Managing Billing Entities

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In some cases, an individual office or collection of offices will have specific billing rules which differ from other offices operating within the same organizational structure.

The construct of a Billing Entity supports the need for multiple billing configurations within a single organization. This enables a Licensee Office to appoint an office to act as the Billing Entity for other offices within the organizational hierarchy. This structure facilitates the appropriate sharing of data between different offices operating within the organization.

The settings defined for the Billing Entity establish the default billing settings for all associated bill to parties. Certain settings can be overwritten at the Bill to Party level, providing flexibility for large or complex organizational structures.

Note: All data contained within the billing module are filtered according to the user's associated billing entity. For details, see the Data Access Management section.

Each Billing Entity has multiple screens of information, accessed through the Billing Entity Menu widget to the left of the page. The widget becomes available on opening an existing billing entity or completing and saving information for a new entity.

General Information Contains the general information for the billing entity.
General Settings This section is automatically expanded to expose the billing entity settings.
  • Billing
Opens the Billing settings to manage billing configurations. See the Billing section.
  • Invoicing
Opens the Invoicing settings to manage invoicing configurations. See the Invoicing section.
  • Payments & Receipts
Opens the Payments & Receipts settings to manage payment matching and receipt correction configurations. See the Payments & Receipts section.
  • Write-Offs
Opens the Write-Offs settings to manage write-off reasons and automatic write-off configurations. See the Write-Offs section.
  • Statements
Opens the Statements settings to manage statement generation configurations. See the Statements section.
  • Accounting
Opens the Accounting settings to manage accounting configurations. See the Accounting section.
  • Reporting
Opens the Reporting settings to manage reporting configurations. See the Reporting section.
Payment Plans Opens the Payment Plan settings to manage payment plan configurations. See the Payment Plans section.
Adjustment Types Opens the Adjustment Type settings to manage adjustment type configurations. See the Adjustment Types section.
Bank Accounts Opens the Bank Account settings to manage bank account configurations. See the Bank Accounts section.
General Ledger This section is automatically expanded to expose the General Ledger options.
  • Settings
Opens the General Ledger - Settings page to manage general ledger settings. See the General Ledger Settings section.
  • Accounts
Opens the General Ledger - Accounts page to manage general ledger accounts. See the General Ledger Accounts section.
Billing Documents Opens the Billing Document settings to manage billing document configurations. See the Billing Documents section.
E-mails Opens the E-mail Configuration settings to manage billing e-mail configurations. See the E-mails section.

Default Billing Entity

If there is only one set of configurations required within the billing module, the Default Billing Entity should be used exclusively. If additional billing entities are required, each configuration should be set within the individual billing entities and the Default Billing Entity should not be used.

Managing Billing Entities

  1. In the main menu, select Billing, Configuration, then select Billing Entities. A list of all available billing entities is displayed.

    If there are a large number of available billing entities, see the Using Grids section for help on finding the appropriate billing entities.

  2. Click a link in the Name column to view an existing billing entity.
  3. On viewing or creating a billing entity, the Billing Entity Management page opens.

  4. The panels and fields are described below.  Fields marked with a red asterisk * are required.

    Name Displays the name of the billing entity.
    Code Displays the code of the billing entity.
    Description Displays the description of the billing entity.
    Licensee Office Displays the managing Licensee Office.
     

    Notes:  

    Once a Licensee Office has been selected, it can not be changed.

    There is no option to delete or deactivate a billing entity once it has been created.

    The selection of the Licensee Office has important implications for data access management within the organizational hierarchy. See the Data Access Management section for details.

    Active

    Marks the billing entity as active and available for use.

    Created By

    Identifies the date and time the billing entity was created, and the user who created it.

    Last Modified By

    Identifies the last date and time the billing entity was changed, and the user who made the changes.

Data Access Management

Access to data within the billing module is governed by the administrative level assigned to the user, as well as the position of their company within the organizational hierarchy. Combined, these factors determine whether a user is able to View and Edit data and configuration settings for a particular billing entity.

The following administrative levels are used to govern View and Edit capabilities for Billing Entity configurations.

Administrative Level Data Access
  • Organization
The user has access to data throughout the system.
  • Regional
The user has access to the current company and any subsidiary companies, as well as managed companies and their subsidiaries.
  • Office
The user has access to data for the current company, as well as managed companies and their subsidiaries.

Data access management operates differently for the Default Billing Entity and any additional billing entities. These behaviors are described below.

Default Billing Entity

The Top Level licensee company is set as the owner of the Default Billing Entity. Only users associated with this licensee company and who have the Organization administrative level can view and edit the Default Billing Entity.

Additional Billing Entities

When creating an additional billing entity, a Licensee Office must be selected. Once saved, the Licensee Office is assigned ownership of that billing entity. Users from the selected Licensee Office with the Regional or Office administrative level will have view and edit permissions. Furthermore, a user from a Licensee Office that operates at a higher lever within the organizational hierarchy and who has the Regional administrative level also has both view and edit permissions. Finally, any user within the hierarchy who has the Organization administrative level has both view and edit permissions.

For details on user administrative levels, see the Managing User Accounts section.