Have you ever calculated your bills, thought you were all set and later realized that an account was billed incorrectly? This can happen for a variety of reasons. Maybe you forgot to enter their meter reading or entered their meter reading incorrectly. Maybe you forgot to set a rate or a date to add a one-time charge such as a Turn Off fee. Maybe you forgot to enable a service that was disabled for the season. Whatever the reason, the good news is that there is an easy fix.
The approach you take depends on the reason for the incorrect bill and the time frame in which you catch it. If any services were billed incorrectly, you can simply locate those particular billing transactions and modify them. If you use this method, please be aware that there may be other information within those transactions that may also need to be changed such as their meter reading information. There may also be other billing transactions that are affected by your changes, such as taxes on a service amounts or the projected Late Charges of their next bills. Remember to also fix any problems that caused the incorrect bills in the first place.
Another approach that you may find easier is to simply re-calculate the bills for any accounts that need correcting. Did you know that you can re-calculate any individual account or groups of accounts without affecting the others? First, you will need to find and delete all the billing transactions that were billed on the specific date of the errors for the account(s) you are fixing. Then, you need to fix the problems that caused the incorrect bills in the first place. Next, you temporarily assign a special re-calculate billing cycle to the accounts you are re-calculating. This is simply a unique billing cycle that is not assigned to any other accounts. This isolates the accounts you wish to recalculate so you do not affect any of the others. Finally, you can run “re-calculate the bills” for your special re-calculate bill cycle. After you have verified they were billed correctly, remember to set their billing cycle back to what it was originally so they will be part of their normal group the next time you calculate bills.
Finally, if you catch things soon enough, you can always recalculate all your bills. First, you would find and delete the entire billing journal within Journal Maintenance. Then you would need to fix any problems that caused any incorrect bills in the first place. Finally, you can simply recalculate your bills.
Once your bills are corrected, your accounts should reflect their proper balances; however, it is important to note that anytime billing transactions that are changed, the “Prepare Utility Bills” function must be run again if you wish to print the corrected invoices.
Whatever method you choose, UtilAbility makes it easy to correct any billing errors. And remember, as always, if you have any questions or need any assistance we are always here to help.