Help:SM1-Regular Storage Billing
This window titled Regular Storage Billing is used to run the cyclical storage billing. The storage billing is designed to be run twice per month. The Advance and None accruals are billed at the beginning of the month. The Behind (Arrears) accruals are billed at the end of the month. Since this program maintains deferred receivable and deferred earnings accounts, the cyclical storage billing process also processes the transfer of this deferred revenue and receivable amounts into the proper months and accounts, as well as printing the invoices for the Storage Lots which get invoices for the month.
Storage Account: Enter the Storage Account to be billed. Each Storage Account must be billed separately as the individual storage accounts may use different Invoice Formats. The Storage Account name will be displayed to the right of this field. Press the {?} to the right of this field to open a window titled Select Storage Account which displays a listing of the current Storage Accounts.
Last Date of Storage Billing for Advance Accruals/Behind Accruals: These are informational fields only which display the last dates that the Advance and Behind accruals were processed for the selected Storage Account. These are reminders so that you do not accidentally attempt to process storage billing duplicate times for the same month and especially to prevent you from skipping the storage billing process for any month.
Billing Operation: Point your mouse cursor to the radio button for the desired Billing Operation and left-click your mouse one time to select that option. Following is an explanation of the available Billing Operation options:
Advance Accruals and None This selection will process all of the storage lots with an Accrual method of Advance or None. This type of storage billing is usually processed at the beginning of each month. Following is a brief explanation of how the Storage Manager will bill storage lots designated with an Accrual method of Advance or None:
Advance Accruals - This type is used where storage is actually billed in advance. The total billing is added to the Accounts Receivable, but only one month is placed into Revenue. The difference between the amount billed and the first month's revenue is placed into a Deferred Earnings account. Each Month when the "Non-Billing" months are processed, one month's revenue is added to Revenue and removed from the Deferred Earnings Account.
For example, a storage lot set up as Accrual=Advance and Frequency=Quarterly with a monthly billing amount of 10.00 would be billed as follows:
Month A/R Deferred Earnings Revenue 1 30.00 -20.00 -10.00 2 0.00 10.00 -10.00 3 0.00 10.00 -10.00
None (No Accrual) - This type does not perform any accruals. It allows the full calculated billing amount to be posted to the appropriate Accounts Receivable account and to the Revenue account in the first month of the selected Billing Frequency. For example, a storage lot with a Billing Frequency of Semi-Annual and an Accrual of None would record the entire billing amount for six months in the appropriate Accounts Receivable account and in the appropriate Revenue account in the first month of the semi-annual cycle for that storage lot. When the storage billing is processed for the remaining five months of that semi-annual cycle, there would be no further general ledger entries for that storage lot.
For example, a storage lot set up as Accrual=None and Frequency=Quarterly with a monthly billing amount of 10.00 would be billed as follows:
Month A/R Revenue 1 30.00 -30.00 2 0.00 0.00 3 0.00 0.00
Behind Accruals: This selection will process all of the storage lots with an Accrual method of Behind. This type is used where storage is actually billed in arrears. This is the case with the Military Non-Temp Storage which is billed at the end of the quarter. This type of storage billing is usually processed at the end of each month.
During each of the "non-billing" months, one month's revenue is added to the appropriate Revenue account and to a Deferred Receivable account. When the storage billing is processed and actually billed, the amount is removed from the Deferred Receivable account and added to the appropriate Accounts Receivable account. Following is a brief explanation of how the Storage Manager will bill storage lots designated with an Accrual method of Behind:
For example, a storage lot set up as Accrual=Behind and Frequency=Quarterly with a monthly billing amount of 10.00 would be billed as follows:
Month A/R Deferred Receivable Revenue 1 0.00 10.00 -10.00 2 0.00 10.00 -10.00 3 30.00 -20.00 -10.00
Invoice Date: Enter the date on which the storage invoices are to be issued. This is usually the beginning of the month for Advance accruals and the end of the month for Behind accruals. NOTE: Press the [?] to the right of this field to activate a pop-up calendar which can be used to select the date. Once a date has been selected, the up/down arrows to the right of this field can be used to move the date up or down one day at a time.
This Month's Storage From/To: Enter the beginning and ending dates for the month's storage to be billed. The computer will determine the proper ending dates for the bi-monthly, quarterly, semi-annual and annual billings based on the Storage From date. NOTE: Press the [?] to the right of these fields to activate a pop-up calendar which can be used to select the date. Once a date has been selected, the up/down arrows to the right of this field can be used to move the date up or down one day at a time.
