Billing system accounting rules

You can set up your billing accounting rules for cash basis or accrual basis. In addition, you can set up multiple entities.

Cash basis operations

Billing generates and updates open subscription records only. These records function as memo AR entries, with absolutely no accounting effect.

The Payment module performs the following activities:

• Updates accumulated payment amount, balance, and expiration or Paid Thru Date on an existing subscription file record. If no billing or payment activity has been recorded for the customer/billing item, a new subscription record is generated.
• Generates multiple-line Trans records, debiting cash and crediting appropriate income entries for all dues line items paid.
• If the appropriate system setup option is enabled, generates a transaction entry to AR and a corresponding Invoice table record for overpayments and, in some cases, underpayments. This occurs in conjunction with the credit invoices/refund function in iMIS.
• Generates activity records for each paid dues item.

Accrual basis operations

The following billing activities take place for payments made using the accrual accounting method:

• Billing generates paid-in-full subscription records and turns all further control and tracking over to the AR/Cash System.
• Each bill generates a multiple-line Trans table record debiting AR and crediting the appropriate income accounts for all billing line items.
• Each bill generates one open invoice record. This item appears with all other invoice items on standard AR system inquiries and reports (For example, trial balance, AR statements and AR account inquiry).

Payments

Payments are processed through the normal Enter and edit cash receipts window (from AR/Cash, select Enter and edit transactions > Cash receipts) instead of the standard Process billing window (from Billing, select Process billing). For more information on the entries generated and the tables updated, see Direct Transactions.