Billing for membership fees

Do the following to run an initial mass dues billing:

1. From the Advanced Accounting Console, go to Membership > Bill membership fees.
2. Click New.
3. Select the Renewals option under Billing Options. The default Effective Date automatically displays.
4. Select a billing cycle to process that was previously created in the Set up billing cycles window.
5. Select Printing Options.
6. (optional) Override the Run Date.
7. (optional) Override the Effective Date.
8. (optional) Select the Additional Options.
9. Click Run to process the billing run.

iMIS provides a Rebill feature that enables you to correct a previous mass billing. Rebill a mass run if:

• The pricing table originally used for the renewal bill run was incorrect
• The original dues billing did not include a line item

For example, rebill the sample initial dues bill discussed in To run initial mass dues billings.

📘 Note

A renewal billing can be combined with a rebilling.

1. Correct the reason for the rebill.
   • If you need to add a product to the Billing Cycle, see Creating billing cycles.
   • If you need to change the pricing of a product, see Customer types, or Defining Special Pricing.
2. From the Advanced Accounting Console, go to Membership > Bill membership fees.
3. Click New.
4. Select Rebill to change or correct a billing run generated previously.
5. Select a billing cycle to process.
6. Select the Printing Options.
7. Enter the original Run Date range in the Begin Rebill Date and End Rebill Date fields.
8. Click Run to process the billing run.

When you print Renewal Notices separately from billing, you must perform an ad hoc search so that you don't print duplicate notices.

When you print an initial bill, the system looks for records with REMINDER_COUNT = 0 (renewal hasn't been printed). It is possible, however, that a record has a REMINDER_COUNT = 0 and you may not want to print the Renewal Notice, as in the following examples:

• You generate a billing run by selecting the Rebill option on the Set up general options window. In this case the REMINDER_COUNT is reset to zero.
• You manually print an individual Renewal Notice by clicking Create Invoice from the Billing tab. In this case, REMINDER_COUNT never increments.

1. From the Advanced Accounting Console, go to Membership > Bill membership fees.
2. Click New.

📘 Note

Do not select either option in the Billing Options area.

3. Select a billing cycle from Select a Cycle to Process.
4. (optional) Override the Run Date.
5. Select Initial Bill under Printing Options.
6. Select Ad Hoc Search under Additional Options.
7. Click Run. The Select Search Instructions window opens.
8. Click New to display the Search Instructions window.
9. Enter a Search Name.
10. Enter the new search instructions.

📘 Note

Press Ctrl + Z to expand the Comparison Value field.

11. Click Save on the Search Instructions window.
12. Click OK on the Select Search Instructions window.

If you print Renewal Notices to the screen prior to sending them to the printer, they may not be aligned exactly as they appear on the screen. To achieve the correct formatting, always print reports directly to the printer rather than from the screen.

A variety of standard renewal notice options are available. Although the presentation of most billing-related data is predetermined, many aspects can be customized.

For many of the available formats, the enlarged, bold title that appears at the top of the notice is user-defined within the Billing and Reminder Notices window (From the Advanced Accounting Console, go to Settings > Billing > Billing Cycles, select a Cycle Name, and click Bills/Reminders). You can also define a limited size (notice-specific) text area.

In addition to the Billing and Reminder Notice title and text options, you can customize other aspects of the renewal notice by entering instructions on the Report Specifications window (on the menu bar, go to Utilities > Report Specs).

📘 Note

If changes are made on the Report Specifications window, you must make the changes on a cloned copy of the standard report. This step is required to make the changes permanent.

The types of changes that can be made on the Report Specifications window include the following:

• The entry of larger user-defined text areas
• The addition of merge fields from the customer/subscriber-specific data. Up to five merge fields can be included in the overlay text

📘 Note

There is no provision for merge fields in the Billing and Reminder Notices text.

• The modification or addition of a few available printing options that affect the output
• The modification of top and/or left margins, which may be required to align the printed output with an iMIS-authorized preprinted form.

📘 Note

Crystal Report parameters should not be deleted from a report as the majority of them are necessary to run the report. The preferred method for building reports is to clone your existing report specifications, which automatically copies the report parameters.

To enter user-defined overlay text, you may need to customize a renewal format to print merge fields from a customer's demographic data or to modify or add an available printing option. User-defined text that exceeds 255 alphanumeric characters must be specified here.

