Each month, the PI or the designated primary contact set in the PI’s lab will receive an invoice from each core that they or their lab members have used within the past month. Note that your invoice may contain older charges that had not previously been billed as well.
There are 5 steps in the billing process that begin at the start of the month. The process allows for the core review all of the charges, generate and email the invoices to the PIs (or lab primary contact) for their review. After allowing time for the PI to review the charges assessed to their funds, the core will finalize the billing in iLab. Once the billing is marked finalized, no more changes will be permitted to any invoices. iLab will then send the charges to Penn State’s financial system. The funds will be the transferred from the customer’s account specified on the invoice to the core’s accounts.
Billing Process Steps
The billing process begins at the beginning of each month.
- (Days 1 – 5) The core will review all services and mark any requests complete that have been completed. The core will also review all equipment usage, confirming the usage is valid, making any adjustments as necessary.
- (Days 1 – 5) The core’s billing representative will then generate and send invoices for all usage and services that have not yet been billed.
- (Days 6 – 10) The PI or Lab Primary Contact will review the received invoices. At this time the PI must ensure that all charges are associated with a correct and valid fund number. This will be the only opportunity for changes to be made prior to the billing being sent to the Penn State financial system. If there are any questions about charges on the invoice, please contact the core. All charges MUST have a valid fund associated with them.
- (Days 11 – 15) The core will finalize the billing. iLab will create and send the billing file to the Penn State financial system and the charges will be transferred. NO CHANGES CAN BE MADE TO CHARGES IN ILAB at this point.
If a fund was incorrectly charged, it will be the responsibility of the PI and their department to manually address the situation in the Penn State financial system. Once the bill has been transferred, it cannot be undone.