High Volume Billing

The High Volume approach to cycle billing follows these steps:

Step 1

When the contracts are entered using Contracts, the software automatically assigns a cycle billing day code. (This is applies to On Account customers only.)

Step 2

When the first 28 days or month has passed, you are ready to bill the contracts. Use Cycle Billing Edit to produce a list of open contracts for On Account Customers that are ready to be billed. (Contracts that have all equipment returned will be skipped.)

Step 3

Your staff must visually inspect the Cycle Billing Edit Report. Generally, the staff manually pulls out the original contract numbers and visually confirms that the equipment on the contract is actually still out. Your staff should also confirm that the amount billed on the Cycle Billing Edit Report is the correct amount.

Step 4

After the Edit Report is approved, select Cycle Billing . The contracts will appear on the screen in the same order as on the Report. You may delete selected contracts from this list, if they need to be held back from this billing. Once you accept the Cycle Billing, the software bills the contracts and prints the invoices.

Step 5

The invoices generated from the Cycle Billing will be posted with the next Daily Close.

IF YOUR FIRM HAS BOTH ON ACCOUNT & CASH CUSTOMERS

The High Volume approach only issues the cycle billed invoices to On Account customers. When the contracts are entered using Contracts, the software automatically assigns Billing Codes to customers that have an Account with you. Each customer must have ON ACCOUNT = Y (YES) in Customer Information in order to be eligible for the High Volume approach to Cycle Billing.

Customers which do NOT have an account with you automatically have their contracts set with NO CYCLE BILLING as the Billing Day Code. This prevents cash customers from being automatically issued On Account monthly invoices with the High Volume approach.

If your firm also has cash customers, you will need to identify those cash contracts that are now ready for monthly (or 28 day) billing, and handle them separately. Contracts for cash customers need to be billed on a one by one basis using the Low Volume approach, because you need to determine if the customer will pay immediately if you issue the monthly invoice now, or if an Account should be opened for the customer and the contract altered to reflect the new customer number.

If your firm has a High Volume of contracts and has both On Account and Cash contracts, follow these steps to ensure that no contract is missed for a monthly or 28 day billing:

Step 1

Follow the instructions for High Volume billing above to bill all On Account contracts.

Step 2

Select Unbilled Contracts Report to identify all contracts not billed yet.

• For monthly billing, enter a cut-off date of one month ago.
• For 28 day billing, enter a cut-off date of 28 days ago.

Since you will have completed your High Volume cycle billing run for On Account contracts for the cut-off date already in Step 1, the only items which should appear on the report will be Cash Contracts that are ready to be billed for the first time.

Step 3

Using the Report from Step 2, pull the original file copy of the contract and check the following:

• Verify that the equipment is still out. If the equipment was returned but not marked returned in the software, close the contract now using Rental Return . It will no longer be eligible for Cycle Billing.
• Determine if the customer now qualifies for an Account. If the customer should have an Account with you, setup the new Account number in Customer Information and then alter the contract to reflect this new customer number. Do this using Contracts in CHANGE mode, by Down Arrowing to the Customer # prompt and typing in the new Customer number. Then press ACCEPT Key to exit.

Step 4

Contracts which are now On Account need a catch-up billing before they can be integrated with the other On Account contracts. Bill each contract using Cycle Bill A Single Contract - Standard Billing. Refer to Cycle Bill A Single Contract for instructions on how to do the catch-up billing.

Note: When billing the contract, you will be prompted to assign a NEW Cycle Billing Day Code to the contract. (Up to now, the contract is not set for Cycle Billing and has no code.) The new Billing Day Code is selected according to the Billing Code associated with the BILL TO DATE entered, so that the contract will be eligible for the next High Volume Cycle Billing run automatically.

Step 5

Contracts which are to remain as Cash contracts will need to be handled as special cases. When the customer gives you cash (or credit card or check) for the monthly billing, you can bill the contract using Bill A Single Contract - Standard Billing. You will be able to select a Method of Payment at the end of generating the bill, so that the invoice is marked PAID.

Note: When billing the contract, you will be prompted to assign a NEW Cycle Billing Day Code to the contract. All Cash contracts that are to be bill for a month or 28 days should be assigned a Special Case Billing Code, such as CC - CASH CONTRACTS.

• To setup the Special Case Billing Code, see Cycle Billing Days.
• Once the cash contract has been assigned this Code, you will be able to easily track it for future billing using this code.

Step 6

On a monthly (or 28 day basis), run O/S Contracts Report . This report will list all open Cash Contracts which have been previously Cycle Billed. Bill these contracts when the customer pays you, by repeating Step 5.

Step 7

When the equipment is returned, the contract is closed and is no longer eligible for monthly cycle billing.

BILLING 4 WEEKS AFTER 3 WEEKS

To get the invoices out faster (and payments back faster), some firms don't wait until the end of the 4th week to issue their bills. Instead, they issue the invoices one week in advance, i.e. after 3 weeks they issue the invoice with a billing period of 4 weeks.

The rationale is: after the customer has had the equipment for 3 weeks, the 4th is free anyway. Even if the equipment is returned before the end of the 4th week, there would be no adjustment in the billing required.

When cycle billing existing contracts, instead of using a BILL TO DATE that is 4 weeks from the contract Date Out, use a BILL TO DATE of 3 weeks instead.

AUTOMATIC BILL AFTER 3 WEEKS:

Alternatively, you can get the software to automatically set all new contracts to bill after the first 3 weeks. To activate this, set each customer in Customer Information with the prompt 1st CYCLE BILL PERIOD = 21. When a contract is entered, the software uses the Cycle Billing Code that corresponds to 21 days from the Contract Date Out. The first cycle billed invoice would be for 21 days. All subsequent cycle billed invoices would be for 4 weeks, but always be issued 1 week in advance.
For the subsequent invoices, the first week is the free week that belongs to the previous billing, and then the next three weeks are billable again.

When running the Cycle Billing programs, you would not compensate for the Advance billing by changing the BILL TO DATE as is suggested in the paragraph above, since the software has already compensated for the advance billing with the Cycle Billing Code on the contract.

PARTIAL BILLING TO THE BEGINNING OF THE NEXT MONTH

This applies to specialty rental firms, i.e. furniture or medical rentals. For a detailed discussion, refer to Monthly Billing Cycle.