billing-schedule-setup

Billing Schedule Setup

This skill activates when a practitioner needs to configure Salesforce Billing (blng__ namespace) billing schedules, invoice plans, billing policies, or billing treatments — from initial Legal Entity setup through Invoice Run execution. It covers In-Advance, In-Arrears, Evergreen, Milestone, and Dynamic Invoice Plan schedule types.

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Before Starting

Gather this context before working on anything in this domain:

• Confirm the Salesforce Billing managed package (namespace prefix blng__) is installed. Salesforce Billing is a separate managed package layered on top of Salesforce CPQ — it is not part of core Salesforce or CPQ alone.
• Confirm Data Pipelines is enabled in the org (Setup > Data Pipelines). This is a hard platform dependency: without it, the Billing package cannot create billing schedule records even if all configuration is correct.
• Identify the required schedule type (In-Advance, In-Arrears, Evergreen, Milestone, or Dynamic Invoice Plan) — this determines configuration path and invoice run behavior.
• Confirm the OrderProducts are CPQ-sourced (via Quote > Order flow), not manually created — manually created Orders bypass CPQ fields required by Billing.
• Know the billing period (Monthly, Quarterly, Annually, Custom) and billing day-of-month required by the business.

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Core Concepts

Billing Lifecycle: Order Activation Creates blng__BillingSchedule__c

The Salesforce Billing lifecycle begins when an Order is activated. At activation, the Billing package creates one blng__BillingSchedule__c record per OrderProduct that has a valid Billing Rule reference. Each blng__BillingSchedule__c holds the projected charge dates and amounts for that product's billing period. These records are auto-generated — do not create them manually.

The configuration chain that must be in place before Order activation:

Legal Entity → Billing Policy → Billing Treatment → Tax Policy → (Invoice Plan if Dynamic)

Each link in this chain is a lookup on the previous object. Missing any one link prevents billing schedule generation or invoice creation.