Bill runs: preview, approve, post, and cancel and rebill

A billing cycle billed in four steps — Preview, Review the bills, Approve (by somebody else), Post to the receivable — and what to do with one bill: Accept, Hold out of the run, Release, Post, Cancel and rebill.

Running a cycle

1. Open CRM › Utilities › Utility Billing › Bill Runs and press New. Choose the Billing cycle, Service from and Service to, the Bill date and the Due date (blank: the cycle’s due days after the bill date). Save.
2. Press Preview on the run. Every account in the cycle is rated and its bill written as a draft. Preview can be pressed again until the run is approved.
3. Press Review the bills. Utility Bills opens on this run’s bills. Anything odd is an exception: an estimated read, an open read exception, a bill far above the account’s usual, or nothing to bill.
4. For each exception: Accept (say why it is right) or Hold out of the run. A held bill stays behind when the run is posted; Release puts it back.
5. Somebody other than the person who previewed the run presses Approve. It is refused while any bill is still an exception.
6. Press Post to the receivable. Each approved bill becomes a posted AR invoice with its journal.

What posting does

• Each bill becomes an AR invoice — debit the receivable, credit utility revenue (the plan’s account), credit output tax — so aging, statements, receipts and the ledger see it as they see any invoice. Utility Bills shows the AR invoice and its status.
• Invoice numbering is the company’s own: under ZATCA the invoice is issued as a ZATCA invoice, and in India it takes its GST series number, exactly as an invoice raised in Accounting would.
• The reads are marked billed. A credit the account holds is applied. A final bill takes the deposit.
• An autopay account’s bill is charged to its card on the due date. A paperless customer is emailed the bill.
• The run is closed in a period that is open in the fiscal calendar; a closed period refuses it like any posting.

Correcting a bill

• A draft bill: Cancel withdraws it, with a reason.
• A posted bill: Cancel and rebill raises an AR credit note against its invoice for what is still open, frees its reads to be billed again, and drafts a fresh bill from the same period. Post the new bill (Post on its row) once it is right.
• Cancel and rebill is refused on a bill that has been paid in part: void the payment first (see The counter: cashiering and supervisor approvals), or correct the next bill.
• A whole run that has not been posted can be cancelled with Cancel on the run; its draft bills are thrown away.