.Generate Bill v2.1.4.7

The Generate Bill function makes it easy for Admin Users to generate organization-wide billing reports by month.

Generate a New Bill

To generate a Bill, navigate to Admin > Billing > Bill Generation.

Click the  button located directly above the Grid.

In the Generate Bill form, input a Start Date manually or select the appropriate date from the calendar if it is different than the default Start Date Displayed. Since billing in PCR-360 is always for full month periods, the End Date is calculated by the application.

Next, click the Generate Bill button located at the bottom of the form. Because of the large volume of data associated with this task, the PCR-360 application takes some time to generate the bill.

When running a Bill don't:

• run any Bulk Update for
  • Charges
  • Owners
  • GLAs
  • Call Rates
  • This includes GLA Replace or Catalog Defaults
• attempt to finalize any Service Desk items
• add new Charges to GLAs, Services, or Equipment
• Rerate Calls or Usage
• update special pricing like GLA Component or Billing Group Pricing
• restore deleted Charges on the Audit grid

Once the bill generation process has finished, the User receives an application message indicating its completion. When the message has been received, the User is notified with the following alert displayed at the lower-right corner of the User's browser:

The User can read the message in the 'Messages' section of the Landing Page.

Viewing the New Bill

Now that the Bill has been generated, the Admin User can view Bill Details or the new Bill by navigating to Admin > Billing > View / Report > Bill Details or View Bill.

The Bill Details Grid can be used to generate reports and explore the billed data. This Grid displays each item billed and can be filtered and sorted as needed.

Viewing the bill allows the User to view and print formatted Bill, edit the Bill details (Date Range, Charge Account, and Bill View), and download as a PDF or CSV file.

Approve/Unapprove a Bill

After Generating the bill, it appears in the Grid with a status of 'Complete'. This new functionality makes it so that Coordinators cannot view a Bill on CustomerCenter until an Admin User approves the Bill. When the Bill is ready to be made accessible to Coordinators, navigate to Admin > Billing > Bill Generation.

1. To approve the Bill, select the row on the Grid for the Bill.
2. Then, click the   button. Clicking this button toggles the Status column on the Grid from Complete to Approved and the Bill is visible in the CustomerCenter. To hide the Bill in the CustomerCenter once again, simply re-select the row and click the Approve/Unapprove button again. The status changes back to Complete and the Bill is hidden in the CustomerCenter.

Email a Bill

When the Bill is approved, the User can click on the  button to e-mail each Coordinator their Bill. The email is generated based on the GLA Permission set up in each Coordinator's Contact record. If a Coordinator does not have GLA Permissions, then the email will not send for that person. This means that there MUST be GLA Permissions set before the Coordinator will get an email. Using the generic options of 'Permit All' or 'Permit None' will result in no emails being sent when using the email coordinators button from the Bills grid. A coordinator must be explicitly assigned to a GLA to see permissions and receive the coordinator email.

This opens the 'Send Bill E-mail to Coordinators' form.

The email can include the Bill as a CSV or PDF attachment as well as the GLA totals. This goes out in the email to the Coordinators. Select the Role(s) that are desired for the Bill Permissions. There is a standard set of text that the User can then customize in the 'Email Body' field.

When finished, click the  button.

Regenerate Selected

Users can re-run the Bill if needed.

• Select the Bill Date Range entry in the Bill Generation Grid.
• Click Regenerate button located directly above the  button and click the Regenerate button on the confirmation dialog.
  
•  A message will be received on the homepage when the process is completed. Note: Users can only Regenerate the most recent Bill that is NOT a test bill.
  

Clear Cache

Users can clear the cache for a given Bill manually whenever desired, but it is automatically cleared after 24 hours. To manually clear the cache, first select the Bill that has been generated previously. Click the  button.

This brings up the 'Clear Bill Cache' Form.

The cache can be cleared for All users or for an individual user. Select the User option that is desired to clear the cache for and click the  button.

The Clear Cache process runs and returns the User to the 'Manage Clear Bill Cache' form and the cache is cleared.

Notes

• If multiple Users attempt to manually clear the cache at different times, it is possible for Bills to look differently based on the version of the Bill each generated.
• Clearing the cache within PCR360 has no effect on the Browser Cache.
• It is recommended to clear the cache before viewing a Bill.
• The Date/Time that appears on a Bill is not the current Date/Time, it is the Cache's Date/Time.

Trigger Exports

From the Bill Generation Grid, select Desired Bill. Click the  button. The process will run and the exports are triggered.

Check Progress

This provides the User with three progress bars. One for 'Processing Bill Calls', one for 'Processing Bill Usage', and one for 'Bill Charges'. This shows the progress for any bill that is selected.

Process Report

After running a Bill, the Process Report shows details about the billing process. There are sections for Calls, Usage, and Charges displaying counts and total cost respectively. Additionally, if the process encounters a problem when processing any of these sections, the problems are listed with links to the specific records involved.

Common Problems with Running the Bill

• Missing Revenue GLAs: check the Charge Catalog. All Charge Catalogs used on the Bill MUST have a Revenue GLA
• Missing Records: if the process encounters an orphaned Charge record, it reports
• Unbillable: Service Desk, Services, Equipment, and GLA Charges show as unbillable if the Service/Equipment or GLAs involved are not flagged as billable

Bill Archiving

When the Bill process runs, it inserts all the data into the BILL_DETAILS and BILL_TYPE_* tables. After a specific amount of time elapses, the data is "archived" into a new dated version of those tables. BILL_DETAILS_1701 for January 2017 or BILL_DETAILS_1702T for the Test Bill in February 2017. The User can set the Archive timeout under Admin > Tenant Management. There is a "Bill Archiving" field that specifies the number of days to wait before running the archive. A zero in this field indicates that the Bill archives the night after it was generated. Most of our customers have found that a value of 10 or 15 days allows them to run reports and pull any other data before the bill "archives".

The View Bill feature functions on archived or unarchived bill data.