This program generates interim billings for the individual
contracts, one at a time.
It is interactive, requiring your staff to approve the billing as
it is generated. The amounts may be altered or additional charges
may be added while doing the regular billing.
The prompts are similar to Rental Return,
however the equipment remains OUT on the contract, and the invoice
type is flagged as Single in the Billings Inquiry.
Auto Bill Option:
This billing program can also be triggered immediately at the time
a contract is created to pre-bill the contract or immediately sell
sales parts, according the Cycle Bill Items From Contract
flag as set in the Divisional Contract
Parameters.
Applying Contract Deposits:
Usually the deposit from the Contract is held until the equipment
is returned. It is then refunded or applied against the invoice
generated from Rental Return.
The ‘Apply Contract Deposits’ flag in the Company Billing Parameters can be set to cause the
deposit on the contract to be used on invoices generated from
'Bill a Single Contract' to reduce the interim invoice
billing amount instead of holding the full deposit until the Rental
Return.
This ‘Apply Contract Deposits’ flag also applies to invoices
generated from Cycle Billing.
Billing Restrictions:
Any Power Kit components accompanying a Primary Non-Bulk Rental on
a Contract, are ignored in the cycle billing process, and only the
Primary product is invoiced.
For information on the Power Kit feature refer to Power Kits.
Certain Sales parts such as Fuel, and specific Rental products can be flagged in the "Re-Order Information" window in Sales Inventory or in the "Rental Information" of Rental Inventory never to cycle bill.
Billing Corrections:
The details on invoices generated from interim cycle billing or
from rental return cannot be modified or deleted in Miscellaneous Invoices, except for the
Notes associated with the product, and product Notes
can only be changed if the Operator has
role permission to access Invoice - Cycle Billed/Returned
Notes as setup in Security Roles.
In order to protect against product billings being modified
prior to posting, an incorrect Cycle Billed Invoice needs to be
reversed creating a Credit Invoice and then re-billed to correct
any billing errors.
A REVERSE button is provided at the bottom of the
Bill a Single Contract screen to access the Reverse a Cycle Billed Invoice utility.
Seasonal Billing:
This feature is activated when a unique Rental Rate Code is
defined in the Company Rate Parameters for
Seasonal Pricing, along with a Billing Day Code.
Seasonal periods can be setup by Group
allowing only one billing per season.
Grace Days also can be setup by Group that are respected at the rental return and in cycle billing, so that if a seasonal product is returned or billed at the beginning of a new season but within the Grace Days allowed, the new season is not considered for billing.
Field Access Security:
Additional role security can be set to restrict certain actions in
document entry by field as defined for the operator in Security Role Permissions.
This security feature can be used to control the operator's ability
to over-ride field values include bill meter usage, discount
percents, dates/times, quantities, rates, price, and terms.
Flat Rate Billing:
When a product is given a Flat Rate on a Contract, it bills
that rate every interim billing and even if it is "Off-Rent" it
will be billed up to the Off-rent time.
Meter Billing:
Metered rental items can be billed for the meter usage on each
cycle billed invoice, if the operator has Security Role Permissions to Bill Meter Usage -
Cycle Bill a Single as flagged in the 'Document Field Access'
security.
Cylinder Contracts:
Contracts generated from Cylinder Entry specifically to track cylinders,
bottles, or containers as they are delivered and returned, cannot
be billed individually.
Merge Invoices:
Invoices generated from cycle billing can be merged with existing
current On Account invoices from the same division, and for the
same customer. The parameters to allow merging of invoices from
cycle billing, can be setup in the Company
Billing Parameters.
When more than one contract is billed to the same invoice, the
contract# on the invoice is changed to "CYC BILL" and a Comment
line is added to indicate dates and contracts billed on this
invoice.
If no suitable invoice for merging is found, a new invoice will be
created.
Posting Hold Flag:
Invoices for specific customers/site combinations can automatically
be assigned an On Hold status.
This is setup for the relevant customers and site numbers in the
Company Billing Parameters. This Hold status
delays posting the invoice to allow subsequent billings, to be
added to Held invoices of the same type. When the billing period is
complete (e.g. weekly) or the job is finished, the invoices can be
released for posting from Hold/Release Current
Invoices or Release Invoices By
Customer.
The prompts are:
For Monthly Billing:
If the contract went out
December 1st then the BILL TO DATE will be 1 month later at January
1st.
Refer to The Monthly Billing Cycle for
details on this process.
For 28 Day Billing:
The BILL TO DATE is exactly 28
days after the contract date out.
