Billing Statements: Billing Options Screen

One important aspect of owning a business is sending out monthly billing statements. Billing statements itemize all of the customer's invoices and payments and how much they owe.

Early each month, you should generate billing statements and send them to any customer with a past due account. To begin the billing process, select MAIN TASKS from the Menu Bar and choose BILLING STATEMENTS & BALANCE FILES.

Start Normal Billing Process. This is the option that you'll choose most often. It will gather all invoices within a year period, group all those with the same billing name together, check beginning balances, and calculate how much is owed by each customer.

The standard billing period for a normal billing is approximately one year. Depending on the month when the billing is done, the length of the billing period may vary between ¾ to 1 ¼ year (9 to 15 months). The program will make the proper adjustment for you so as much of a year period is covered as possible.

You'll notice when you look at a billing statement that it begins with a customer's Starting Balance (if the customer has a previous balance on their account):

The Starting Balance comes from a Balance File. When AnyOrder creates the statement for a "Normal" billing process, it will pick the Balance File that it needs. If the file doesn't exist, it will create the Balance File. It ends up creating Balance Files every 6 months.

AnyOrder does all of this for you, but it's helpful to know what is going on in the background. The illustration below shows the relationship of Balance Files and statements:

Note that we have prepared flow chart which shows how AnyOrder uses Balance Files during the Normal Billing Process. It's quite helpful for understanding the billing process. See Balance File Chart.

The billing period for a "Normal" statement always ends at the current date. As mentioned above, the range of account activity that you are providing your customers is from ¾ to 1 ¼ year (9 to 15 months). Why this range of account activity? Any less and your customer doesn't have quite enough information to track their purchases and payments. Any more and they are overwhelmed with information.

The range of account activity provided by a "Normal" statement is just right. If, however, circumstances dictate a shorter or longer period, use the next option (Choose Ending & Starting Dates).

Just before the process begins, the program gives you a chance to examine the customers' beginning balances which are contained in the Balance File. Most of the time, you'll by-pass this and continue with the billing process. You can, however, review the customer's beginning balances and make changes if necessary.

When the process is complete, the Billing Statements Screen appears with a list of all customers that need to be billed.

Choose Starting & Ending Dates of Billing Period. The first option, above, determines the billing period for you. The period is ¾ to 1 ¼ year (9 to 15 months) and ends at the current date. You may, however, want to have a shorter or longer period, i.e. a two-year period or three-month period ending with the current date. Or you may want to select a period of time from a previous year and review some old account activity.

You may also use this option if you want to control which Balance File is used for your customers' starting balances. This technique of preparing billings is primarily utilized when you are starting to use AnyOrder and you've placed all of your starting balances in a recent Balance File (information on that method is found here).

The "Normal Billing Process" (above) selects its own Balance File to achieve the 9 to 15 months of activity. However, the Balance File that AnyOrder uses for the "Normal" process may not be the one you need. By using this option, you'll be able to direct AnyOrder to use a specific Balance File.

The Balance File used for this process is always the one immediately preceding the starting date. If, for example, you choose "01/01/14" for a starting date, the Balance File Bal13End.dbf will used. The chart, below, helps to illustrate which Balance File is used.

When you choose this option, you'll be prompted to enter a range of dates. You can enter any range of dates, but in order to have accurate starting balances, the starting date should correspond with either the beginning of your fiscal year or the middle of the year. If you use the calendar year as your fiscal year, you'll want to choose either January 1st or July 1st as starting dates. You can access pop-up calendars by clicking the "C" buttons.

Once you enter the desired dates, the program will give you a choice of reviewing the customer's Balance File at the beginning date. Most of the time, you'll by-pass this and continue with the billing process. You can, however, review the customer's balance and make changes if necessary.

When the process is complete, the Billing Statements Screen appears with a list of all customers and their balances at end of the specified billing period.

Automatically Update Balances & Make Balance Files. This option does an automatic update of the Balance File -- or it creates one the file it doesn't exit. If you bill customers on a regular basis, this option will be rarely, if ever, used. It is available for three situations:

•	When you do very infrequent billings (less than one a year).

•	When you change the total amount on one or more invoices weeks after the invoice was issued.

