Welcome! NextGen Utility Billing Service Orders, Task Tracker and New/Interesting Features

NextGen Utility Billing Service Orders & Task Tracker These are shown in live files.

NextGen Utility Billing New or Interesting Features in Accounts

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance Account Explorer Account Explorer is an enhanced account search option. It allows the user to select a starting point then scroll forward and backward through the account listing. A recent enhancement includes the “find next” option not shown here. If you are searching for records that have an email address that ends in yahoo.com. It will not sort them all together but the “find next” feature will take you to each occurrence.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance Account Explorer The grid of accounts displays and the first entry that matches the search criteria is highlighted. Use the scroll bar and/or page buttons to move in the list. Double click on a record to open the account in inquiry.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance Account Explorer The search screen includes filters on the right side. These are used to further narrow down the results. You can see all active accounts that owe more than 300.00.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance Account Explorer You can see all active accounts that have the metered sewer service.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance Service Credits Service Credits is also referred to as assistance. This is controlled by service and can be offered for multiple services. One generic credit type can be used or a credit type can be defined for each agency providing assistance. Whether the assistance applies to tax or not is specified on each credit type.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance Service Credits Service Credits can be entered on each account in maintenance or entered on several accounts at one time using the Service Credits Mass Entry option. The default values are entered at the top of the screen but can be changed for individual accounts on the grid.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance Service Credits Monthly Amount is the maximum amount allowed to be used each billing. If the monthly amount is set to 25.00 and the service billed amount is greater than 25.00, the credit of 25.00 is applied to the billing and the customer is responsible for paying the remaining balance. Effective date is compared to the billing date to determine whether the credit should be applied or not. If the information is received in October but should not be applied to the bills until the November 1 billing, enter an effective date of 11/1. Expiration date is the date after which the credit is no longer applied. Credit Amount is the total amount of assistance received for the account.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance Service Credits The service credits are included in the services tab on the account. Select the water service then the Credits tab. The credit information includes the original credit amount, the amount used to date (applied amount) and the remaining amount.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance Service Credits The Service Credit Customer Report can be used to print a list of accounts receiving credits. It can also be used to print a list of terminated accounts that have a remaining balance.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance Service Credits The Service Credit History Report can be used to print a list of accounts that received the credit during a specified billing period range.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance Bill History From the Bill History tab, double click on a billing period to open a window that displays the detailed billing information.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance Bill History Click Print Bill to produce an image of the bill that can be printed. Your bill image is used as a watermark when printing a bill from bill history or from the estimate bill option. If you use a printing service we can provide a basic bill format for you to use for reprinting bills or printing bill estimates.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance Bill History Expand the billing history record to see detailed billing information.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance Bill History Expand the service record to see the original billing information and any adjustment information.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance Bill History Expand the original billing record to see a breakdown of the amounts billed for that service.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance Bill History Expand the adjustment record to see detailed adjustment information.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance AR by Service AR by Service shows a breakdown of the amount due by category in the top half of the screen.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance AR by Service Double click on the service record to see all transactions that make up the balance due for that service.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance AR by Service AR by Service shows a breakdown of the amount due by service and bill date in the bottom half of the screen.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance AR by Service Double click on the bill record to see all transactions that make up the balance due for that billing entry.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance Responsible Parties A responsible party is an individual that is responsible for or associated to the utility account. A responsible party record stores the personal information for the individual including name, mailing address, phone numbers, email addresses, SSN, DL number, etc. An account can have an unlimited number of responsible parties associated to it. Some may be allowed to make changes such as disconnecting service or adding a service while others are only allowed to ask questions.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance Responsible Parties Selina Granger owns and lives at 432 West Main Street. She is elderly. Her son, Alan, has power of attorney and can make changes to the account. The bill is mailed to Alan’s address. Her other son, Henry, is listed as a contact person only. He cannot make changes to the account but can call and ask questions about the account or can be contacted by the utility if needed.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance Responsible Parties Alan Granger also has service at his home at 401 College Street. His wife, Helen, is also a responsible party on the account. Both parties are allowed to make changes to the account.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance Responsible Parties Alan Granger also has service at his business, Granger Construction, with his uncle, William Granger. Both Alan and William are allowed to make changes to the account.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance Responsible Parties When I look at Alan Granger’s responsible party record, I can see all of the accounts he is associated with. There are two views. One displays as a collapsed list that can be expanded to show the account numbers. The other shows the account number information.