If the contract went out December 1st, the BILL TO DATE will be
December 29th. The billing period will be from December 1st to
December 29th. Both December 1st & December 29th fall on the
same day of the week (Tuesday), both are Code 1 and are exactly 28
days apart. The next time Code 1 is billed again will be Tues.
January 26th, which is 28 days later.
Refer to The 28 Day Billing Cycle for details on this process.
Select Days Since Last Cycle Billed when the items on the contract do NOT have common Bill To Dates. Using this "staggered billing" option, each item on the contract can be billed a set number of days according from the Date Last Billed or Date Out if not previously billed.
This billing option was designed to handle special contracts,
where the client insists on receiving one invoice per month (or 28
days) for all monthly charges. This special contract would
represent a consolidation of all of the customer's activity, with
the rental products going out on this contract at different dates
and different times.
Example: A sander could go out May 2nd, and drill could go out on
May 25th and be on the SAME contract.
What makes the contract special is the client's requirement that the billing period on each item on the invoice be for exactly a month (or 28 days), i.e. the sander would be billed from May 2nd to June 2nd, and the drill would be billed from May 25th to June 25th on the SAME monthly billing invoice.
The need for staggered BILL TO DATES arises if your client insists on:
Note: If the contract is a "Service Only" contract, or the Billing code is F, then the Days Since Last Cycle Billed is disabled for the Billing Period.
Enter the date when the billing period ends, which becomes the
"Bill Through To Date" for the invoice.
It is NOT the invoice date. This date impacts how the rental rate
is calculated.
Enter the number of days to bill for each item on the contract
from the last billing date.
Items can have varying Bill To dates.
Another setting in the Company Billing Parameters, controls the rounding of the billable time. The options for the hours billed on the contract include leaving the hours exactly as calculated with no rounding, or dropping the minutes so that only complete hours out are charged.
Note: Some individual products may be assigned a billing code of F for Flat Rate, on the original contract. These products will always be billed the same amount on each invoice.
Some firms like to make their Bill To Date equal to the
Invoice Date.
Some firms like bill in advance. e.g. The Invoice Date could
be a week or a month prior to the Bill To Date.
Note: Some individual products may be assigned a billing code of F for Flat Rate, on the original contract. These products will always be billed the same amount on each invoice.
If the old Billing Code was blank (No Cycle Billing), assign a new Billing Code to the contract is triggered as follows:
Cash Customers:
If the contract is for a Cash Customer as flagged in Customer Information, leave this field blank or
manually select a new Billing Code, such as CC - CASH
CONTRACTS.
It is NOT recommended to use the standard Billing Day Codes (Codes
1 to 31).
Instead all Cash Contracts should be assigned the same Special Case
Billing Code as can be setup in Cycle Billing
Codes for setting up the Special Case Billing Codes.
This provides the ability to easily track the cash contracts which
require monthly billing, because they have been grouped by the same
Billing Code.
Note: If a billing code of F for Flat Rate is entered, a flat rate for each product on the contract, can be entered.
This prompt defaults according to the Sell Sales Item Default flag set in Company Billing Parameters but can be over-typed as required.
Uncheck this box to leave the billing of sales items for the Rental Return invoice.
Check this box to charge for the sales items on this
invoice.
This allows the sales revenue to be captured at the beginning of
the contract, instead of at the end which increases your cash flow.
If a customer does return sales items at the end of contract, a
credit can be generated for the unused sales items on the Rental
Return invoice.
Most firms choose to bill the sales items on the first "monthly"
invoice, since it is assumed that if the customer has kept the
rental item for a month, the consumable (sales items) will have
been used up by then anyway.
Uncheck this box if meter usage should not be billed on this
interim billing.
This is the standard default and cannot be changed if the operator
does not have role permission.
Check this box to bill the meter usage for the cycle billing
period.
A meter window opens after the items are flagged to be billed to
capture then new a meter reading as outlined in Update Product Meter Information.
This allows the meter usage to be billed on each cycle billed
invoice, instead of billing the total meter usage when the
equipment is returned.
Uncheck this box if meter usage should not be billed on this interim billing.
Note: If the meter/blade unit count was changed on another session between the time the count was entered in this cycle billing utility and the time when the cycle billing was completed and accepted, the unit count will not be updated and a warning will be triggered requesting that the meter usage be updated manually.
SERVICE ONLY CONTRACT
This warning prompt appears, if the contract ONLY carries service
charges flagged to bill every cycle billing, and no other rental or
sales products or services, and it has not yet been billed through
this date.
