Billing 💰

Billing is a system for accounting for financial relationships with clients, including various types of financial documents. This seemingly whimsical set of terms and their relationships is absolutely necessary for your business's financial system to be stable and for balances to always be reconcilable. The time spent understanding it is the best investment 😎.

Billing includes:

• Payments
• Invoices - an accounting document confirming the provision of services and their cost.
• Refunds - sometimes money will need to be returned.
• Transfers - sometimes they ask to transfer the remaining balance to another client so it's not lost.
• Charges
• Cash Registers

Balance 🔮

The billing system is very similar in operation to mobile phone operator billing. At the center of the system is the client's balance. We top it up with payments, which can be made in various ways (via bank, cash register, ERIP, other payment systems). Then, funds are debited from the client's balance for various services: SMS, calls, internet. In the statement at the end of the month, we can find out how many calls and SMS we made and how much each service cost. Each service individually debits the required amount from the balance.

In our system, based on the programs the client is enrolled in, invoices are issued (accounts) and have an open status. Subsequently, if the client has sufficient funds in their balance, money is debited from the balance, closing the corresponding invoices. The balance decreases by the amount of the closed invoices.

The billing project covers all possible variants of financial interaction with a client, while remaining quite transparent and structured. No matter what happens, it's always possible to figure it out.

The approximate billing scheme is shown in the figure below and includes:

Balance 🔮

The billing system is very similar in operation to mobile phone operator billing. At the center of the system is the client's balance. We top it up with payments, which can be made in various ways (via bank, cash register, ERIP, other payment systems). Then, funds are debited from the client's balance for various services: SMS, calls, internet. In the statement at the end of the month, we can find out how many calls and SMS we made and how much each service cost. Each service individually debits the required amount from the balance.

In our system, based on the programs the client is enrolled in, invoices are issued (accounts) and have an open status. Subsequently, if the client has sufficient funds in their balance, money is debited from the balance, closing the corresponding invoices. The balance decreases by the amount of the closed invoices.

If there are insufficient funds on the balance, the balance can be topped up by making payments or a transfer from another client.

Balance can be increased by:

• Payments (cash, bank, ERIP, etc.). In theory, this can be one large payment, a thousand small ones, a separate payment for each program the client attends. All payments will increase the balance by the payment amount.
• Transfer from another client.

Balance can be decreased by:

• Charges from the client's balance to close an invoice;
• Refunding money to the client through the cash register;
• Transferring to another client;

Invoices 🎓

The second cornerstone of the system is Invoices.

The equivalent of a provided service (program subscription, 4 individual speech therapy lessons, etc.) in our system is an invoice (bill), or more precisely, a closed invoice. An invoice must be issued for each program monthly. The system does this automatically on the 25th of each month for the next academic month. If an invoice is missing, it must be issued manually. Thus, a person attending 3 programs should have 3 invoices issued monthly at the price of the respective programs (see the Invoices section). However, invoices are issued in an open state.

After a client has invoices, the system attempts to close them daily. An invoice can only be closed if there is enough money on the balance. If there is insufficient money, it indicates the need to increase the client's balance with payments or a payment. Thus, the client's balance is a chest that the client must replenish to subsequently take money from it to receive services.

Real-Life Example 🤦‍♂️

Ivanov Vasily attends chess and English. On the 25th, two invoices for the next month will be automatically issued to him at the monthly subscription prices for these programs. For example: Invoice #1 for chess - 80 rubles, #2 for English - 100 rubles. Total 180 rubles. To close these invoices, he must top up his balance by 180 rubles. However, the top-up does not depend on us. He can top up by 500, which is more than necessary, in which case all invoices will be closed and 320 rubles will remain on the balance for the next month. He can pay 180 rubles and all invoices will be closed and the balance will be 0. Or he can pay 5 rubles daily for 32 payments (that's what he wants) 🤪. In this case, the system will try to close the invoices for which there is enough money daily: first, when there is enough money, the cheapest one for 80 rubles will be closed, then the one for 100 rubles, etc. However, until the invoice is closed, the difference between the balance and the sum of the issued invoices will be displayed for the client.

After all of Vasily's invoices are closed, our financial relationship for this month can be considered settled, and we can freely provide him with services and lessons. Any negative balance will indicate that Vasily has underpaid something and requires attention from the administrator.

💡 Important 📢

Regardless of which branches or programs our client attends, they have one balance.

Errors and Their Resolution

We all make mistakes 🐞 and that's normal. Such errors appear quite rarely, but they happen... We have foreseen the possibility of human errors at all stages, so the system includes mechanisms to solve such problems.

1. Incorrect payment - if the payment is less than required, make another payment for the missing amount; if the payment is more than required, make a refund.
2. Incorrect refund - if the refund is less than required, return the missing amount with another refund; if the refund is more than required, make a payment.
3. Incorrect transfer - make a reverse transfer;
4. Incorrect open invoice amount - cancel the invoice and issue a new invoice for the correct amount.
5. Incorrect closed invoice amount. A closed invoice indicates that a debit has occurred, meaning the client's balance has decreased by the invoice amount. Simply canceling the invoice in this case will not work, and the system will not allow it. However, it can still be canceled. Users with a high level of access (director, admin) can do this, which will generate a new correcting document called a correction. This will result in the return of funds to the client's balance equal to the invoice amount. After this, a new invoice for the correct amount must be issued and closed from the balance.