This topic explains how to generate bills for some (or all) of your customers.
Context
One of the most important regular tasks for most trash companies is billing their customers. You can read more about the whole process at The Flow of Billing but this page will specifically tell you how to print and/or email bills for customers who have a balance. A step-by-step guide is included below but here's some additional information you might find helpful, in no particular order.
- There are quite a few choices available under Format but by far the most common are Cards-USPS, Plain Paper Statement, and Plain Paper Invoice.
- If you have written a message that you want to appear on bills under you must check the option to Include Message Text on Bills. This works for any email bills as well as paper statements and invoices, but there is not enough room on postcards to include such a message.
- It's important to understand how Detail Charges from (Last Billing Date) works. The best practice is to set that date back to the last time you billed those customers. When you create a statement or postcard Trash Flow first looks if the customer had a balance on that date; if they did, it adds the line Balance as of [date] to the bill. It then lists all transactions after that date in chronological order until it gets to the current business date, adds any taxes, and calculates the final balance owed. The only difference in this process for invoices is that an invoice will ignore any charges that were previously invoiced.
- If some customers are past due then the Include Aging/Bal. option shows them how long they have been carrying a balance.
Process
- Click on .
- Choose the Format to print and the Printer Type.
- Choose to Sort Bill by name, ZIP code, account number, street address, route, or CASS.
- Choose a Number of copies to print.
- For Billing Action, choose whether to start new billing, resume printing (after a printer problem), or reprint a range of invoices.
- Click to go to the next window.
- Set Detail Charges from (Last Billing Date) back one day before the oldest charge that you want to detail on the bills.
- Choose which customers will be included in the billing and which details to print using the options listed below.
- Click to go to the next command window.
- View one of the Prebill reports if desired.
- If the printing includes any emailed bills click , set billing options again, and click .
- Click to finish.
Additional Information
When printing bills, some options set which accounts will be included.
- Account Type: Chooses whether to include residential, commercial, contract, or all customers.
- Business: Chooses whether to include customers of one of your businesses or customers of all your businesses.
- Incl if Activity and No Balance: If this option is checked, Trash Flow will print a bill for the customer if any activity has occurred on their account since the last billing date, even if they do not currently owe any money.
- Minimum Days: Sets a minimum number of days since charges were made for those charges to be included on the bill. This should usually be left blank—enter a number if you want to bill only customers who are late.
- Billing Group: Chooses whether to include customers in a specific billing group or in all billing groups.
- Print ONLY if activity: Chooses whether to print bills only for customers who have been charged recently. This option looks at the date chosen below; if a customer has no charges in their history after that date then Trash Flow will not print a bill even if the customer owes a balance.
- Minimum Bill Amount: The customer must owe at least this much money for a bill to print.
Other options set what information will appear on customers’ bills. All notes and message can be a maximum of 30 characters.
- 30 Day Note: Any message typed in this box appears on bills for customers who’ve carried an outstanding balance for at least 30 days, but less than 60 days.
- 60 Day Note: Any message typed in this box will appear on bills for customers who’ve carried an outstanding balance for at least 60 days, but less than 90 days.
- 90 Day Note: Any message typed in this box will appear on bills for customers who’ve carried an outstanding balance for at least 90 days.
- Show Containers: If this option is checked any containers placed with customers will be listed next to the relevant charge.
- Show Var. Chrg Detail: If this option is checked, the amount and rate of each variable-rate charge will be listed on the bill.
- Sort Charges by Cont.: If this option is checked charges will first sort by the container they’re associated with, then by date.
- Incl WOs on Bills: If this option is checked, work order numbers and dates will be listed on customer bills.
- Include Text Message: If this option is checked, each bill will include a text message. The message can be changed or added by going to the Trash Flow tilebar and clicking .
- Alternate detail format: If this option is checked, then depending on what printing options are chosen, some charge and payment details will appear in a slightly different format on 8 1/2 x 11 statements.
- Detail Charges from (Last Billing Date): The bill will include the details of all charges made after this date. Note that a statement or postcard will always reflect the total balance due whether or not the bill includes details of the individual charges.
- Message Line 1: Any message typed in this box will print on all bills.
- Message Line 2: Any message typed in this box will print on all bills.
- Finance Charges Invoices ONLY: If this option is checked, the bill will detail only invoices and finance charges after the given date.
- Include Aging/Bal: If this option is checked, each bill will include an aged balance—how much money is due up to 30 days, to 60 days, to 90 days, etc. Please note that if customers are set to pay by invoice this aging will be based off the date the customer was invoiced rather than the date the charges appear in history.
- Aging/Bal for individual accounts: If this option is checked, customers who receive bills for multiple accounts (by using the Bill to option in the customer information window) will see an aged balance—how much is due up to 30 days, to 60 days, to 90 days, etc.—on each individual account for which they receive a bill.
- Print Bar Codes: If this option is checked, USPS bar codes will print in the address area of each bill. Bar codes denoting each customer will also print on the bill; these can be read by a bar code reader when entering payments.
- Show Var. Chrg Rates: If this option is checked, the rates customers pay for variable rates (such as tip fees per ton of trash) will print on the bills.