The System allows the Company to invoice either for the current month, advance billing and/or early invoicing. The System will decide if an Invoice is required based upon the Subscriber’s new balance. The System invoices any subscriber who has a debit balance after adding the current month’s rental charges.

The System supports multiple cycle billing, as many as 31 cycles. All subs can be automatically placed in any applicable billing option; it uses either the first of the month, or the day of the month that the subscriber first came on to the System.

The System supports invoicing on a monthly, bimonthly, quarterly, semi-annual, or annual basis, as desired by the Subscriber.

Charging versus Invoicing

The RR System considers charging a subscribers account completely different than invoicing a subscriber’s account. Charging is done once per month and the System applies all the charges for services, taxes, installation fees etc. to the subscriber’s account. It is the charging that effects the financial changes to the subscriber’s account, not the act of invoicing, which simply is a method to collect the money charged.

Once a payment is received it is applied directly to the balance of the subscriber. The system applies the money to the oldest balance. If a partial payment is made then again it will automatically be applied to the oldest balance not to specific products or services.

Billing & Invoicing

The System allows the Company to invoice either for the current month, advance billing and/or early invoicing. The System will decide if an Invoice is required based upon the Subscriber’s new balance. The System invoices any subscriber who has a debit balance after adding the current month’s rental charges.

The System supports multiple cycle billing, as many as 31 cycles. All subs can be automatically placed in any applicable billing option; it uses either the first of the month, or the day of the month that the subscriber first came on to the System.

The System supports invoicing on a monthly, bimonthly, quarterly, semi-annual, or annual basis, as desired by the Subscriber.

Invoice Options

Depending on the Cable Company’s policy, new customers may be invoiced immediately when a work order has been completed on the System.

The System will not print an invoice if the company receives payment before the completion of the work order.

If a subscriber’s account is overdue, the System will produce a final notice invoice with a warning message, rather than a normal invoice.

No invoice is sent to prepaid subscribers if the credit balance is sufficient to cover the next month’s charges. If the amount is not sufficient to cover the charges, the System will automatically generate an invoice. The System also has the ability to print invoices on demand and to reprint invoices.

Invoice Printing

There are three methods of processing invoices:

1. The cable system may elect to print the invoices in-house, stuff, seal and mail.
2. Invoices may also be printed in-house but contracted outside with a mailing house for all further processing.
3. Finally, the entire operation can be contracted out.

Pay Plan

The System has the ability to spread out charges that are applied to a subscribers account over a period of time.

As an example, your company charges $150.00 for installation but gives the subscriber the option to spread the charge over a period of five months. Once the Pay Plan is set up and during the End of Day programs, the subscriber will be charged $30.00 a month until the full amount has been charged.

Purchases

In this feature, once all purchasable items, i.e. promotional items such as coffee mugs, hats etc. are entered, the system will charge the correct price, including all applicable taxes.

Security Deposits

This feature allows the CSR to update the System when new security deposits are received. The CSR can make changes to any current data. When a deposit is returned to the subscriber, it can be as a credit to the account or as a check. The System will calculate the interest payable for the amount being returned depending on the return date entered. Access to this feature is based on the security levels set for each user.

Late Charges

Late charges will be applied at time of final notice invoice generation. The System will automatically increase the subscriber balance by an amount previously established in the user-defined parameters.

Late charges may also be defined by System, Division and Community. Each one may be identical and/or specific to the level.

Reports are available on subscribers that have paid their balances or partial balance, after a late charge had been applied to the account, within user defined days after the issuing of the invoice.

Electronic Funds Transfer

Each month the System will generate the necessary credit transactions for EFT’s. We will customise these files to the specific file format, layout and media requirements of your corporate bank. The System allows you to transfer your EFT bank data to personal computer diskettes or to send it directly to the bank via modem. Direct bank payments can be uploaded to the AS/400 and a cash batch will automatically be created.

Cash & Journal Vouchers

The cash and journal voucher input procedures are based on the standard accounting features of batching and batch totals. The System uses a sophisticated batch accounting method, which supports on?line input and has full editing capabilities.

The System allows multiple batches to be in use at any given time. This allows the user to enter cash, cheques, journal vouchers, or other types of payments any time during the day.

Payments and Journal Vouchers can be easily applied to the subscribers account directly from the Subscriber Inquiry screen. The Journal and Cash batches are automatically created by the EC’s. A receipt will be automatically generated for every cash entry.

Batches that have been ‘Cleared’, (edited and corrected), are automatically processed during the end of day procedure, but can be done immediately if the user requests. As it is not necessary to clear a batch immediately after it has been input, the user can enter transactions in advance, if desired.

Multiple Tax Rates

The RR System is installed all over the world. Because of the extreme flexibility of the System, combined with a significant amount of programming, we have been able to accommodate any tax structure, no matter how convoluted and complex the tax structure was, without the need of any additional programming. The tax calculation program in our system is extremely large yet flexible. We can accommodate up to 9 different taxes.

Account Aging

The billing system will do full aging. We will show you reports on aged accounts, cumulative to 210 days. The reports will be produced with your month-end or may be called on demand as needed.

The write-off program has been written to work directly with your collection company or may also be used in house. The users will have options to write off one or multiple accounts at once. The program will also acknowledge receipts of written off money and deal with reversals once the money has been posted to the accounts.

Payment processing and lock box interface parameters

Subscribers are able to pay for their services in a number of ways, including Cash / Cheque, Pre-Approved Checking (PAC) / Credit Card or Post Dated Cheques (PDC).

The CSR may receive and enter payments directly from the subscriber inquiry screen. The payments are inputted as a teller batch entry. This function may be tied into a receipt printer. At the end of the day the CSR will balance her batch to the money received through the day. The CSR will clean her batch. The supervisor will revise the batch then clear the batch. The system will post the batch at end of day. The users will be able to view interactively the data being entered on the system.

The CSR may choose to use the batching program at the end of the day. This allows the CSR to enter each and every entry, one after the other, without accessing the subscriber account. Again, the CSR will have to have a clean batch for her supervisor to clear the batch. The actual function is to confirm that what is being entered on the system is the same as what is deposited in the bank.

The lock box interface works almost the same way. We will write the interface according to the specs supplied by your company. We will, once payment has been received, upload the data to our system and this will automatically create a clean batch. Someone will have to confirm the entry and clear the batch.

Collections – Final Notices

The System automatically tracks all subscribers who have received final notices and have not brought their account up to date. The CSR may record any promise-to-pay date given by the subscriber. The Customer Service Representative creates a single or multiple batch disconnect work order, based on reasons such as failure to pay on the promise date, overdue days, balances etc. The System will then automatically generate the disconnect work orders for each unit.

The system also has the ability to perform ‘Soft Disconnects’ (Service Disconnect) when a subscriber is put on Final Notice and ‘Service Reconnects’ when a subscriber is removed from Final Notice. In both cases, the services to be disconnected must be addressable. Supported features include the ability to prevent Pay Per View ordering if the subscriber has been Service Disconnected.

Collections Module

 This module provides a method of tracking subscriber information as subscribers are put into collection. It automatically sends information to selected collection agencies, monitors collection activities and updates collection agencies with subsequent subscriber information, i.e. payments made, inventory items returned etc.