Patriot supports three types of Master Charges: Service, Activation & Work
Order.
Patriot can integrate with a number of different ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and Accounting software packages by adding an integration module to your registration. When you add an integration module to your Patriot software, a standard set of features become available to you through Patriot's main Billing menu. These standard features are described in this document. If you choose the Odoo (previously Open ERP) integration module then additional features are also available to you - refer to Odoo Integration for more information.
Patriot's Master Charge list should be setup to contain a complete list of all charges for which your clients and/or dealers can be billed. Patriot supports three types of charges: Service, Activation and Work Order which are assigned to clients, activations and work orders respectively.
You can create a customised charge period for any Service type charge to define how and when the charge should be automatically billed (charge transactions generated).
Enter a Description of the Charge Period, e.g. Fortnightly, Monthly etc.
The Period Length will default to 1 and you can click the dropdown box to select either Days or Months as the time unit.
Select the Period Start date of charge period that this first date the charge period start to be counted. This will default to your current datetime.
Part Charging: There are three different types of Part Charging you can choose. These are 'None', 'Whole Period' and 'Custom'.
The part charging setting comes into effect when a client's service charge start or ends mid-period. If you set part charging to 'None' then clients will not be billed at all for partial periods, if you set 'Whole Period' then clients will be billed for the whole period regardless, and 'Custom' means charge for the specified days.
You can use Add Charges to customise the date to automatically bill for the charge. It can be any number of days before or after the start or end day of the charge period.
Service charges with a defined charge period are automatically billed on the date defined by their charge period and at the time of day set by the following system wide setting:
System Wide Settings -> Billing Settings -> Client Charge Transaction Generation Time
But you also have to option to select a service charge and manually run charge transaction generation at any time using the Run Charge Transaction button. After a charge has been billed, the charge transaction information will appear for each billed client in the Transaction History section of the Client Billing Tab.
Patriot bills clients (directly or via dealers) for their assigned charges. Service charges (e.g. recurring monitoring entitlement charges) are assigned to clients on the client billing tab. Activation charges (e.g. alarm call out fees) are assigned to completed activations. Work Order charges (e.g. labour, parts etc.) are assigned to completed work orders. Once an activation or work order has been billed, it is marked as such in Patriot. The master charge value amount for any charge type can be overridden at either the dealer or client assignment level if necessary.
You can bill a client directly for recurring service charges by assigning one or more master service charges on the client billing tab. You must choose a start and end date for each charge. Patriot's billing batch runs will only bill clients for a billing period if the billing period fits within these dates (part charging is supported). You may override the master charge value amount for individual clients if necessary.
You can bill a dealer/installer for service charges assigned to clients belonging to that dealer. Whether a client with service charges assigned is billed directly or via a dealer is decided by the configuration of your billing batch runs (covered next). When billing dealers it is possible to override the value amount of each master service charge billed to each of a dealer's clients. This is achieved by inserting charge overrides on the dealer user's Charges tab.
A single charge may be assigned to a current or completed activation. Billing status on the completed activation will read "Chargeable" if the activation belongs to a billed client (one who has a billing account no. set either directly on the client billing tab or via the dealer on the dealer details tab) and the activation charge has not yet been processed by a billing batch. After the charge is processed by the next periodic activation billing batch run the completed activation's billing status will read "Charged". Once an activation has been marked charged it cannot be billed again by subsequent activation billing batch runs.
One or more charges may be assigned to a work order before or after it is has been completed. Billed status on the work order will be blank until the charge[s] have been processed by a billing batch. Work order charges, like Service and Activation charges, are only processed by billing batches if they belong to a billed client (one who has a billing account no. set either directly on the client billing tab or via the dealer on the dealer details tab). Usually a work order will also need to be marked as Completed before it can be billed, but this is configurable in the work order batch settings. After the charge is processed by the next periodic work order billing batch run (the first that occurs after the To Be Billed date) the completed work order will display the billed date. Once a work order has been marked with a billed date it cannot be billed again by subsequent work order billing batch runs.
Patriot can perform scheduled billing batch runs to periodically process your client and dealer assigned charges and send raw billing data to your accounting software package for invoicing. Typically you will setup one billing batch run for each charge type, but you may need more depending on whether you bill clients directly or via a dealer/installer or a combination of both.
Once a billing batch run completes, you can easily review all invoice data sent to your accounting package. You can also choose (by unchecking the Authorised option in the batch settings) to delay sending the invoice data to your accounting package until after it has been reviewed in Patriot. The invoice data displayed includes the Invoice No. generated by your account software . By expanding the invoice lines you can run a standard client, activation or work order report on any item being charged in the invoice.
An
Invoice Charge summary report can be printed for each invoice generated by a
billing batch run. A copy of the charge summary report format can be downloaded
here, and the procedure for
importing a report format file is explained in custom report layouts. Charge summary
reports can be automatically emailed to the invoice recipient at the same time
the invoice is sent to your accounting software for processing. This is useful
when billing large dealer accounts - by enabling the Amalgamate Invoice Lines
option and choosing an email output option you can send a single line invoice
to your accounting software to produce a formal invoice, while at the same time
a full charge break down is sent to the dealer directly from Patriot.
Patriot can apply credit notes to an invoice. This feature is typically used to issue credit notes for clients that were billed in advance for a billing period that they did not complete.
When a credit note batch is run Patriot will calculate the extra months or days that the bureau (or customer) has been charged for, and will then produce a credit for these extra months or days.
There are two options available in Patriot for issuing credit notes: Monthly Off Credit and Daily Off Credit. This option is set in the Part Charging section of the Batch Setup and Run tool.
When the Monthly Off Credit option is used credit notes are calculated to the nearest complete billable month (therefore this option is only applicable when you are billing quarterly, half-yearly or annually). The Daily Off Credit option is used to calculate credit notes to the nearest complete billable day and can be used for any billing period. Credit notes are calculated based on the Start and End dates set for the service charge(s) assigned to your clients on the Billing tab.
