funds is allocated to unpaid invoice items. For a complete description of the business functionality of payment allocation plans, see Application Guide.
Some functionality is common to all plans. This includes the following:
- Plan order
- Endpoints for plan testing
- Multicurrency functionality with plans
For more information on the common functionality, see Plan behavior.
Two sets of criteria
Payment allocation plans have two sets of criteria:
- Criteria that determine which invoice items are eligible to be paid (to have funds distributed to them)
- Criteria that determine the order in which eligible items are paid
Distribution criteria
Payment allocation plans use a set of criteria to define the invoice items eligible to be paid (to have funds distributed to them). The criteria are additive. Invoice items must meet all criteria to be eligible.
The base configuration includes several distribution criteria. For example:
- Billed or Due - Invoice items are eligible if they are on invoices that are billed or due.
- Invoice - If the payment targets a specific invoice, only invoice items on that invoice are eligible.
- Positive - Only invoice items with positive amounts are eligible.
- Policy Period - If the payment targets a specific policy period, only invoice items on invoices for that policy period are eligible.
- Next planned invoice - Invoice items are eligible if they are on billed or due invoices, or if they are on the next planned invoice.
- Past due - Invoice items are eligible if they are on due invoices.
Invoice item ordering
If the total amount of all eligible invoice items is greater than the amount to be distributed, BillingCenter must determine which of the eligible invoice items will be paid. Payment allocation plans have a second set of criteria to specify the order in which the eligible invoice items are paid. These criteria are applied consecutively. Invoice items are ordered by the first criteria. Then, for invoice items with the same rank, invoice items are ordered by the second criteria, and so on.
The base configuration includes several distribution criteria. For example:
- Recapture charges - Rank invoice items associated with recapture charges first.
- Event date - Rank invoice items based on their placement dates.
- Charge pattern - Rank invoice items according to the priority of their charge pattern.
- Bill date - Rank invoice items based on the bill dates of their invoices.