When you click New Bill or Edit/View Bill on the Transaction tab, the Bill screen comes up.
Note: There are two sections to this screen.
The top section contains the general information, such as Address, Category and Invoice #.
The bottom section contains the information about the bill itself.
You must first enter the data in the top section. If you attempt to enter information in the bottom section without first entering anything in the top section, you will get a message prompting you to enter data in the correct order.
After entering all the data click OK to return to the Main screen. You will see this Bill appear on the Transaction List in the Transaction tab. Alternatively you can click Cancel to close the payment screen without saving any changes.
Note: the Cancel button is not available when editing a bill that was already entered. To delete a bill use the Delete button on the main screen.
Name
Displays the person's name of whom you are entering the bill.
Address
Select the billing address. This is the address where the invoice will be mailed to. This list is limited to the existing addresses that this person has. If an address is marked as not current, it will not appear on this list.
See Addresses for more information on entering multiple address for a person.
Category
This specifies which Category this bill will be.
For example, if this is a pledge then you might choose Donation as the Category; if you are billing someone for Hebrew school, you might choose Tuition or Hebrew School.
If you enter a new Category you will be asked to confirm if you want to add it to the list.
See Category Manager for more information.
Note
Enter a short note describing this bill. This differs from Description where you can enter a description for each split.
Invoice No
This field gets updated automatically. Invoice numbers are consecutive. If you uncheck the Invoice check box, indicating that you don't want to send an invoice for this bill, no invoice number will be used.
For example, if this is a pledge for a donation, perhaps you don't want to generate an invoice, but rather send a pledge letter. If this is the case, you can uncheck the Invoice check box so as not to use an invoice number for this bill.
Date of Bill
This is the date you entered the bill. Usually this would be today's date.
Date Due: This is the date when the bill is due. This will appear in the detail section of the invoice. When generating invoices you can limit the resulting output to a range of invoices due dates. See Invoices for more information. By default, invoices only include bills with a due date within 30 days.
Subcategory
Choose a subcategory from a dropdown list. For example, if you choose advertising for the Category choices for the subcategory might be Calendar, Holiday Times, Journal, etc.
If you enter an item that is not on the list, you will be asked to confirm if you want to add it to the list.
Pricing Detail
Choose a price detail from the dropdown list.
This list determines the default price for the specific item you are entering the bill for. For example: If you choose Advertising for the category of bill and Calendar for the subcategory this field will determine the type of ad: ½ page, Business card etc.
Depending on your Invoice Description option, This detail entry will also be used in the Invoice.
If you enter a new detail you will be asked to confirm if you want to add it to the list.
If you need to enter different types of Details, for example: a person would like two ads of different sizes, separate lines on the same bill will be necessary. Enter the first line of information and then repeat with a second line.
Quantity
Enter the number of items for this bill. In the above example: number of ads.
Unit Price
Enter the price for the Detail chosen above. The default price will be automatically entered based on the Detail chosen. You can change this price if you like.
Discount Amount
Enter any applicable discount. The discount should be entered in currency value (not percent). If a percentage sign is used, CMS will convert it to a decimal place (for example: entering 25% will give you a discount of $0.25 not 25%)
Extended Price
This field is not editable. Rather, it is calculated based on the Quantity, Unit Price and Discount.
Click on Bill Details to input more information about a bill.
Pledge Letter
This field indicates whether you want to send a letter in connection with this bill. If checked, you need to choose a letter from the Which Letter field. You can print this letter individually be clicking Send Letter or include it in the next batch.
See Batch Letters for more information.
Which Letter
If the Pledge Letter box is checked, you need to choose a letter that you want to send. The list of letters in this drop-down is based on the pledge letters you defined in Customize Letters.
Note: even if you are using Word to generate your letters, you must choose a letter in this field for this bill to be part of the merge.
Sent
Check this field if the pledge letter was sent. When generating batch letters, this field is checked automatically when executing the batch Mark as Sent job.
See Batch Letters for more information.
