Bill Customer. The shipment of goods marks the completion of the economic event
and the point at which the customer should be billed. Billing before shipment encourages
inaccurate record keeping and inefficient operations. When the customer order is originally
prepared, some details such as inventory availability, prices, and shipping charges
may not be known with certainty. In the case of back-orders, for example, suppliers do
not typically bill customers for out-of-stock items.