UB> Maintenance> Service

Service Maintenance

Summary

The Service Maintenance window is used to create and maintain up to 20 services. When charges are generated on UB customer accounts, the charges are grouped onto a service. A service represents a unique balance on the customer account and the balance of each service will display separately on billing statements. For example, all water service charges are billed using the WATER service. Charges related to other services, such as ELECTRIC or CONNECTION, will display separately on the billing statement. Since the total balance of a UB customer account is divided into separate services, you can have a credit balance in one service and a debit balance in another. Use the Redistribute Credit Balances process (UB> Transactions and Fees> Redistribute Credit) to redistribute the credit balance on a service to services with a debit balances.

Services are attached to customer accounts when they are created using the New Account Wizard and can be attached to existing customer accounts using the Service Rates tab of the Account Master Maintenance window (UB> Maintenance> Account> Service Rates tab). Each service attached to the customer account will display as a separate balance on the Overview tab of the Account Master Maintenance window or when reports are generated. When bills are generated in UB> New Billing, the service rates that will be included in the billing can be filtered by service.

Services will also determine how partial payments are applied to outstanding balances. When partial payments are received, the payment priority set up on the Payment Priority field on the Payment tab of the Setup window (UB> Utilities> Setup) will determine how the partial payment is applied. If Age then Priority is selected, the partial payment will be applied to the oldest debt first. If the partial payment covers all of the old debts, then the partial payment will be applied to the service with the highest priority that has the same age. If Priority then Age is selected, the partial payment will be applied to the service with the highest payment priority first. Payments will be applied to the oldest debts within that service first. The payment priority of a service is set up in the Service Maintenance window.

After services have been created in UB> Maintenance> Services, service rates can be attached to services in UB> Maintenance> Service Rates. The service rates will determine the rate that will be applied to the consumption on a meter, minimum billing amount, and how the billing will prorate or average.

Click here for an overview of bill types.

Step by Step

2 Create a new service.

Click the Create icon to create a new service. This will add a new line to the left section of the Service Maintenance window.

You are limited to 20 services. If you have already created 20 services you will not be able to add a new one.

Enter a Service Number. Service numbers are limited to two digit numeric characters.

The Service Number must be unique and between 1 and 20 because you are limited to a total of 20 services. The service number cannot be 00.

Enter a Service Name that is up to 20 alphanumeric characters long.
Enter a Service Abbreviation that is up to eight alphanumeric characters. The Service abbreviation will show up on some reports instead of the Service Name.
When partial payments are received the entries in the Payment Priority field and Pay First toggle will determine how the partial payment is distributed among the service rates. The age of the bill is also taken into consideration.
- Enter a number in the Payment Priority field to prioritize the order that services are paid off with partial payments. A service with a Payment Priority of 00 will have partial payments applied to it first if all the other unpaid bills are the same age.
- Check the Pay First toggle if you want this service to be paid off in full prior to distributing the remaining dollars of a partial payment to other services. If a partial payment is being applied to a bill with two services that are both set up as Pay First, the partial payment will first be applied to the Pay First service with the lower Payment Priority.
Enter an Overpayment Percentage amount. The Overpayment Percentage field is used to distribute overpayments to services based on a fixed percentage. In order to use this feature, Fixed Percentage must be selected from the Overpayment Distribution field (UB> Utilities> Utility Billing Setup> Payment tab).

When an overpayment is entered, the amount of the overpayment will be applied to the services on the customer account based on the proportion of the overpayment percentages. For example, if there are two services on the account (water = .25, electric = .50), 33% of the overpayment will be applied to the water service and 66% will be applied to the electric service.

Enter a Service Group or click the field label to select one from a list.
- Service groups are used to group services together and are created and maintained on the Service Group Maintenance window (UB> Maintenance> Service Group). Click here for information on Service Group Maintenance.
Click the Save icon to save the service.
- Services can be attached to customer accounts using the Account Master Maintenance window (UB> Maintenance> Account> Service Rates tab). Services are attached to new customer accounts when they are created using the New Account Wizard. You can add the service to an account template (UB> Maintenance> Account Template) if the service is regularly attached to new UB customer accounts.