Occasion (optional)
Select an occations from this list. This is a list of occations entered for this person. When generating invoices, the occasion will appear in the description of the invoice. If you set the Invoice Description option to Manual and entered text in the Description field, the occasion chosen in this field will not appear on the invoice.
See Occasions for more inforation on entering occasions.
Memory/Honor(optional)
Enter a short "In honor/memory of" or note. This field can automatically be included in the pledge letter. See Customizing Letters for more infomation.
Other Details
Family (optional)
Select a family member (a son or daughter, for example) or this person. This family member needs to already have been entered in the system.
This is used mainly for entering bills for tuition, be it Camp, School or Kids programs. The name of the child chosen in this field will automatically appear in the invoice description. If you set the Invoice Description option to Manual and entered text in the Description field, the occasion chosen in this field will not appear on the invoice.
See Family for more information on entering family members.
Solicitor
Specifies who solicited this bill. Select form a user-defined list of solicitors. See Custom Lists Setup > Solicitors for information on setting up solicitors.
Use this field to keep track of solicitors on your organizations. You are able to run Transaction Reports based on this field. These reports are able to show totals by Solicitor or limit the report to a Solicitor. See Transaction Report for more information.
Organization
Specifies which organization this payment is directed to. Select from a user-defined list of organizations. See Custom Lists Setup > Organizations for more information.
Use this field to keep track of sub organizations. If you enter an organization for your bills and payments, the name of this organization will appear on the letter head of the invoices and letters. You are also able to run Transaction reports based on this field.
Mailing
Specifies which mailing this bill is a result of. Select from a user-defined list of mailings. See Custom Lists Setup > Mailings for more information.
Use this field to keep track of mailings such as Calendar or Pesach mailings to track how well a given mailing did. Using Transaction Reports, you can compare mailings to determine which mailings are most profitable.
Description: Enter a note specific for this line in the bill/invoice. Not to be confused with the note for the general bill above, which applied to the entire bill. This note applies to this specific section of the bill.
You have the option of whether the description on the invoice is automatic or is overridden by the description you enter in this field. An automatic description will display the Subcategory; Detail. The Family and Occasion fields will be added as well if any data was chosen from those lists. To have the description field override the automatic description, click Tools > Options > Invoices tab and choose Manual from the Invoice Description drop-down list. If nothing was entered in the description field, the automatic description will be used, regardless of what you chose in CMS Options.
Card Charged:This is a place to manually override the card-charged status of splits. This only applies to recurring payments in the credit card manual.
Defining multiple lines on one invoice.
A split bill means that there are multiple detail sections (splits) for the same bill.
If you look closely at the Bill screen, you will see that there are actually three sections.
The upper part contains the Category, Address, Date, etc. The middle portion containing the Details section where you enter the Subcategory, Quantity, Discount, Price etc. and the bottom portion, which is updated automatically, containing the Total Amount, the Amount Paid, and the Amount Due.
The Amount Paid is updated when a payment is applied to the bill.
When to use splits:
At time, you you need to enter more than one bill for the same person but you want they should both appear on the same invoice.
For example: You want to send someone an invoice for ordering five Mezuzos, three large mezuzos that cost $75 each and two smaller ones that cost $45 each. In this case, you combine both of these bills by adding a second split for the same bill
.
To do this, simply click the Add Record button next to the Bill Details button or just begin entering new information on the next line in the bill details section.
Usually, you will keep the subcategory the same and only change the Detail. If the subcategory is different, most likely you will want a separate invoice - why combine an order for a mezuzah and a order for matza on the same invoice? However, you still have the ability to enter a completely new subcategory for the new line in the bill.
When you enter a bill with multiple splits, the Bill Amount and Amount Due fields (in the lower part of the bill) will automatically calculate the total of all the splits in this bill.
If you entered more that one split for a bill you will see them as two separate lines in the Transaction List on the main transaction tab. but they will be combined when printing invoices.
Automatically Charge to Credit Card/Terms: These are options that will work only for those that have the optional credit card processing integration module. This allows you to automatically charge this bill to a credit card on the due date. For more information, see credit card processing module, later on.