Summary

The Billing Calculations Maintenance screen is used to create and maintain the allocation billing calculation formulas that will be used alongside consumption calculations to properly bill consumption when conservation measures are in place.

Step by Step

1     View the billing calculations that have been created.

• Open the Billing Calculations Maintenance window (UB> Maintenance> Billing Calculations).
• Existing billing calculations will be displayed under the Saved Calculations section to the left.
• Select a calculation in the left section of the window and the Options and Expression sections to the right will populate with the information of the selected calculation.
• Click DELETE to delete the selected billing calculation. You will not be able to delete a billing calculation that is attached to a service rate.
• Click the Create button to create a new Billing Calculation. This will add a New Calculation item to the Saved Calculations section and the Options, Properties, Operators, and Expression sections will be active in order to set up the new Billing Calculation.
  • Only agency admin users will be able to create and edit billing calculations.

2     Select the Billing Calculation options.

• The Calculation Name field will populate with New Calculation when first created. This field must be updated with a new calculation name before the billing calculation can be saved.
• Check the Account occupancy override toggle to use the Occupancy Override value on the UB Account Maintenance window for occupancy-based calculations rather that the default Occupancy value specified on the Lot Maintenance window.
  • If the Occupancy Override Expiration Date field is set to date in the past, the Occupancy value on the Lot Maintenance window will be used in the calculation.
• Check the Sum weather data within billing date range toggle to pull "Weather" type conservation data into the calculation and sum that data for the period being billed.
  • Conservation data is created and maintained on the Conservation Data Maintenance screen (UB> Maintenance> Conservation Data).
• Check the Use in Graph toggle to display the bulling calculation in the billing statement graph.
• Check the Meter Read Dates override Billing Range Dates toggle to use the Prior Read Date and Read Date to calculate the date range for a service rate that uses this Billing Calculation.
  • When using this date range calculation method, the number of days in the period will be updated based on the dates used for the prior and current read dates.
• Check the Unused Usage gets stored in Allocation Bank toggle to credit accounts for consumption that falls below allocation levels. For example, if a lot is allocated 100 units per billing cycle but only uses 95 units in a cycle, the remaining five units will be stored in the Allocation Bank.
  • That credited allocation can be tracked via the Allocation Bank property below.

3     Set up the Billing Calculation expression.

• The Properties section displays all the available consumption properties that can be used to create a billing calculation.
• Click a property to add it to the Expression section.
  • Once a property has been added, the property will display in green and the Expression section will display the property in brackets: [Per Capita]
  • The Account and Lot decimal properties will pull data from those miscellaneous fields. If those field names are edited at the agency level in SS> Utilities> Miscellaneous Field Label Maintenance, they will display the origin of the field followed by the agency-configured name. For example, if the Lot Misc_10 field is renamed Mature Tree Count on the Miscellaneous Field Label Maintenance window, it will display as "Lot Mature Tree Count" in the Properties section.
  • The Allocation Bank property will pull in the current banked consumption for the lot and calculate a running total for that value in case the lot is in more than one billing calculation rule.
  • The Water Allocation property will pull in the water allocated to the lot for the billing period.
• Use the available Operators to specify how the expression will be calculated.
• Once the desired properties and operators have been added, the expression is complete.
  • A common example expression for an indoor billing calculation:
    • [Per Capita (gallons per person per day)] * [Days in period (set on the billing cycle)] * [DF Indoor (set on conservation data maintenance)] / 748 (to convert to cubic feet)
• Click the Save button to save the new billing calculation.