•	When you've manually made a change in an old Balance File that you need to carry forward to newer files. (For more information on how this is done, see the section "Making Changes in an Older Balance File" found in Manually Update Balances)

Changes in invoices are best made by creating a new invoice which corrects any mistakes on the first one. That provides you and your customer with a track record of changes. If for some reason, however, it is necessary to correct a customer's invoice -- and the customer is billed on a regular basis -- you may need to update the Balance File. By choosing this option, the program will update the Balance File automatically.

(Note: this procedure is only necessary if the Balance File to be updated exists. If AnyOrder hasn't created the Balance File yet, then you don't have to worry about doing an Automatic Update. You can view a list of existing Balance Files by selecting "Manually Update Balances & Make Balance Files" described next.)

Let's quickly review Balance Files. Balance Files hold your customer's balances as of a certain date. A new Balance File is created every six months. Thus, AnyOrder keeps a record of your customer's balances at six month intervals. When you run a billing statement, and the first line of customer's statement says "Starting Balance," the figure in the balance column has come from a Balance File.

You can tell which Balance File by looking at the date. For example, if the Starting Balance date is 12/31/14 and your fiscal year is the calendar year, the starting balance figure comes from file Bal14End.dbf. (More about Balance Files). There's also one other way of telling which Balance File is used. Whenever you run a statement by clicking on "Start Normal Billing Process" or "Choose Starting & Ending Dates," AnyOrder will always tell you which Balance File it will use before it begins the billing process.

With that information as a starting point, let's look at a specific example. Let's say that it's May of 2015, you make a change to an old invoice: invoice # 4431. Invoice #4431 is dated October 21 2013. On May 5, 2015 we decided to run billing statements.

Note to our International Users: The following discussion uses a MM/DD/YY format. If you use a DD/MM format, reverse the numbers.

Will this change cause problems with our starting balances? To answer that question, we need to determine what Balance File will be used. That's easy. It's just a matter of clicking the "Start Normal Billing Process" button. AnyOrder will tell us that (if you have a fiscal year based on the calendar year), it will use the file Bal14Mid.dbf. That means that starting balances on the statements will be as of 07/01/14 (July 1, 2014).

The balances in Bal14Mid.dbf assume that any invoices prior to 07/01/14 have not changed. But, you've just changed one of those invoices (invoice #4431 issued back on 10/21/13). If invoice 4431 is a customer for which you do regular billings, then the Balance File will have the wrong information. That means you need to update the Balance File. And that's where the Auto Update function comes in handy.

Since you've made a change to an invoice dated 10/21/13. You'll need to start with the Balance File at the end of 2013: Bal13End. Bal13End covers the range of dates from 07/01/13 to 12/31/13.

When you click the "Automatically Update Balances" button, a dialog box will appear and ask you to enter a range of dates. The first and last dates must correspond with the middle or end of your fiscal year. The ending date is the key. The Balance File at the ending date is the one that will be updated.

For our example, you would enter 07/01/13 as the starting date and 12/31/13 as the ending date. That would update BalEnd13.dbf with the correct balances as of 12/31/13. (Note that this example is for a calendar year, the file name are slightly different for other fiscal years. See Balance File for more information on the differences.)

But there's still another Balance File: Bal14Mid.dbf. That's the one from which the statement gets the starting balances of each of the customers. So click on the ""Automatically Update Balances" button again. Then enter 01/01/14 for the start date and 06/30/14 for the End Date. This updates Bal14Mid.dbf. The balance files are updated and we can now run the statement.

The following diagram helps illustrates how Automatic Update works (note that dates are in the MM/DD/YY format):

It might be helpful to review one other example, looking at it in a slightly different way. Let's say you use the calendar year and had made some invoice changes to a customer that you regularly billed early in the year 2014. If the Balance File for the mid part of 2014 already exists (you can check for its existence by using Manual Update, described next), you'll need to update it. To update it, you would select this option (Automatic Update) and in the dialog box, enter a Starting Date of 01/01/14 and an Ending Date of 06/30/14. The Balance File at the middle of the year (Bal14Mid.dbf) will then be updated.

One last thing about Automatic Update. Be careful not to create Balance Files later than the one used by a Normal Billing process. Let's say the Normal Billing process uses Bal13End. You don't want to create Bal14Mid. As time passes and AnyOrder is ready to use Bal14Mid for a Normal process, it will find that it already exists and use it as it is. It won't re-create it. If information in the file isn't up-to-date, then you won't have accurate starting balances. Before running Automatic Update, find out which Balance File is being used for a "Normal" process. You can update the file used for the "Normal" process, but just don't create any new Balances File beyond that one.

