Datagate Support | July 26, 2023
Auto-billing is a feature that automatically generates your customer invoices based on a schedule you set. Additionally, you have the option to configure auto-billing to automatically email these generated invoices to your customers.
If you have any questions, donβt hesitate to contact the Services Team.
Table of Contents
- How to enable auto-billing
- Pre-Requisites/Tidy up before utilizing auto-billing
- How to start using auto-billing
How to enable auto-billing
To enable Auto-billing for your portal, please contact Datagate support. Please note that Auto-billing may not be suitable for everyone, so the support team will carefully review your configuration before enabling it.
We recommend that you have completed a successful invoice run for a month before enabling auto-billing. To be cautious, the first month you can just generate the invoices and do not email, and add the auto-email on the second month.
Please review and correct any Usage exceptions as close as possible to auto-billing running.
Pre-Requisites/Tidy up before utilizing auto-billing
- Navigate to Invoicing menu.
- Enter today's date.
- Review any invoices that show on the screen.
- Select and "Ignore" any from old Billing Periods that you don't want to send - or take other action as appropriate
In case you come across any inactive customers, please mark them as "Inactive" from the Customers/ Details tab.
To exclude any internal customers or those you do not wish to invoice:
Simply mark them as "Do not generate Invoices" in the Customer/ Details tab. This will ensure that invoices are not generated for these specific customers.
π‘ Recommendation: If you wish to receive copies of the emailed invoices, you can do so by adding your email address in Settings/Organization as a cc or bcc recipient. This could be used as confirmation of a successful auto-billing run.
How to start using auto-billing
Step 1. Review
- Navigate to Invoicing/Generate Invoices.
- Enter the next invoice date.
- Review the invoices in this list and ensure they're the ones you want to generate.
- Make changes/alterations if required
Step 2. Configure a job
a. Generating invoices
Navigate to the Jobs menu.
Click "+" to create a new job.
Name - for example, "Generate all Invoices on the first of the month".
Repeats - choose Monthly.
On the - this is the day of the month the job will run.
At - choose a time.
π¨ Note: Be sure to choose a day and time that will allow your CDRs to have been processed.
Time Zone - choose the time zone that the date and time above are relevant to (typically your local time zone)
Paused - check this box only if you want to pause auto-billing, for example, if you haven't reviewed your exceptions yet. Once you uncheck the box, the job will run on schedule.
Next Run - This is display-only and will show you when the job will next run.
Press Save
Navigate to the Tasks tab.
Click "+" and choose "Generate Invoices"
Pick only Agreements where Billing Start Day = Run Day plus nnn days - this will be used if you bill your customers on their anniversary - i.e. you generate invoices for different customers on a daily or regular basis. If all your Customers are billed on the same day every month, you can leave this unchecked.
Step Options - When - choose Always
Invoice Date - Allows you to choose the invoice date. Typically this would be set to Invoice Generation Date plus zero days. If you generate invoices on the 3rd of every month, but want the invoice date to be the 1st, you would choose Invoice Generation Date Plus -2 days.
Include Last Month's Pro Rata charges - check this box if you would usually check it when you run your invoices.
Automatically suppress zero-value invoices - check this box if you would usually check it when you run your invoices.
Press Save.
b. Emailing invoices
If you also want to email invoices automatically, Click "+" from the Tasks tab.
Choose "Send"
Select the appropriate option (described below)
Press Save.
Always - email all generated invoices
On Success - only email if the Job completes successfully. If one Customer fails to have a successfully Generated invoice, no invoices are emailed.
Delayed - you can choose how long to delay. This allows you time to review
Never - do not email invoices
Step 3. Actions on the day of invoicing
Your invoices will be generated and/or emailed soon after your chosen time.
To check for any issues, navigate to Jobs/Runs.
Click on the job name.
Click on the step to see any messages.
Review the list of invoices generated and any errors.
To see only any error messages, check the "Only Errors" box:
Correct any errors and generate/send the invoice(s) yourself using the Invoicing menu.
Comments
0 comments
Please sign in to leave a comment.