Cycle Billing - Generate Invoices

Reports Menu -> Automatic Reporting -> Function RSXD14 -> runs Cycle Billing with Generate Invoices option

In order to Cycle Bill, first calculate the billings using the Cycle Billing Edit that reports all open contracts for On Account Customers that need to be billed for that day.
Interim invoices billed from Cycle Billing are flagged as Batch in the Billings Inquiry.

Refer to Cycle Billing Edit for details about the Automated Cycle Billing options.

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.

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.

Each time the Cycle Billing Edit is run for a Billing Day Code, it replaces the previous temporary edit file. Therefore to complete the billing, CYCLE BILLING must be run BEFORE beginning the next Cycle Billing Edit with a new Billing Code.

The prompts are:

INVOICE DATE

This is the date of the invoices issued for this Cycle Billing Run.
Initially it defaults to the Bill To Date, but this can be changed.
It does NOT have any impact on the billing period of the invoice, though some firms like to make their Bill To Date equal to the Invoice Date.

Date Range Control:
This date will be used for posting the invoices to the Customers' Accounts and to the General Ledger.
If the operator does not have date range override permission, the invoice date will be checked to make sure the date is valid against the date ranges set as acceptable in Date Range Control for BINV (Batch Invoices).
The date control feature helps prevent data entry errors.

If the option to Bill All Codes was selected in Cycle Billing Edit, a window opens displaying the Billing Day Codes and the Bill-To Dates. This is display only and can not be changed, without re-running Cycle Billing Edit.

Advance Billing:
Some firms like to advance bill, such as to issue the invoices one week ahead. The INVOICE DATE would be one full week prior to the BILL TO DATE.
Example: If the billing period was from December 1st to January 1st, then the INVOICE DATE would be December 24th, and the BILL TO DATE would be January 1st.

Some firms bill a full month in advance so the INVOICE DATE would be one full month prior to the BILL TO DATE.
Example: If the billing period was from December 1st to January 1st, then the INVOICE DATE would be December 1st, and the BILL TO DATE would be January 1st.

Auto Pay Billing:
If your firm uses Texada Pay to process Credit Cards and Debit Cards for your customer payments, Cycle Billed invoices can be automatically paid when they are created if the card is setup through the Capture Card/Check on File.
The Auto Pay flag is displayed in the expanded details record of the billing run for each invoice outlined below.

BILL TO DATE

The date selected on Cycle Billing Edit will display.

Click on the icon to view the Billing Day Codes included in this run.

PRINT INVOICES

Check this box to print the invoices that are generated by the Cycle Billing.
A printer for the invoices can be selected from the Printer option located on the menu bar at the top of the screen.

Uncheck this box to speed up the cycle billing process, as the invoices do not need to be printed during the billing.
They can always be printed or emailed later from Print Invoices.

Note: If the Email option is also selected, invoices with an eligible email Contact will not be printed if they are emailed.

EMAIL

This option is enabled when invoices are being printed and when the email feature is setup in the Use Contact Document Emailing in the Company Email Configuration to automatically email invoices to selected customer/site contacts according to the Contact Information flags.

Check this box to generate an email for the invoices that are generated by the Cycle Billing to eligible contacts.

Uncheck this box to if the invoices do not need to be emailed during the billing.
If the invoices are not to be emailed, then they will be printed if the Print Invoices option is selected.

BILLING CODE

The Billing Day Code selected on Cycle Billing Edit will display.

Note: If a rental product has specifically been assigned a Flat Rate or belongs to a Contract with a Billing Day Code of 'F' for Flat Rate, the product will always be billed the same amount on each invoice regardless of the billing period.

BILL SALES ITEMS

This displays according to the selection on Cycle Billing Edit.

If this box is checked any sales items on contracts with the rentals that are being invoiced, will be billed as sold. This is usually done on the first billing, after which sales items on the contract are ignored.
If this box is unchecked any sales item will need to be billed at the Rental Return of the contract.