Manually Update Balances & Make Balance Files. This is another option that will be rarely, if ever, used. You can use it to view the contents of Balance Files. After selecting this option a list of available Balance Files will appear, and you can select one that you would like to view. It is unlikely that you'll ever have to change a Balance File, but if necessary, this option gives you complete flexibility in working with the file.

One situation where you might use this option is the following: Let's say that after reviewing a customer's billing statement, you find that their starting balance is incorrect. If you are unable to find any problems with past invoices, you can correct the starting balance in the Balance File by doing a Manual Update. First, you'll need to determine which Balance File to use. If you use the calendar year, and the starting balance on the statement for 12/31/14 was incorrect, then you would want to use the Balance File at the end of 2014 (named Bal14End). If the starting balance listed for 06/30/14 was incorrect, you would want to use the Balance File for the middle of 2014 (named Bal14Mid).

Now that you know what Balance File needs to be corrected, click on "Manually Update Balances" from the Billing Options Screen. From the list of the files that appear, select the appropriate one and click on OK. The Balance File Screen will appear. Find the appropriate customer and make the needed change in the customer's balance. For more information, see Balance Files or Balance File Screen.

More Billing Options. If you click on the "More Billing Options" button, the following screen appears:

Balance File Information. This displays an informational dialog box that gives you the name of the Balance File which will be used for a "Normal Billing Process." It also provides information on how AnyOrder uses Balance Files.

Note: No other Balance File should be dated later than the file being used for a "Normal Billing Process." Any file with a later date is incomplete and can throw off your statements. If you find one, it should be deleted. For example, if the Balance File used for the Normal Billing Process is Bal14End.dbf, and you find that Bal15Mid.dbf exists, it should be deleted. To check to see what Balance Files exist, select "Manually Update Balances." A list of files will appear. If you see any files dated after your "Normal" file, select them. The Balance File screen will appear. To delete the file, select FILE >> DELETE INVENTORY ENTIRE BALANCE FILE. AnyOrder will create the necessary Balance File when it's needed.

New Users: Create Starting Balance File. This is for new users that are getting the program set-up for their businesses. It deletes any Balance File that was created while practicing with the program and creates the starting Balance File for all future billing transactions. It's important that you don't run this procedure if you are already using the program and have already prepared billing statements. It will delete any existing Balance File that you may have created. It should be used only when first starting to use the program. For more information, see Preparing the Program for Your Use.

Replace Billing Names In Balance Files. This enables you replace a billing name (and customer number & group number) in the balance files. For more information on its use, see Find and Replace.

Please Pay Setting (Level 6 - 7 Feature). When AnyOrder creates billing statements, it looks at how many days (the grace period) that the customer has to pay off their invoice. Even though they may have a balance owing, if they haven't exceeded their grace period, the "Please Pay" blank will have "0" in it. If desired, however, you can change this behavior so that "Please Pay" blank always shows the balance owing, whether within the grace period or not.

Credit Limit (Level 6 - 7 Feature). In the Customer Database, you can indicate a credit limit for one or more customers. During the billing process, AnyOrder can flag any customers that have exceeded their credit limit. The customers are identified on the Billing Statement screen. Additionally, AnyOrder will display a warning message when attempting to create new invoices for such customers.

Credit Invoices (Level 6 - 7 Feature). AnyOrder normally places an asterisk (*) beside all unpaid invoices with an amount owing. AnyOrder can also indicate credit invoices in the same manner. Outstanding credit invoices will appear with an asterisk. No asterisk will appear beside credit invoices which have been covered either by issuing a refund or receiving a check from a customer which has taken in account the credit.

By-pass Billing Process. Use this only if have recently done the billing process (within a day or two) and you are sure that there have not been any changes in any of the invoices. Normally, it is not necessary to use this option. It's only used if you have a very large number of invoices - or a very slow computer processor. It by-passes billing process and brings up the statements on your screen without any delay.

Billing Options Menu Bar. The choices available from the pull-down menu at the top of the screen are fairly simple. You can close the Billing Options Screen or switch to any other open window in AnyOrder. From the FILE Menu, you can select NEW USERS: CREATE STARTING BALANCE FILE or REPLACE BILLING NAMES IN BALANCE FILES. Both of these are described in more detail above under "More Options."