Bill - Main Information

Open Menu > Financial > Bill > Search to maintain core bill information.

The following discussion describes the fields on this page. Refer to How To for a description of how to perform common bill maintenance functions.

Description of Page

Bill Info contains a concatenation of important information about the bill (e.g., the bill date, its status, due date, ending balance, etc.). If sequential bill numbering has been enabled, the bill's number also appears. If document numbering has been enabled, the assigned document number and document type will also appear. If this bill is a correction note or credit note, a message will appear indicating this along with the ID of the original bill. If the batch billing background process generates the bill, the bill information includes the bill cycle and window start date. Bills generated manually, i.e., off-schedule, do not have this information.

Bill ID is the system-assigned unique identifier of the bill.

Account ID identifies the customer who is responsible for the bill. The name of the main customer on the account appears adjacent.

If this bill is a credit note or correction note, a message appears adjacent to the account information indicating that this bill is a credit note or correction note for another bill; this hyperlink will drill you to the original bill. If a credit note or correction note has been issued for one or more of this bill's bill segments, a message appears indicating such. Bill Status is the bill's status. Refer to Bill Lifecycle for the potential values and how to handle a bill when it exists in a given state. Adjacent to the bill status is the Display Bill button, which will display an online image of the bill when clicked. Refer to How To Display A Bill On-line for more information.

If the bill is associated with an off cycle bill generator, a message appears adjacent to the bill status indicating this and the hyperlink will take the user to the related off cycle bill generator.

Due Date is the date on which the bill is due. A bill's due date is calculated as follows:

• Add the due days specified on the account's customer class to the bill date.
• The resulting date is the due date unless it's not a workday. In this case, the due date is set to the next workday (workdays are defined in the installation options tables).
• If the account's customer class has an override due date calculation algorithm, the due date may be overridden. Refer to Setting Up Customer Classes for more information.

Bill Date is the business date that was used when the bill was completed. For example, if batch billing starts on 11:55 pm on 1-Jan-2000 and a bill is produced at 1:00 am on 2-Jan-2000, this bill's bill date would be 1-Jan-2000.

Create Date/Time is the date and time on which the bill was originally created.

Completion Date/Time is the date and time on which the bill was completed.

If the customer pays automatically and the automatic payment has not yet been created, a brief message appears highlighting the date and amount of the future automatic payment. In addition, a button appears called Stop Autopay, that, when clicked, causes the associated automatic payment to stop. You might click this button if the customer indicates that they will send in a payment. After you click the Stop Autopay button, a message appears highlighting the stoppage. Refer to How And When Are Automatic Payments Created for more information about how to setup the system to defer the creation of automatic payments until the future automatic payment extract date.

In the Message area, a brief error message appears if there's a problem with the bill. The message area is suppressed if there are no problems with the bill.

Click the magnifying button to view the long explanation. The long explanation will provide information about the cause of the error (and how to fix it).

The Late Payment Charge Details section contains information about how the system determines when and whether to levy late payment charges:

• Eligible for Late Payment Charge can be checked if a charge should be levied for late payment. This field is defaulted based on the customer's customer class. If you want to excuse a bill from late payment charge processing uncheck this box.
• Late Payment Charge Date is the date on which the system will levy a late payment charge if payment is not received. This date is calculated when the bill is completed. It is equal to the bill's due date plus the account's customer class's grace days. If this date does not fall on a workday, the date is set to the next available workday when the bill is completed. If you want to manually delay the onset of late payment charge processing, extend this date into the future.

Bill Summary summarizes the financial impact of the bill. The information that appears differs depending on whether the account is a balance-forward or open-item account. If the account is a balance-forward customer, the following information appears:

• Previous Period's Balance is the balance from the account's last bill.
• Total Payments is the total amount of frozen or canceled payment segment financial transactions linked to this bill. Frozen payment segments appear as negative numbers (decreasing the amount owed by the customer), while canceled payment segments appear as positive numbers (increasing the amount owed). You can drill down on this balance to view the financial transactions that contribute to this total. Refer to How To Remove Unwanted Payments From A Completed Bill for a description of how to perform common maintenance functions.
• Total Adjustments is the total amount of frozen or canceled adjustment financial transactions linked to this bill. You can drill down on the balance to view the financial transactions that contribute to this total. Refer to How To Remove Unwanted Adjustments From A Completed Bill for a description of how to perform common maintenance functions.
• Total Bill Corrections is the total amount of canceled and / or rebilled bill segment financial transactions linked to this bill. You can drill down on the balance to view the financial transactions that contribute to this total.
• Total Current Billing Charges is the total amount of frozen bill segment financial transactions linked to this bill. You can drill down on the balance to view the financial transactions that contribute to this total.
• Ending Balance For This Period is the sum of the five amounts above. It is the amount owed by the customer as of the end of the bill period.

