>Transaction >Cyclic and Utility Billing Addon >Utility Billing

 

Customer Setup

Set up route information for your Contacts

 

Also ensure that customers are properly marked "Taxable" or not.

 

Item Setup

 

In Acme Item Maintenance, add the items you intend to bill, you do not need to enter price, that is determined in the batch. Do mark the items as Taxable Y/N.

 

To add current reading and/or previous reading to detail description use %p% for previous reading, %c% for current reading in the TICKET DESCRIPTION.  Keep in mind, the overall description cannot exceed 50 characters.  Example:

 

Electric meter readings %p% to %c%

 

Click the Item Setup button on the Utility Billing dialog shown below.

 

                         

 

 

The batch also allows you to enter a minimum billing amount.

 

 

Fill out the Item Setup form, you may have up to two items per invoice.

 

If Flat Rate is checked the qty does not affect the extension.

 

We do not add an Admin Fee to Subscription Billing or Utility Billing transactions, if desired you should add it as a second item or build it into item price.

 

When you click the Item Setup button...

1.If the batch is populated with entries, the batch itself is not affected.

2.If the batch is not populated with entries, the batch settings are changed to match.

3.When a new batch is created it always get the latest settings.

 

POS Terminal is used for two purposes; 1. Sets the lane number for ticket numbering;  2. Sets the tax location for the taxable items.  We recommend using a distinct POS Terminal for Billing Add-on work, do not use one of your regular terminals.

 

If you do a single transaction for two items they must be taxed at the same rate. If you must tax at different rates, reset the tax local on the terminal and run another batch, creating additional invoices.

 

When adding the second item you have a choice to put it on onto same transaction, or create a second transaction for each customer. this is done in the "Enable Line Item" drop-down. Keep in mind, either way (one invoice or two) the items must be subject to same tax.

 

House Charge transactions are created. Currently the program does not consider credit limit or available credit. It assumes you want (need) to bill the amount. If you need available credit considered please inquire.

 

Extended Price Expression

 

Not required, Acme uses qty. x price as default. If you need something fancy like "minimum price includes first 50,000 gallons of water and 50,000 gallons of sewer and we need to charge per gallon for the rest" then let us know. We can help you create a custom expression.

 

(MIN(ubentry.orderqty, 1000) * ubbatch.unitprice1) + (MAX(ubentry.orderqty - 1000, 0) * ubbatch.unitprice1 * 1.15)

-the unit price goes up by 15% for any quantity remaining over 1000.

 

ubbatch.minext1 + ROUND(MAX(0,  ubentry.orderqty - 50000) * ubbatch.unitprice1, 2)

-the first 50000 gallons of item1 are included in the minimum fee.

ubbatch.minext2 + ROUND(MAX(0,  ubentry.orderqty - 50000) * ubbatch.unitprice2, 2)

-the first 50000 gallons of item2 are included in the minimum fee.

 
New Batch

Start a new batch.

 

a.Click [Add Customer…]

b.Select customer

c.Highlight will move to current reading

d.Click [Edit Prev. Reading] to enter previous reading. 

e.Enter current reading

f.Highlight will automatically move back to customer.

g.To save keystrokes, completion of one entry starts another, so when finished you will have to click [Undo Last Entry] or [Delete Customer Entry] before you can go on.

 

Batch data is saved as it is entered. There is no "Save" button. Transactions are created after you click the Post Batch button, described below.

 

Keep in mind that when a batch is created, all taxing and most other criteria is set.  If you change an item in item maintenance or change a tax setting  after the batch is created, it will have no effect on how the batch is calculated.

 

Meter Roll Over

 

If current reading is lower than previous reading consumption is calculated with roll over in mind.

 

Edit Batch

Change information in an un-posted batch.

 

Delete Batch

Remove a batch from the database. If the batch was posted this does not remove the transactions it created.

 

Generate Sparse Billing

 

Copy one batch to create another. The new batch gets its PREVIOUS readings from the customers last batch, not necessarily from the batch you copied.

You can edit and add to the new batch. One use is to create a minimum billing when the snow is too deep to go out and read the meters!

 

Post Batch

 

Creates transactions based on the batch. Also marks the batch as Posted. A posted batch can be viewed or deleted, but it cannot be edited.