Music Monitor can produce Billing Statements and send them to debtors. These statements are intended as a supplement to a typical school invoice, which offers less detail. Billing Statements should be used in conjunction with sending billing data to an accounts department for processing and invoicing.
If you are a music department that DOESN'T actually produce invoices but rather you pass on the billing information to your School Accounts Department for them to invoice, you may wish to provide detailed Billing Statements for parents. Often the school invoices are very general in nature and although the music billing is included, there may not be much detail in the description fields. In order to avoid LOTS of phone calls from parents after the school invoices are sent out, you may wish to email detailed Billing Statements listing all the music charges.
Settings
To use Billing Statements, the following settings must be selected:
In General Settings
Select Student Accounts and set the options as shown.
Procedure
To make use of Billing Statements, first, follow a standard billing procedure including processing all unbilled amounts by using a ‘Save/Send’ option.
Then, go to Common Tasks > Billing > Produce Billing Statements. The script will find all line items with the most recent ‘Date Billed’ and display them for review.
If you are happy with the found set of line items, select the Billing Statements button. Follow the prompts to complete the process.
Billing Statements should not be modified or deleted unless the Accounts Department make the same changes.
Billing Statements should not be produced until AFTER you have 'Processed all unbilled amounts'.
Click this button and the system will search for all the MOST-RECENTLY billed line items in the Student Accounts file. You will be taken to the Billing Preview screen where you can check the records. If necessary, you can do another 'find' on this screen to find records with a different billing date. When you're happy that the found set of records are the correct ones, click the 'Billing Statements' button at the bottom right of the screen.
You will then be taken to a 'set-up' screen where you can enter a heading (eg. Billing Statement) and notes to appear at the bottom of the documents. Click 'Continue' and the billing statements will be produced (depending on how many line items are in the found set, this could take a couple of minutes).
The script will pause in 'preview' mode and you will be able to scroll through the Billing Statements to check them. If you wish to change anything about the set-up, click 'Continue' at the top right of the screen and another dialog box will appear. You will be able to 'Cancel' and start over, or 'Continue' to finalise the Billing Statements.
If you choose to continue, you will be given the option to Print immediately, or Email on the next screen.
When the process is finished, you will see a list of Billing Statements (they are actually called 'Invoices' on this screen, but you can ignore that!) Click the white 'Email or Print Invoices for Found Set' button at the top of the screen to email the Billing Statements one by one. (I usually suggest doing a find for a smaller group to test this process first eg. Ref Nos 1...10. There's nothing worse than jamming your computer with a bunch of emails that are not sending properly!)
Reprint a Statement
To reprint a statement, first, locate a line item from the given statement and select it to enter the Line Item Form View. Then select View / Reprint Invoice or Authority.