The Monthly Billing Cycle

Some firms issue monthly bills twelve times a year issuing one invoice for each month, and some firms issue an invoice 13 times a year as outlined in the The 28 Day Billing Cycle.
The Monthly Billing Cycle follows the calendar months regardless of the length of the month.

EXAMPLE:       Contract 455 went out Jan. 14th at 10 am.

1st monthly invoice: Billed from Jan. 14th at 10am to Feb. 14th at 10am
2nd monthly invoice: Billed from Feb. 14th at 10am to Mar. 14th at 10am
3rd monthly invoice: Billed from Mar. 14th at 10am to Apr. 14th at 10am

The software easily handles the differing lengths of the months - i.e. February has fewer days than March.
The setup for monthly billing (rather than 28 days) is in the Calendar.

Usually the Rental Rate Structure has the monthly rate set with the number of hours equal to 28 days.
28 days is then used as a basis for the calculation, which compensates for the irregular number of days in the calendar month that result from a "monthly" charge.
To make each month into a uniform period for billing purposes, the first 28 days are counted in each month beginning with the contract Cycle Billing Day Code ignoring any days over 28 in longer months, before starting the billing day count for the next month on the same Cycle Billing Day Code.
This allows all months regardless of length to be billed at a constant amount through the year.

Note: If the Monthly Bill Cycle Charge First 28 Days flag is not set in the Support Application Parameters, then the 28 day count always begins at the first of the calendar month, so that it is always the 29,30,31 days that are not considered chargeable days in the billing calculation, regardless of the starting Cycle Billing Day Code on the contract.

Partial Billing to the Beginning of Next Month

Firms in specialized rental businesses, such as trailer rentals, furniture rentals and storage space rentals, must issue their ALL of their monthly invoices from the First of the month to the First of the next month.

If the rental is started half way through the month (e.g. April 14th), the customer would be issued a partial billing up to the beginning of the next month (e.g. an invoice for April 14th to May 1st).
After that the customer would receive a monthly invoice at the beginning of each month, (e.g. from May 1st to June 1st, then from June 1st to July 1st).

Note: This approach to issuing monthly invoices requires high operator involvement to manually partial bill to the beginning of next month.
Every new contract must be individually billed a catch-up invoice, before the contract can be integrated with the ongoing contracts.
Unless your business demands that this approach to billing be enforced, we DO NOT RECOMMEND this approach because it is so time consuming and does NOT result in additional rental revenue in the long run.

To achieve this type of cycle billing, follow these steps:

Step 1

Set up any new contracts as usual in Contracts.

Step 2

At the end of the month select Unbilled Contracts Report to identify all new contracts which are ready to be billed up to the beginning of the next month. Use a cut-off date of the 1st of the month.

Step 3

Using the Report from Step 2, pull the original file copy of the contract and check 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.
• All contracts are for customers which have an Account with your firm. If the contract was for a cash customer, you may need to setup a new Account in Customer Information then alter the contract in Contracts to reflect the new customer number.

Step 4

The new contracts need a catch-up billing before they can be integrated with the on-going monthly contracts. Bill the new contracts using Cycle Bill A Single Contract - Standard Billing.
See the instructions on this option on how to create the catch-up billing. Make sure you use a BILL TO DATE of the 1st of the next month, i.e. if the rental started April 14th, the BILL TO DATE will be May 1st.

Note: When billing the contract, you will be prompted to assign a NEW Cycle Billing Day Code to the contract. Be sure to type in Code 1 so that the contract will be eligible for the next monthly Cycle Billing run automatically.

Step 5

Follow the instructions for High Volume Billing to bill all on going contracts with a monthly invoice. When the equipment is returned, the contract is closed and is no longer eligible for monthly billing.

Note: If your firm uses a combination of 28 day and monthly billing periods to meet customer requirements, refer to Default Billing Method in the Calendar to setup the billing day codes correctly, and activate the Respect Customer Cycle Bill Interval option in the Company Billing Parameters so that individual customers can be flagged with their billing preference in Customer Billing Settings.