Bill Print Out of Balance Issues

[ricky_shaw]

Hi,

Can someone please explain me about this Out of balance issue in ISU Bill Print.

What are the different types of Out of Balance issues?

Is this only related to accounting  issues of mismatched Dr & Cr items or this is also related to the MR consumption?

Thanks in advance.

Ricky

[former_member587072]

Hey Ricky ...    The definition of out of balance invoices depends on how your Print Workbench developer set it up but typically this is how it works.

- Open item selection (te529) is configured to allow open items on the account to move to the invoice and add into the invoice header total.   This becomes your control total (billing charges plus open FICA items). 

- On the invoice, most customers don't want to see the current charges plus what is open.   The invoice application form needs to determine the last invoice amount, add adjustments, subtract payments to get a balance forward.   Then add billing charges plus current FICA charges to determine the amount due.

- The application form calculated amount due is compared to the invoice header amount due.  If there is a mismatch, then the invoice is out of balance and should not be mailed as is.

- Most of time, the reason for an out of balance invoice is because the application form missed a payment or got the FICA adjustments incorrect.

Hope that helps.     Joe

[ricky_shaw]

Joe,

Thanks for your response.

Can you give me an example of missed FICA adjustments & billing charges.

When every payment gets recorded in the system, how can the application form miss that?

Hope I am asking right questions.

Thanks

Ricky

[former_member215295]

Hi Ricky,

As Joe explained there cans be tons of scenarios, actually generating a correct bill taking into account all the adjustments etc is a herculean task, some times it takes years to get it right because you need to lot of iterations on reprinting the bills etc

Some of the adjustments that caused out of balance bills-

1) Creating Installment plan items and then de-activating IP items

2) reset clearing of the documents

3) It can be FICA process issues too like some charges aren't getting due date sync

4) Considering every type of payments from every channel

5) manual credit adjustments and debit adjustments which aren't reflected on the invoice

6)Budget billing balance carry forward adjustments

7)...... the list goes on.

Thanks,

Vikram
.

[former_member587072 · Accepted solution]

Hey Ricky .... Here's an example of a typical IP issue that could cause an out balance if the invoice application code isn't ready for it.

1. Invoice is mailed for current charges of 100 and IP item 1 of 115

2. Customer pays 120 clearing the 115 of charges.

3. With the extra 5, the business rule says ... remove the clearing restriction on item 36 (last one), clear 5 and put the clearing restriction back on the remaining 10.

4. Next invoice needs to look like this:

     Previous invoice 115

     Payments            120-

     Adjustments            5   (unbilled part of item 36)

     BF                           0

     current charges    100

     IP item 2                 15

     total due                115

The code needs to go thru the clearings on the account between the time of the 2 invoices to find the 5 clearing.   It has to determine that the IP item is in the future and that the clearing restriction was in fact removed in the invoicing period (could have been around for awhile and should not be a current adjustment).    This was a pretty clean example of this scenario but it has more challenging variations.  If any of those variations causes the print code to not determine that the 2nd invoice needs a 5 adjustment, then invoice 2 will be out of balance.

Hope that helps.   Joe

[ricky_shaw]

Thanks for the detailed example.

Seems that there is a typo.

The IP item amounts are 15 or 115?(in line 1). what is that Item36 (in line 3)?

Does it holds the IP amount?

So if all customers pay every time the exact amounts it won't result in OOB right?

Also, will every Bill print in every client carry some kind of OOB? Thanks

[former_member587072]

Hey Ricky ...

- Sorry, line 1 should have read like this:

Invoice is mailed for current charges of 100 and IP item 1 of 15 (total invoice 115)

- Item 36 in line 3 is the last item of the IP.   Many customers will take extra money fron the customer (5 in this case) and clear what they can starting from the last IP item.   So the clearing restriction is removed from the last item (36), partially cleared in this case causing item 36 to split.   5 is cleared and the open 10 has it's clearing restriction put back on.

Now invoice print (on the next invoice) has 120 in payments but 115 in debits (the current charges of 100 and IP 1 for 15).   The 5 cleared IP (part of item 36) was never presented to the customer but needs to be on the next invoice as a debit adjustment so the debits and credits match.   Customers call the 5 dollar adjustment different things:  debit for future IP item, unbilled IP item, etc.

- The problem is not that customers are paying extra, it's the companies decision to clear the backend of the IP that causes print challenges.    If the company does the clearing as described and the print code is ready for it then this particular scenario should be covered.

- It is very rare for a client to have 0 oob's.   There are techniques that have been used over the years to deal with the oobs in any given night.   Have to run now ... will add some comments about this later on.

Joe

[ricky_shaw]

Thank you Joe & Vikram.