Bills

Owned by Persia Xenopoulou (Deactivated)
Last updated: Nov 05, 2018
8 min read

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Overview

A bill is an itemized statement of the separate cost of goods supplied and services rendered, for normal subscriptions and jobs, issued against a customer account. It consists of the all invoices and credit notes created by the system for an account during the period the bill covers.

Bill features

  • Bills include physical goods, expenses and one-time services delivered through jobs and termed, usage and expense services rendered through subscriptions.

  • They can be generated:
    • All at once, through a Normal Billing Run, covering all subscriptions and jobs that are subject to billing
    • One at a time, for a single subscription or job, through the respective subscription action or job action
    • One at a time, for a single accounts receivable associated with several normal subscriptions and jobs (instead of billing individual subscriptions and jobs).
  • They can be sent to customers by email in groups and resent individually on customer request.

  • Bills that are potentially problematic, due to an exceeded credit amount or an exceeded account receivable credit limit, can be classified as 'Exceptional' for easy identification and further investigation.

Setting Up Bills

Related configuration areas

The following module is related to bills and may be configured for the bills module to operate at its full capacity.

Module LinkAreaDescription
Normal SubscriptionsNormal Billing settings in Billing definitionsConfigure the 'Assembling and Formatting' settings; select formatting options (including rounding) and establish 'Exceptional' classification thresholds.

 

Using Bills

Billing > Billing > Manage Bills

Bills are generated automatically during a normal billing run, or by billing individual accounts, subscriptions and jobs, from each entity's Data Entry page.  Bills cannot be created manually.

Bill fields

The table describes the sections of the Bills Data Entry page and explains how the fields on the page are used.

 Mandatory   Configurable

Main Information

Bill To: the owner of the account for which the bill was generated (by a billing run or for an individual subscription or job).

Accounts Receivable: the account for which the bill was generated.

Type of billing run that created the bill.

Life Cycle State reflects a bill's progress and can take the following values:

    • Posted
    • Presented
    • Presented and Confirmed
    • Presented and Rejected

The life cycle state can also be modified following actions that result from an integration with a third party (e.g., 'Printed').

Status of bills:

    • Settled: completely paid
    • Partially Settled: only a portion of the amount due has been paid and the remaining is still outstanding
    • Unsettled: the complete amount is still due.

Classification: designates that bills are over their credit limit threshold or that their credit amount is too high.

    • Normal: the bill amount is neither too high nor too low
    • Max Credit Amount Reached: The bill amount is too low
    • Max Credit Limit Amount Reached: The bill amount is too high

Refer to Identifying Exceptional Bills for information on setting up thresholds for classifications.

Billing Run Number

Billing Run as of Date: The date on which the current billing run started including services or physical goods.

From Date: the day on which the billing period starts.

To Date: the day on which the billing period ends.

Due Date: the date by which the bill must be settled, set to the earliest Due Date in the included invoices. 

Total Bill Amount: The total amount to be paid.

Outstanding Amount: the aggregated amount of posted unpaid debits that are past their due date (calculated dynamically on a specific date).

Unsettled Amount: the aggregated amount of posted unpaid debits, regardless of their due date (calculated dynamically).

Action Panel

Communicate Bill: Displays communications with information on the specific bill. The communications can be created from this action or from the Communications Data Entry page (with the bill referenced in the 'Referring To' section).

View communications: Displays a history of exchanged communications.

View payments: Displays payments made towards the bill or its items (provided the bill is included in the 'Payment Information' section of the 'Bills to Pay' field).

Set as is used to change the life cycle state of the bill to 'Presented', 'Presented and Confirmed or 'Presented and Rejected'.

Bill Items
A list of all included invoices and credit notes generated by the billing run for the current period.

 

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Creating and processing bills

Selecting and creating Bills

Bills are generated by the system, through the Normal Billing Run, or by billing individual accounts, subscriptions and jobs from the entity's Data Entry page.  Bills cannot be created manually.

Bills can be generated:

  1. All at once, through a Normal Billing Run, covering all subscriptions and jobs that are subject to billing.
  2. One at a time, for a single subscription or job, through the respective subscription action or job action.
  3. One at a time, for a single accounts receivable associated with several normal subscriptions and jobs (instead of billing individual subscriptions and jobs).

Updating the life cycle state of bills


The life cycle state of a bill is informative and reflects a bill's progress.  It is manually updated through dedicated actions available from the Actions Menu (Action > Life Cycle State) and can take the following values:

  • Posted (set by billing run)
  • Presented 
  • Presented and Confirmed 
  • Presented and Rejected

The life cycle state can also be modified following actions that result from an integration with a third party (for example, 'Printed'). 

Applying business flows on bills

Identifying exceptional bills

 

As a very large number of bills can be generated every month, manually checking each individual bill for errors is impossible. To this end, CRM.COM uses the 'Exceptional' classification as an alert for questionable bills. 

'Exceptional' bills exhibit a credit or debit amount that is unusually high compared to a user-defined threshold.  Once specific bills are brought to the user's attention, they can be reviewed before they are sent out to customers.

The two user-defined 'Normal Billing Settings' of the billing definition are:

  • Maximum Credited Amount: credited through a bill before it is classified as exceptional
  • Maximum Debited Amount: debited through a bill before it is classified as exceptional. 
    The credit limit of the account is used in calculating the maximum debited amount. The maximum amount can be set equal to the credit limit or expressed as a percentage of the credit limit.

