Introduction
In essence, a bill run is a process of collecting fees from members who use electronic payments as a payment source. These include credit card or bank account details, most commonly entered by members in the Client Portal.
- This article explains how to set up a new bill run.
- This article will be helpful to PG Champion, Administrator, Club Manager, Finance, Accounting and Club Owner.
Instruction
Configuration from this article is available from the R.93 system version onwards.
Step 1 - select the billing type
1. Go to Finances -> Billing and press + New bill run button
Execute bill run - after completing all steps bill run will be generated and ready for acceptance.
Schedule bill run(s) - schedule one-time or recurring bill run to be generated in the future.
Step 2 - provide billing info
Fields visible for all bill runs:
Name - used to identify bill run, if no name is provided it is set to "One-time bill run (*generation date*)".
Description - optional field for internal notes about the bill run.
Balance from date - contract transactions due until this date will be included in the bill run.
Fields visible only for scheduled bill runs:
Recurring billing - select one-time or recurring bill run. Recurring bill runs will be generated in the interval selected in Time period field.
Start/Generation date - date of the one-time bill, or the date when the first recurring bill run should be created.
Time period - the interval between subsequent recurring bill runs. Available intervals can be defined in PGM -> Settings -> Payment plans intervals.
End date - recurring bill runs will be generated until this date.
Step 3 - bill run settings
The visibility of options on this screen depends on system settings and the chosen bill run type as described below. The above screenshot captures most of the available fields - it is unlikely to use this many.
Provider - the party responsible for payment processing. Fees associated with contracts with payment source matching provider type will be included in the bill run.
Transaction type - contract transactions, POS transactions or both.
Field visible if the setting EPayment.Generation.ShowTransactionType = TRUE
Default value can be set by the setting EPaymentProvider.DefaultTransactionToChargeType, allowed values: UserTransactions, UserPosTx. If the setting is not used, UserTransactions (ie. contract transactions) is the default
Select clubs - members whose home club matches selected clubs will be included.
Processing date - the date when payments will be processed, specific to file based e-payments.
Field visible if the setting DirectDebit.ProcessingDate.IsVisible = TRUE and file based e-payments provider is selected
First payment settings - field specific to SEPA e-payment provider. Choose all, first-time member payments, or subsequent member payments.
Field visible if the setting UserEdit.DirectDebitIsFirstPayment.IsVisible = TRUE and the SEPA e-payment provider is selected
Auto-acceptance - toggle to control how the bill run is accepted after generation. Off: verify the generated bill run and accept it manually before proceeding to collect fees. On: automatic acceptance and fees collection after bill run generates.
Merge single payer transactions into one - use to combine all member transactions into one.
Default value (true/false) can be set by the setting EPayment.Generation.MergeTransactions.DefaultValue. If the setting is not used, FALSE is the default
Set transaction limit to membership fee amount - use to limit charged transaction amount.
Default value (true/false) can be set by the setting EPayment.Generation.AmountLimit.DefaultValue. If the setting is not used, FALSE is the default
Include only authorized payment sources - use to include only payers with payment source authorized by selected e-payment provider. Specific to file based e-payments.
Field visible if file based e-payments provider is selected
Default value (true/false) can be set by the setting DirectDebit.AuthorizedOnly.DefaultValue. If the setting is not used, TRUE is the default
Debt collection stage - use to include only payers in selected debt collection stage.
Field visible if the setting EPayment.Generation.IsVindicationProfileFilterVisible = TRUE
User transaction type - use to include only selected contract transaction types (eg. annual fee, membership fee, freeze fee).
Field visible if the setting EPayment.Generation.IsUserTransactionTypeFilterVisible = TRUE
Select payment plan type group - choose a group of payment plans to include in this bill run.
Field visible only if payment plan groups have been defined
Contract transactions from/until - contract transactions due between these dates will be included in the bill run.
Field visible if the setting EPayment.IsTransactionDatesFilterAvailable = TRUE and the selected transaction type value is contract transactions or all.
Pos transactions from/until - POS transactions due between these dates will be included in the bill run.
field visible if the setting EPayment.IsPosTransactionDatesFilterAvailable = TRUE and selected transaction type value is POS transactions or all.
Exclude errors from last days - skip members whose payment has failed in the previous X days.
Default value by the setting (number of days) can be set in EPayment.Generation.ExcludeErrorsFromLastDays.DefaultValue
Exclude contracts with end date older than - skips contracts ended in the past - before the entered date.
Field visible if the setting EPayment.Generation.IsExcludeContractsWithEndDateOlderThanVisible = TRUE
A notification Please accept or delete previous bill runs before generating new ones appears if any bill runs awaiting acceptance exist for selected club(s). The reason is, in such a case, generating another bill run and accepting both would result in double charges.
Step 4 - notifications
This step allows you to set up automated email notifications for the bill run. Employees you select will be notified when the bill run reaches key statuses.
Notifications are only delivered if the corresponding automation rules have also been configured in PGM -> Automation -> Automation Rules. For setup instructions, see How to set up bill run notifications in the Automation Center.
Enable notification events - tick the checkboxes for the events you want to activate:
- Notify when bill run is awaiting acceptance - triggered once when the bill run transitions to Awaiting Acceptance status.
- Notify when generation error occurs - triggered once per bill run when the first generation error occurs for any club in the batch. The notification contains a link to the billing view where you can see which club failed.
- Notify when direct debit file is generated - triggered each time a direct debit file is successfully generated.
Select recipients — use the Employees and/or Roles multi-select dropdowns to choose who should receive the notifications. Both can be used together.
Only employees with the Receive Notifications permission (set under Administrator -> Billing) appear in these dropdowns and will actually receive notification emails. Employees without this permission are excluded at send time even if previously selected.
For recurring bill run definitions, notification settings are automatically applied to each generated bill run. You can edit the notification settings for individual bill runs after the recurring definition is active.
Step 5 - bill run generation
If Execute bill run has been selected in step 1, the bill run is generated in this step. The progress is displayed as shown on the screen above - for each club separately.
Use the Expand button to show all clubs.
At the end, a short summary is presented which ends the process.