Posting Month/Year: Enter the Calendar Month/Year in which the billing transactions for this month should be recorded. This is usually the same as the month and year of the Invoice Date.
Deferred Receivable G/L #: Enter the general ledger Asset account to which the Behind Accruals should be posted. The name of the selected account will be displayed to the right of this field. This field will be active if the Billing Operation selected above is Behind Accruals. Press the {?} to the right of this field to open a window titled Select an Active and Restricted General Ledger Account which displays a listing of the Active and Restricted general ledger accounts.
Deferred Earnings G/L #: Enter the general ledger Liability account to which the Advance Accruals will be posted. The name of the selected account will be displayed to the right of this field. This field will be active if the Billing Operation selected above is Advance Accruals and None. Press the {?} to the right of this field to open a window titled Select an Active and Restricted General Ledger Account which displays a listing of the Active and Restricted general ledger accounts.
Output Order for Invoices: Point your mouse cursor to the radio button for the desired Output Order and left-click your mouse one time to select that option. Storage invoices may be printed in four different sort orders, based on fields found in the Storage Lot Master File as explained below:
Lot Number - Invoices will print based on the the Lot Number field Alternate Key - Invoices will print based on the Alternate Key field Sort-Locator - Invoices will print based on the Sort-Locator field
Customer Number - Invoices will print based on the Customer field
Past Due Date: Enter the date which is considered past due for all unpaid balances forward. Any invoice with a Date Started date (obtained from the Storage From date when the invoice was billed), which is on or before this Past Due Date will be subject to the finance charge calculation. To completely immobilize the finance charge calculation, enter 00/00/0000 in this date. NOTE: Press the [?] to the right of this field to activate a pop-up calendar which can be used to select the date. Once a date has been selected, the up/down arrows to the right of this field can be used to move the date up or down one day at a time.
Finance Charge Percentage: Enter the monthly periodic percentage rate of the finance charge which you assess on unpaid balances due, if applicable. This rate will be applied to the unpaid balance due on those storage lots which have a check in the Finance Charge field in the Storage Lot Master File. The Monthly Periodic Rate is the Annual Percentage Rate (APR) divided by 12. So, an APR of 18.00% would have a Monthly Periodic Rate of 18.00% / 12 or 1.50%. NOTE: This field will default to the Finance Charge Percentage as found in the Storage Account File for the selected Storage Account; however, you may override this percentage, if necessary.
Minimum Finance Charge: Enter the Minimum Finance Charge, if applicable. This amount will become the finance charge if the calculated finance charge is less than this amount. NOTE: This field will default to the Minimum Finance Charge as found in the Storage Account File for the selected Storage Account; however, you may override this percentage, if necessary.
Finance Charge G/L #: Enter the general ledger account (revenue or expense, depending on how your company wants to account for these finance charges in their financial statements) to which the finance charge revenue should be posted. The name of the selected account will be displayed to the right of this field. Press the {?} to the right of this field to open a window titled Select an Active and Not Restricted General Ledger Account which displays all of the Active but Not Restricted general ledger accounts. NOTE: This field will default to the Finance Charge G/L# as found in the Storage Account File for the selected Storage Account; however, you may override this general ledger account number, if necessary.
[ Begin ] Press this button to begin the Storage Billing Process. Once you press this button, the Storage Billing Process cannot be stopped. The following data files are updated by the Process Storage Billing operation:
Recurring Storage Detail File (SM1D03) Storage Billing Journal (SM1D04 & SM1D05) Invoice Master and Detail Files (SM1D06, SM1D07 & SM1D08) A/R Master and Detail Files (AR1D04, AR1D05 & AR1D06) Customer YTD Amounts File (AR1D08) Batch Control File (GL1D09)
General Ledger Detail History (GL1D04) General Ledger YTD Amounts (GL1D02) Job Cost Files (JM1D02 & JM1D03) Vehicle Profitability Files (VM1D02 & VM1D03) Commission Detail File (CM1D02)
[ Cancel ] Press this button to close this window and return to the previous window without running this Process Storage Billing operation. This button will be disabled once the [Begin] button has been pressed.
Records Read: This is an informational field only which displays the total number of records read during this operation.
Batch Assigned: This is an informational field only which displays the batch number assigned to this batch of storage billing invoices.
File: This is an informational field only which displays various messages during this operation.
Total Entries: This is an informational field only which displays the total entries created by this operation.
Total Billing: This is an informational field only which displays the total billing created by this operation.
[ OK ] This button will become available after this Process Storage Billing operation has completed. Press this button to close this window and return to the previous window.
[ Help ] Press this button (if available) or the F1 key to view the Help text for this window.