BILL ALL SALES ITEMS

This displays according to the selection on Cycle Billing Edit.

If this box is checked all sales items currently on all contracts, even if the contract has not been out for four weeks or a month yet, will be billed. This means all sales items on contracts get invoiced as fast as possible.
If this box is unchecked only rentals and sales on the contracts selected for this Billing Day Code will be billed.

DIVISION

The division selection from Cycle Billing Edit is displayed.

COPY CONTRACT COMMENTS

The decision whether to copy the comments from the source contract header to the billing invoices, that was determined in Cycle Billing Edit is displayed.
The print flag on the comment detail lines is respected.
Any notes being copied can be viewed in the Invoice Comments window on the Comments field for the contract in the paging screen below.

Note: A default Invoice Marketing Code can be defined in the "Printing Settings" of the Divisional Invoice Parameters to cause standard marketing comments as setup in Marketing Codes, to print on each invoice for that division.

INVOICE LOG

This value defaults to the operator preference as defined in Operator Codes.
Select one of the output options to Print a PDF report or export the data to Excel.

DETAILS

Click the DETAILS button to generate the list of contracts for the billing run.
The contract list respects the Billing Sort Order selected in Cycle Billing Edit filters.

SEQ

The contracts selected for this billing will display on the screen in the same order as was printed on the Edit Report.

CONTRACT #

The contract # will display.
Click the EXP/CON button to expand the contract detail line to view the Bill To date and the Billing Day Code for the contract.

NAME

Either the Customer Billing Name or the Ship/Site Name will display on the screen, depending on the Billing Sort Order selected on the Cycle Billing Edit.
If the Billing Sort Order selected in Cycle Billing Edit was 'Salesman Code', then the two character Salesman Code assigned to the contract is displayed before the Customer Billing Name for reference purposes.

COMMENTS

A window to the Invoice Comments is provided to view the notes that will be copied from the contract header to the invoice.

DETAILS

Window to view the original product details from the Contract including the rental and sale product numbers, descriptions, quantities, and Unit Price.

On exiting the contract product detail list, the ability to drill down to all parts of the contract and its previous invoices is provided as outlined in View Document Information.

BILLING AMOUNT

The total amount of the invoice will display. This will agree with the Cycle Billing Edit Report.

SMART BILLING

This column identifies Smart Billing Contracts.
Any Contracts that have been Smart Billed to the next Billing Date are flagged YES.
Contracts that have been billed to the last Billing Date for their Day Code are flagged NO.

Expanded Contract Detail

Click EXP/CON to view the Bill To date, and the Billing Day Code for the contract, and the Auto Pay flag that applies to this billing invoice.

Finished?

Contract records that should not be billed at this time can be deleted from the list, and additional eligible contracts can be added.
When finished, press ACCEPT to accept or CANCEL to abort.

If the billing run is aborted, the contracts remain in the queue to re-initiate the billing until they are billed or until Cycle Billing Edit is run and the queue is replaced.

CONFIRMATION to Start Cycle Billing

A printer can be confirmed or re-selected from the Printer option located on the menu bar at the top of the screen.

Click NO to cancel the cycle billing process.
CYCLE BILLING may be run later for the existing selection or if corrections are required, after the changes are made to the contracts, rerun Cycle Billing Edit to re-start the process.

Click YES to begin the production of the Cycle Billing Invoices. Only the contracts listed on the screen will be included in this run.
An Error Report will be generated if there any rate errors, etc. on the contracts.

Auto-Pay Connect to Clearing House

If your firm subscribes to Texada Pay to process automatically pay customer invoices with Credit Card or Check on file, then the Select Card Type window is briefly displayed to indicate the payment is being processed.
No operator action is required unless an error such as invalid data is encountered.

Errors:
If a processing error occurs such as a Time-Out or an invalid Payer ID, the Transaction error screen is generate with the opportunity to retry.
If retry fails, click NO further retries and to continue creating and processing the invoices without auto-paying that invoice.
Instead that invoice will be created with payment due and will be charged to the customer's account when posted.