When accepted the service charge is billed as long as it has not
yet been billed through the "Bill To Date". A bill through date and
accumulated billed amount can be tracked in Review Accumulated Invoice Amount.
Contracts that carry only regular services that are NOT flagged to bill every cycle billing, and have no rental or sales items, are NOT invoiced.
Product Details Paging Screen:
As products are selected for billing, the totals for Rentals
and for Sales are displayed in the fields on the right at
the top of the screen.
Uncheck this box if the item should not be billed on this
invoice.
Check this box to bill the item on this invoice.
The ability to modify this field can be controlled by the 'Permit' flag set on CB Single - Quantity, Detail in the Security Role Permissions for the role assigned to the operator.
Security:
The ability to modify this field can be controlled by the 'Permit'
flag set on CB Single - Each, Detail in the Security Role Permissions for the role assigned to
the operator.
For Rental Equipment:
The unit rate each (before
discount) will appear on the screen.
Window on this field to view how the rate was calculated in the
Billing Breakdown.
To adjust this rate, over-type it with the correct unit rate
each. To make the product "No Charge", type in 0 (zero).
If a rate is altered, an audit record is automatically written that
is included in the Print Override
Report.
Note: If the value in the Each field or Meter Amount fields are blanked out, and the Override Rates is not allowed per the Company Security Parameters, then the value will be reset to the original amount.
For Sales Items:
The List Price each (before
discount) will appear on the screen.
To adjust this price, over-type it with the correct price each. To
make the item No Charge, type in 0 (zero).
If a price is altered, an audit record is automatically written
that is included in the Print Override
Report.
Window to view and select from any Special Price codes setup for this product in the "Rental Rates & Pricing" parameters on the Operations tab of Configure System Settings in Price Codes.
After the meter units to be billed have been determined in the Update Product Meter Information window, the charge for the billable meter units is displayed.
Window on this field to view how the meter charge was determined as outlined in Meter Billing Calculation.
Note: The discount is taken off the EACH amount before multiplied by the quantity.
Discount Over-ride Security:
The ability to modify this field can be controlled by the 'Permit'
flag set on CB Single - Rental And Sale Discount, Detail in
the Security Role Permissions for the role
assigned to the operator.
Details on Discounts Applied:
The Calculate Detail Discount window is
provided to access the Standard and Rate discount percents, and the
Additional Discount Included window is
provided to display the discount dollar amount given for any
Customer Plan or Time Based Discounts.
This requirement can be activated in the Company Security Parameters.
For more information on security features refer to Override Security Overview.
Security:
The ability to modify this field can be controlled by the 'Permit'
flag set on CB Single - Bill Date, Detail in the Security Role Permissions for the role assigned to
the operator.
If the product was put Off Rent before the Bill To Date
entered above, this Bill Date will reflect the Off Rental
Date. Time after the Off Rental Date/Time is not chargeable.
A window is provided to view the calendar day information.
Security:
The ability to modify this field can be controlled by the 'Permit'
flag set on CB Single - Bill Date, Detail in the Security Role Permissions for the role assigned to
the operator.
If an Off Rental occurred before the Bill To Time entered above, this Bill Time will reflect the Off Rental Time. Time after the Off Rental Date/Time is not chargeable.
Note: If rate changes have been made to the product on the contract using the Update Contract Rental Pricing utility, the product cannot be billed back prior to the effective date of the rate change, as related billing adjustments could not be made as of the old rate structure.
Security:
The ability to modify this field can be controlled by the 'Permit'
flag set on CB Single - Rate Code, Detail in the Security Role Permissions for the role assigned to
the operator.
Security:
The ability to modify this field can be controlled by the 'Permit'
flag set on CB Single - Rate, Detail in the Security Role Permissions for the role assigned to
the operator.
If the contract had been previously billed, the accumulated
charges from previous billing are subtracted from the total charges
to equal the Net Unit Rate for this billing.
A note will display in this rental calculation window if the
maximum rental cap has been reached for the product per unit.
For instruction on how the rates are calculated, see INVENTORY CONTROL section of the manual, subsection Rate Calculation.
When a Field Ticket is generated from Cycle Bill a Single Contract a comment is written in the contract notes, referencing the Field Ticket number and date.
Note: Field Tickets are not assigned to invoices generated in a batch from Cycle Billing.
ACTIONS:
Additional actions provided by buttons on
the Cycle Bill A Single Contract screen include:
Note: If Cycle Billed meter usage charges were credited when the Invoice was reversed, the meter usage count is not updated in the Meter History. The Current and LTD meter count can be updated manually if required.
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