In this article, we will cover how to create a flat rate recurring billing charge. We will discuss how to charge customers on a regular basis for a fixed fee. This charge can be for any service or intangible item created in your supertrack inventory. Examples of a recurring billing charge are: Telephone Answering Service, Telecommunications Service, Internet Service, Pool Cleaning, Landscaping, Maid Service, Pest Control Service, or any other charge that is done on a regular basis. The period of time covered can be based on any number of days, weeks or months. Charging for a usage based recurring charge (i.e., Rate Per Quantity Used) is discussed in another topic.
Step 1 – Add a New Recurring Charge
There are several places in the program to add a new recurring charge, such as from Customer Care, and the Recurring Charge List. However, the most direct method is to select Activities … Billing … New Recurring Charge from the main menu. You will be presented with the New Recurring Charge screen.
First, you must enter or select a customer account. Enter the Account identifier or click the elipsis (…) button to search for a customer. You can also add a new customer from the Customer Intellisearch window. The customer chosen will determine the billing group used, and therefore set the next billing period and available cycles for this recurring charge. Be sure to leave the Recurring Type as “Sales Invoice” and the Billing Type as “Flat Rate.”
Step 2 – Select a Billing Cycle, Print Sequence, and Starting Dates
The default Billing Cycle for the customer will automatically be selected. You can change this to any valid billing cycle for the customer billing group. If more than one charge will be entered for the customer, you can set a Print Sequence to determine the order in which the charges appear on the bill. A lower number will print before a higher number.
The service will be Commenced On today’s date, unless overridden. This will determine the starting date of the billing. The system will record that the Billed Thru date is one day prior to the next billing period. This is the date through which it is assumed the customer has already been charged. Based on the commencement date, billed thru date, and proration settings defined in the billing group, the Next Billing Period will be calculated and shown. This is the period for which the customer will be charged on the next bill.
Step 3 – Enter the Recurring Charge Details
The next step is to enter the SKU Item code to be used for the recurring billing charge. Any active intangible or service item can be used for this purpose. The item Description will fill in, but can be overridden for this charge. This description will be shown on all future invoices created. An optional Extended Description is provided an may be used to provide additional information about the service.
The Billing Reference is used to uniquely identify the service, and is of particular importance, because this field is used to search for this recurring charge. The customer’s account identifier or prior billing reference is the default value, but may be overridden to any value that identifies the charge. The Quantity is used as a multiplier of the Amount field to determine the calculated Total Billing Amount for the period.
If you would like the billing process to create an individual invoice just for this recurring charge, click on the option provided to Bill this recurring charge on a separate invoice.
If you have entered the data correctly you will see Ready To Bill on the bottom right. Once all details have confirmed, click on the Save button to finish adding the new recurring billing charge.