Credit Rating change on Fail:
When an auto-pay transaction fails for a customer, the customer's Credit Rating will automatically be changed to the "Credit Rating Upon Fail" if there is one set up in Texada Pay.
No warning is generated.

Auto-Pay Report:
The 'Cycle Billing Automatic Payments' report is generate listing all the customers with auto-pay invoices in this run by customer number, name, invoice number, amount, partial card, expiry date, and any errors.

Close Unbilled Cylinder Transactions:

In a Cylinder Billing run, if a contract has open cylinder transactions with zero rentals due for billing, it can prevent subsequent months from being billed.
An Open Cylinder Transaction Warning is triggered in Cycle Billing Edit to alert the operator that Cycle Billing - Generate Invoices must be run and accepted for this period to close the transactions, even though there is nothing to bill.

A list of the unbilled cylinder transactions is displayed as outlined in Close Unbilled Cylinder Transactions that can be closed as required.

Invoice Printing:

If the print invoices option was selected, they will print or email as they are created.
A printer for the invoices can be selected from the Printer option located on the menu bar at the top of the screen.
The email feature can be setup in the Use Contact Document Emailing in the Company Email Configuration to automatically email invoices to selected customer/site contacts according to the Contact Information flags.

Otherwise, invoices can be printed or emailed later using Print Invoices from CURRENT status as the invoices are not posted yet.
To determine the beginning and ending invoice numbers that need to be printed, use Hold/Release Current Invoices option that displays whether or not the invoice has been printed.

Off Rent Assets on the Invoice:

Items that are off-rented because they are still being Delivered are not billed on the invoice and so no off-rental trx prints on the invoice.
Jasper invoices only print off-rentals associated with invoiced products and only if the Enhanced Off-Rentals feature is activated and the customer is set to print them or set to use the Company Default that is to print, and the Off-Rental falls within the invoice time period and is completed.

When a product is put Off Rent the billing for a Cycle Billing or Return stops as of the Off-Rental date, and the Off-Rentals shown on the resulting invoice are only the completed ones, so the customer can see the off-rental hours affecting billing.
With any open Off-Rentals, the Cycle Billing or Return bills up to the off-rental date but will not show the open off-rental.

Document Reprint Log:

When the invoices are emailed or printed a Document Reprint Log is generated listing the documents with recipients.

Billing Reports:

After the Invoices are printed, the paper needs to be changed to plain paper or a plain paper printer can be selected from the Printer option located on the menu bar at the top of the screen, before the Cycle Billing Credit Warning report and the Billing Log are printed.
The Billing Log can also be viewed as an inquiry or output to a spreadsheet using Audit Log Inquiry/Report.
When invoice are auto-paid by Texada Pay through Capture Card/Check on File a "Cycle Billing Automatic Payments" report is generated with the customer#, name, invoice, amount, partial card# and expiry date of card.

Some firms attach a copy of the "monthly" invoice to the original contract, so that all the paperwork relating to the rental is stored in one place. This makes it easier to answer customer's questions about the contract billing, and issue credits or adjustments if necessary.

The contract and its monthly billing then get re-filed with the other open contracts. When the contract is closed, the invoices can remain with the contract and be filed in the customer's alphabetical file, or they can be separated and stored numerically, according to your company policy.

Aborted Billing Run Reset:
If a Cycle Billing run is interrupted and aborted due to a database error, the Contract headers may be left marked as closed even though there are open details.
To reset the temporary closed flag on the contract header use the Re-Open Closed Contracts.

Posting Control
The Cycle Billing program is designed to be run by one operator at a time.
Locking will occur if another operator attempts to run the program at the same time, or if the first operator did not exit the posting program correctly.
A Posting Control Information warning will appear on the screen preventing the second operator from proceeding, and only operators with Security Role permission to reset the Cycle Billing flag will have access to the RESET button that unlocks the program.
Whenever the posting control flag for Cycle Billing is reset, a record is written to the Delete Log for the Function RSCD13.