Bills are evaluated during the billing process.  If either threshold is exceeded, the respective classification will be set on the bill:

  • Max Credit Amount Reached: The bill amount is too low (for example, if the 'Maximum Credited Amount' is set to €100 and the 'Total Bill Amount' is €-101).
  • Max Credit Limit Amount Reached: The bill amount is too high (for example, if the 'Maximum Debited Amount' is set to be equal to the credit limit of the accounts receivable, which is €500 (fixed amount), and the 'Total Bill Amount' is €501).


Paying a bill using Quick Pay

The Quick Pay process supplements the usual method of creating payments (through Financial Transactions) and is used to quickly settle outstanding bill amounts.

You can access Quick Pay through the Actions Menu.

  1. Amount: a read-only value for the bill's unsettled balance.
    The following information can be edited:
    • Payment Type
    • Payment Method
    • Issued On
    • Category
    • Received By User
    • Received by Unit
  2. Click SAVE.  

Communicating a bill


Supplementing the Bill Sending Run and the Bill Printout that are used to forward bills to customers, bill information can be communicated by using the Communicate Bills action available through the Actions Menu.

You can use tags related to bills (text that is automatically replaced by values specific to selected records) when creating communications. Tags are available for selection by typing '#'.

Refer to the Communications manual for a complete list of bill tags.

Send bills to multiple customers

Billing > Billing > Perform Bill Sending Runs

Bill sending runs identify and send new bills to customers, according to criteria set in the bill sending definition (including which communication templates to use). 

Definitions must be submitted when they are created and can be executed on a recurring basis, according to the Scheduling Settings.

After the process is executed, a log is available through the Process Runs tab. 

A run can be deleted as long as it is still in a 'Draft' state (i.e., not yet executed).

Postconditions

In order for bills to be selected when executing a Bill Sending Run definition, they must:

  • Be associated with an active accounts receivable
  • Be associated with an accounts receivable that includes an active presentment preference with a type specified in the presentment preference conditions
  • Meet the definition criteria.

Bill sending run fields

The table describes the sections of the Bill Sending Run Data Entry page and explains how the fields on the page are used.

 Mandatory   Configurable

Input Settings

Used for selecting bills to send and for creating their communications

Presentment Preferences

Type: for a bill to be forwarded, the type must match the selection in the customer's accounts receivable.

Several bill sending run definitions can be set up to cater to different customer preferences.

A separate communication template can be configured for each definition, presenting distinct information, which is subject to each medium's restrictions.

  • Post
  • Email
  • SMS
  • F2F
  • Other
  • Custom (Types)
Bills Criteria

Bills Filter Method: determines which bills will be sent.

  • Process Only Failed and Not Sent: retrieves bills that were processed and rejected or that are not yet processed.
  • Process Only Failed: retrieve bills that were processed and rejected.
  • Process Only Not Sent: retrieves the bills that are not yet processed.

(Check the  Communication queue to find rejected bills).

Bills selection method: determines which bills should be retrieved, based on the date they were posted (Input the UOT, expressed in Days, Weeks, or Months.)

Exclude Bills with 0 Total Amount (False by default)

Send Bills Posted in the Last: Input the UOT, expressed in Days, Weeks, or Months.

Throttling Settings

Maximum Batch Size:Maximum number of bills included in each run

Start Again After: the period before the bill sending run executes again.

Scheduling Settings

Determines when to apply the definition and send the bills. Bill sending run definitions can be applied ad hoc or on a recurring basis. Scheduling settings include:

 

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Bills Analytics

Printouts

A printout displays all the information contained in a bill. It is available through the bills Data Entry page, in one of the following formats: HTML, XLS, CSV, RTF, and PDF.

Refer to Printouts for information on how they can be created, printed and sent.

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Bills Business Example

 

E-bills

Scenario 1

Company ZX sends new bills by email to customers that have requested their bills in electronic rather than printed form.

Solution

Normal Billing must have already been executed. 

  1. Set up a Communication Template using Bill Communication Tags, supplying the information to be conveyed.
  2. Create a new bill sending run definition.
    1. Specify Input Settings
      Communication settings:
      1. Template
      2. Media: email
    2. Specify Criteria for bill retrieval
      1. Presentment Preferences: email
        (To retrieve customers with email preference)
      2. Bills
        Select the latest Billing Run
    3. Specify Scheduling Settings

      1. Schedule the definition to run repeatedly, the day following the execution of the Normal Billing Run.

Notes

  • If you are using a previous release, view CRM.COM Release Changes.
  • Use the Bills WEB API to create and manage Bills from an external system, such as a customer portal. View the Bills WEB API for a complete list of actions available through the WEB API.

 

Glossary  

CRM.COM TermDefinition
SubscriptionA collection of customer services billed on a recurring, usage or one-time basis.
Normal SubscriptionA subscription that is billed on a term basis.
JobA small project initiated by the operator for customers, involving the delivery and billing of services, products, and activities. Customer requests and orders, such as that for a new subscription, can be initiated and registered through a job.
Normal BillingUsed for business billing models where customers are billed either before or after they start using goods or services they are subscribed to, or delivered to them and it is handled by the execution of Normal Billing Runs.
Normal Billing RunA mechanism that is used to charge customers for goods and services provided over a period of time.  Each run is usually performed on a monthly basis and issues a bill including the invoices and credit notes associated with customer subscriptions or jobs.
Billable EntityAn entity that can be billed through the billing engine (job or subscription).
Accounts ReceivableA ledger of the financial transactions carried out between a company and its customers, such as invoices and payments.
Financial TransactionAn agreement between a buyer and seller to exchange services or physical goods for payment.
Presentment PreferenceDefine the account owner's preferred method for receiving and exporting bills, and integrating bills with third-party systems.

 

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