The Cyclical Billing Process & Window Billing

The cyclical bill creation process creates most bills. This process works as follows:

• Every account references a bill cycle. The bill cycle's schedule controls WHEN the system attempts to create bills for the account.
• Every bill cycle has a bill cycle schedule that defines the dates when a cycle's accounts are to be billed. Rather than attempt to create bills on one evening, most bill cycles use a concept of "window billing" where the system attempts to produce bills for accounts over a few nights. The first night (i.e., the day the window opens) should be the earliest day on which meter reads for the account can enter the system. The last night (i.e., the day the window closes) should be the last possible day in which a meter read can enter the system. This concept of window billing allows you to start billing accounts on the earliest possible day and then bill the stragglers over successive evenings. This results in much better cash flow.
• When the bill cycle creation process runs, it looks for bill cycles with open bill windows. It then attempts to create bills for the accounts in each such cycle. If a bill is created, it will send it out that evening. If a bill cannot be created, the system will create a bill in the "error" state with a message that can be analyzed by your billing staff. The next day, your staff can either correct the problem or not. When the bill cycle creation process next runs, it deletes all "error" bills and attempts to recreate them. It continues this throughout the bill window. If bills are in error at the end of the window, they will remain in this state until a user fixes them. If the bills are still in error when the cycle's next window opens, a billing error will be generated.

The following diagram should help clarify the above.