NetLease - Grouped billing
Overview
Grouped billing combines lease payments from several leases onto one vendor bill (or invoice) instead of creating one bill per lease. A public lease saved search decides which leases go together: leases that have the same value in every column of the search are billed on one transaction. For example, a search with a single Vendor column puts all of a vendor's lease payments for the bill date on one bill.
Prerequisites
- Automated Billing is enabled under NetLease > NetLease Setup > System Setup > System Features. See NetLease - Automated Billing.
- A public saved search on the NetLease Lease record. Only public lease saved searches appear in the grouping options.
Key assumptions
- Only the saved search's columns are used. Its criteria do not filter which leases are billed, and summary types and sorting are ignored. The leases billed are still the ones you select on the Monthly Bills page.
- Leases are grouped only when they match on every column. Add a column to split groups further (for example, Vendor and Department).
Step-by-step process
Set up the grouping defaults
- Navigate to NetLease > NetLease Setup > System Setup and open the General subtab.
- In the Billing Settings section, select a Default Grouped Bill Saved Search.
- Select a Default Grouped Bill Line Summarization:
- Preserve Line Item Detail keeps every lease's lines on the grouped bill.
- Summarize Line Items combines lines that share the same item (or account, on expense lines) into one line.
- Click Save.
Grouping options are hidden until a default is set
The Monthly Bills page shows the grouping options only after a Default Grouped Bill Saved Search is selected. Leave the setting as "- Ungrouped -" to keep one bill per lease and hide the options.
Create grouped bills
- Navigate to NetLease > Process Monthly Transactions > Monthly Bills.
- Enter the period for bill creation.
- In the Advanced Settings section, confirm or change the Group By Search and Group By Line Summarization. Both default from Global Settings and can be changed on each run. Select "- Ungrouped -" to create one bill per schedule line for this run.
- Select the bills to create, or check Mark All, then click Generate Transactions.
Group by item
The Group By Item checkbox in the Billing Settings section combines a non-lease payment with the lease payment on a single bill line when both use the same item. It applies to every bill, grouped or not.
Limitations / things to be aware of
- Leases that match on every column are still kept on separate transactions when any of these differ: subsidiary, currency, vendor or customer, transaction type, transaction form, bill date, or item vs. expense lines.
- Credits are never combined with bills. A vendor credit or credit memo is grouped only with other credits of the same type.
- When the leases on a grouped bill have different values for a header field, that field is left blank on the bill. With Summarize Line Items, the same applies to line fields on a combined line.
- A grouped bill's memo shows the lease name when the bill covers one lease. Otherwise it shows the bill date (for example, "10/31/2026 - Bill").
- Large grouped runs are split into batches, and every group stays together in one batch.
Reversing one line removes the whole grouped bill
Reversing a single schedule line on a grouped bill deletes the bill. The other schedule lines that were on it are unlinked and become available to bill again, so run billing again for those leases.
Record structure
| Field Name | Field Type | Description | Example | Field ID |
| Default Grouped Bill Saved Search | List/Record | Public lease saved search that pre-fills Group By Search on the Monthly Bills page. "- Ungrouped -" hides the grouping options. | Leases by Vendor | custrecord_laa_gbl_group_bill_search |
| Default Grouped Bill Line Summarization | List/Record | Pre-fills Group By Line Summarization on the Monthly Bills page. | Preserve Line Item Detail | custrecord_laa_gbl_group_bill_line_pref |
| Group By Item | Checkbox | Combines a non-lease payment with the lease payment on one bill line when both use the same item. | Checked | custrecord_laa_gbl_group_by_item |