Follow these steps to generate a custom Renewal Notice for your organization:

1. Select Utilities > Report Specs. The Report Specifications window opens.
2. Select the Dues Renewal Notice to customize.

📘 Note

If you are cloning one of the DUES-Renewal Notices-Std. Form ASI-### reports, you may need to adjust the top and left margins to print the renewal notice correctly on your printer. To change the margins, select Options > Margins.

3. Click Clone.
4. Tab to the Title field and enter a unique name.
5. Click Parameters. The Detail Report Parameters window displays the current parameters for the report you cloned.
6. Tab to the Options field and add or remove available options. Available options vary from format to format. The two primary renewal notice options include the following:
   • SUPPRESS_ZERO_ITEMS - Suppresses printing line items that have been paid off or that have a zero balance. This option suppresses individual zero balance line items when the grand total of the renewal notice is nonzero.
   • PRINT_CHECKBOX - Displays checkboxes on the renewal form stub in which a customer/subscriber can choose items to pay (an optional addition that is not part of the standard option set).
7. Tab to the Parameters field and enter the text to be printed on the renewal notices. To print your organization's name and address, enter the name and address in the Parameters field. The organization name and address will not automatically print as they do on some invoices and bills from other iMIS modules.

The entered text overlays the standard report elements. Therefore, add hard returns (by pressing Enter) to shift text down the page far enough to avoid the preset report elements on the form.

In the following example, three additional merge fields [Temp.Item1], [Temp.Item2], and [Temp.Item3] have been included in the overlay text. Use the following instructions to define merge fields.

Example of parameters changed on the customized renewal format

1. Click Options and select Additional Fields to open the Additional Fields window.
2. Enter a formula or field name that corresponds to the merge fields entered in the Parameters field on the Detail Report Parameters window. Tab to each Field Name row and continue entering the data that will be merged with the overlay text entered in the Parameters field. A field can reference data contained in the Name, Name_Fin, Subscriptions.BILL_DATE, or any user-defined table. You can enter up to five additional fields in the notice by selecting Options> Additional Fields. Field names must be entered in the Filename.FIELDNAME format. For example, Name.INFORMAL brings in the informal nickname from the Name file.

📘 Note

The formula or field name entered in the first row must correspond to the [Temp.Item1] overlay text entered in the Parameters field on the Detail Report Parameters window. All calculations must be prefixed with @# where # represents the number of the field (1-5). Field names do not need to be prefixed. If you enter an SQL calculation for a field, you might be prompted: Invalid Omnis calculation: proceed anyhow? Click Yes and ignore the warning.

3. Click OK to close the Additional Fields window.
4. Click Save to close the Detail Report Parameters window.
5. Click Save to close the Report Specifications window.
6. Select the cloned report title from the Forms drop-down menu on the appropriate billing cycle.
7. Test the renewal notice.

A portion of the text entered in the Parameters area with merge data from the resulting renewal notice.

The Dues Renewal Notice is a standard laser printer renewal notice format that prints the line items in the upper right corner and at the bottom in the remittance stub area. The middle of the renewal format is reserved for user-defined text.

1. Select Utilities > Reports Specs to display the Report Specifications window.
2. Clone the format.
3. Click Parameters.

The Detail Report Parameters window opens. User-defined text can be entered in the Parameters field.

📘 Note

The title, Renewal Notice, cannot be changed. Billing and reminder notices text, entered in the Set up billing cycles window, is ignored with this renewal notice format. 📘 Note

The standard options set in the Options field of the Detail Report Parameters window includes SUPPRESS_ZERO_ITEMS, but PRINT_CHECKBOX is an optional setting that is not included in the standard options set.

The iMIS-authorized Dues Renewal Notice form allows you to generate renewal notices on either dot matrix (continuous) or laser printers. Several of the Standard Renewal Notice formats are designed to print on forms provided in the Authorized Forms Catalog included with iMIS. The Authorized Forms Catalog is a joint effort by ASI and Versient.

In the iMIS Authorized Forms Catalog, there are six preprinted forms (four laser and two continuous) available for printing Billing renewal notices.

📘 Note

For forms that include the credit card payment box (ASI-016, ASI-018, ASI-020-C), you must enter your list of available credit card choices in the Credit Card Types field on the AR/Cash Set up module window.

On certain preprinted forms, there may be optional choices for the iMIS report output (for example, the placement of the line items may be different, or one form could be used for a standard renewal notice or a list bill). The variations of all possible forms and iMIS output choices are represented in the following list of iMIS standard reports: