This topic explains how to use the features of Unified BillCom (UBC): sending email bills, showing account information online, receiving and sending customer messages, and sending bulk emails. The Help files explain each of these functions in more detail elsewhere but this article is meant to give an overview and a starting point. You won't see a separate UBC button anywhere in Trash Flow. Instead you'll see new functions in these areas of the program.

Send Bills

You'll use the billing portion of UBC in two places

• From an open customer account click Print > Bill. In the Format field choose Email Statement, Email Invoice, or Email Statement/Invoice combo.
• Click Billing > Bill and Print > Print/Email Bills/Cards. on the Billing menu, In the Format field choose Email Statement, Email Invoice, or Email Statement/Invoice combo.

Instead of printing a paper bill Trash Flow sends an email bill to the Billing Address on file. If you need to confirm whether an email was correctly sent, confirm the number of emails sent on a given day, or have other questions please call us at 800-708-8642. A list of Help topics related to email billing follows.

• Send an Individual Bill
• Print/Email Bills or Cards
• Bill Formats: Statement
• Bill Formats: Invoice

Show Account Information Online

Once you set up UBC there's very little to do to show your customers their account information. You do have to pick up web payments, preferably at least once a day. (Note: If you don't use TrashBilling you should still follow this process.) Click Billing > TrashBilling; a new window opens. Click Web Payments > Pickup Web Payments. This process saves any changes to customer email addresses and automatically flags accounts that are signing up for or canceling Trash Billing. See here to learn what your customers see at TrashBilling.com.

Receive and Send Customer Messages

You can read messages in two ways: from the Messages window and in the Customer Messages tab of an account. You can reply to one from the Messages window, but can only send a new one from the Messages tab. See Send and Receive Customer Messages for a fuller explanation.

Send a Bulk Email

Click Reports > System Reports and Info > Edit Bulk Email Body. An email editor window appears. Write your message and save the file somewhere you'll be able to find it. You can then use that file to send a message to customers defined by the Customer List, or only customers along a given route.