NextGen Utility Billing New Features in Reading Process

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance Reading Process The Reading Process no longer asks for the reading period. It is now smart enough to derive the period based on last period billed stored on the route record. There are multiple edit checks in place to be sure it is correct. This allows you to create one reading batch that includes accounts that will be billed in the current month and accounts that will be billed in the next month but need to be read around the same time.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance Reading Process A Reading Batch that is created in error can be voided using the Options wheel. If the batch is created with the wrong date it can be changed using the Options Wheel.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance Reading Process To help ensure that service records with reading edit messages such as high consumption are reviewed, the check box “Resolve Edit Message” was added to the Review Readings grid. Use the check box to indicate that the edit message was checked and accepted “as is”. A parameter controls whether the user is required to resolve all edits prior to completing the review readings step.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance Reading Process You can quickly approve edit messages that do not require special attention. Use the Edit Messages dropdown to select a message. The grid displays services with that message. In this example the message is “No Comparative” and there are 8 service records. “No Comparative” means there is no consumption history available to determine if the consumption is high or low. When I look at this list, the consumption amounts look reasonable so I can click the “Resolve Edits” button to approve the records in this grid.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance Reading Process In this example the message is “High Consumption” and there are 4 service records. If I change the current reading and the high consumption message no longer applies, the edit message is automatically resolved and the record is removed from the grid so no additional steps are required. I entered a new current reading for the first two records in the grid and they are no longer in the grid.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance Reading Process To see any items that have not be resolved, change the Edit Messages dropdown to All. Click the Resolve Edit Messages column heading to sort the list to see any unchecked boxes at the top of the list. If all edit messages have been reviewed and any remaining items need to be resolved, click the Resolve Edits button. All unchecked items in the grid will be checked.

ACH Process

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance ACH Process The ACH Process starts by creating a receipt batch and importing the ACH records. The user selects the billing batch(es) to include. Only billing batches that have not been through the ACH process display in the list. If two billing batches are due on the same day, both can be included in the same ACH file. The amount included in the ACH file is the total amount due including any adjustments posted to the account.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance ACH Process The Receipts tab shows a listing of ACH accounts picked up from the billing batch. Only accounts that were on ACH when the billing was completed are included in this process. If penalty was accidentally applied to the ACH accounts, click the “Automatically adjust penalty off current bill” box in the upper left corner of the grid.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance ACH Process If an account was on ACH during the billing process but should not be included in the ACH file sent to the bank, it can be removed from the file in one of three ways: Right click on the account and choose Delete Left click to select the account then click the Delete option in the ribbon bar. Left click to select the account then press the Delete button on the keyboard. In the future we will be able to add accounts to the ACH batch.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance ACH Process Close and process the ACH receipt batch then choose ACH, Create ACH File. Check “Create separate files for each standard entry type” if the bank requires commercial entries in a separate file. The process looks for any pre-notes to include in the file (if desired) and it looks for any potential errors.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance ACH Process Click the check box to the left of “Reference” to include all entries in the file. Uncheck any entries that should not be included. This excludes the entries from the ACH file but it will include them the next time an ACH file is created unless you void the ACH receipt transaction. Entries that have not been sent to the bank appear in the ACH Payments option.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance Other Enhancements Skip Bill Skip Bill enhancements include a skip bill window that allows you to select the services to skip and the number of bills to skip. An example might be an account where the customer is going away for 3 months. Rather than disconnecting service to stop the bill, set the skip bill flag and enter 3 in the # of bills to skip. The account remains active and is read each month. The reading used the last time the account was billed is preserved as the previous reading so the customer is billed for all consumption on their next bill. Skip bill accounts are included in the billing process as “skipped bills”. The # Of Bills To Skip counts down each time the account goes through the billing process. When the # Of Bills To Skip reaches zero, the account is billed.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance Other Enhancements Skip Bill New accounts can automatically skip the first bill. New options were added to clear the skip flag based on the days of service and/or consumption. This is defined by service. Set the minimum days to 7 if new accounts that have service for less than 7 days should not receive a bill. If they have service for 7 or more days, the skip bill is automatically cleared and they will receive a bill. Set the minimum consumption to 20 if new accounts that have usage less than 20 should not receive a bill. If they have usage of 20 or more, the skip bill flag is automatically cleared and they will receive a bill.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance Other Enhancements Mass Meter Changes Mass Meter Changes are a batch process that offers meter selection criteria in addition to account number ranges. You can see the meters that are selected. You can delete meters that should not be changed. You can add additional meters to change. Importing the meter changes verifies the data and provides a list of potential errors to be corrected.

2016 Resource - NG Utility Billing Employee Maintenance Something Nice To Know Use the open windows box to switch back and forth between accounts or other open windows.

Coming Soon… Major Speed Improvements

This completes the NextGen Utility Billing Presentation Thanks for attending!