The concepts of 'billing period' and 'reconciliation period' along with the fields Number of Lessons BP and Number of Lessons RP are key to billing in advance procedures.
Billing period is the unit of time between billing runs (usually a term or a semester). Number of Lessons BP is the number of lessons the student should be billed for the billing period.
Reconciliation period is the unit of time between calculation of lesson adjustments (usually a term, semester, or year). Number of Lessons RP is the number of lessons the student will be billed for the reconciliation period.
Billing period and reconciliation period vary from institution to institution, along with the number of lessons in each. Some common variants are:
- Billing period is a term with 8 lessons and reconciliation period is a year with 32 lessons.
- Billing period is a term with 8 lessons and reconciliation period is a semester with 16 lessons.
- Billing period is a semester with 16 lessons and reconciliation period is a year with 32 lessons.
- Billing period is a term with 10 lessons and reconciliation period is a term with 10 lessons.
Number of Lessons BP is used by Music Monitor when the tuition enrolment is sent to accounts (either individually or as part of a bulk process) to determine the number of lessons billed. Number of Lessons RP is used by Music Monitor when the lesson adjustments process is run where it is compared to the number of lessons delivered according to the rolls (see Billing Tuition Lesson Adjustments).
A default Number of Lessons BP and Number of Lessons RP can be set for each lesson type by going to Setup Files > Fees.
The Number of Lessons BP and Number of Lessons RP can be altered on individual tuition records (usually in the Tuition Tab in Students).
For more advice specific to your institution, contact the Music Monitor Team.