If the account is an open-item customer, the following information appears under Bill Summary:

• New Charges is the total amount of frozen bill segment financial transactions linked to this bill. You can drill down on this value to view the financial transactions that contribute to this total.
• Adjustments is the total amount of frozen or canceled adjustment financial transactions linked to this bill. You can drill down on this value to view the financial transactions that contribute to this total. Refer to How To Remove Unwanted Adjustments From A Completed Bill for a description of how to perform common maintenance functions.
• Corrections is the total amount of canceled and / or rebilled bill segment financial transactions linked to this bill. You can drill down on this value to view the financial transactions that contribute to this total.
• Total is the sum of the above amounts. You can drill down on this value to view the financial transactions that contribute to this total.

If the account is an open-item customer, the following information appears under Match Summary (note, this section is not displayed for balance-forward accounts):

• X Balanced Item(s) contains the count and total amount of financial transactions linked to this bill that are linked to balanced match events.
• X Unbalanced Item(s) contains the count and total amount of financial transactions linked to this bill that are linked to unbalanced match events.
• X Disputed Item(s) contains the count and total amount of financial transactions linked to this bill that are linked to disputed match events.
• X Unmatched Item(s) contains the count and total amount of financial transactions linked to this bill that are not linked to any match event.

Total Changes After Completion only appears if bill segments that appeared on the original bill have been subsequently canceled or rebilled. The amount displayed is the net effect of all cancels and rebills. Note, you can use the Remarks column in the bill segments grid (to the right) to see which bill segments have been cancelled / rebilled.

If 25 or fewer bill segments are linked to this bill, the grid in the lower right portion of the page contains one row for every bill segment linked to the bill.

The following points describe each column in the grid:

• The Bill Segment column contains a concatenation of each bill segment's division, SA type, status and bill period. The division and SA type come from the bill segment's service agreement.
• The Current Amount column contains the bill segment's effect on the service agreement's current balance.
• The Status column shows the bill segment's status. Refer to Bill Segment Lifecycle for the possible values.
• The Remarks highlight special situations. The following remarks may appear:
• Rebill after completion appears if the bill segment is a rebill that was created after the bill was sent to the customer. The financial impact of this bill segment appears as a "bill correction" on the next bill produced for the customer.
• Rebill prior completion appears if the bill segment is a rebill that was created before the bill was sent to the customer.
• Canceled after completion appears if the bill segment was canceled after the bill was sent to the customer. The financial impact of this bill segment appears as a "bill correction" on the next bill produced for the customer.
• Canceled prior completion appears if the bill segment was canceled before the bill was sent to the customer.
• If the bill segment's status is Error or Incomplete, this column contains an estimated value of this bill segment. The estimated value is calculated by computing an average daily amount from the service agreement's frozen bill segments in the last 365 days. This average is then applied to the number of days in this bill segment's bill period. If the bill segment doesn't have a bill period (rare, but possible), the historical average is not displayed.
• If the bill segment's status is Error, this column also contains the error message.
• Rebilled due to correction appears if a correction note was generated for the bill segment. This remark appears only if you have the Correction Note Billing Option specified in the Installation record.
• Rebilled due to correction. Canceled after completion appears for a correction note that spawns another correction note. This remark appears only if you have the Correction Note Billing Option specified in the Installation record.

If more than 25 bill segments are linked to this bill, the grid in the lower right portion of the page contains a summary of the various bill segments linked to the bill.

The following points describe each column in the grid:

• The Status column shows the bill segment's status. Refer to Bill Segment Lifecycle for the possible values. Click on the hyperlink to transfer to the Bill Segments tab where the associated bill segments can be viewed.
• The Total Bill Segments column contains the number of bill segments linked to the bill with this Status. If the status is Error or Incomplete, this column contains an estimated value of these bill segments. The estimated value is calculated by computing an average daily amount from frozen bill segments in the last 365 days for each service agreement. This average is then applied to the number of days in each bill segment's bill period. Please note, an historical average cannot be computed if an Error or Incomplete bill segment does not have a bill period (rare, but possible).
• The Total Amount column contains the sum of the current amount of these bill segments.

At the bottom of the scroll is shown the Total Generated Charge. This represents the total amount of the bill segments. This amount may differ from the Total Current Billing Charges when:

• The bill is not Complete. A bill segment's financial effect is not shown on the bill until the bill is completed.
• A bill segment has been canceled / rebilled since the bill was completed.

The topics that follow describe each of the actions that appear in the Bill Segment Action and Bill Action areas. Refer to How To for a description of typical business processes that use these buttons.