Aggregate bills

The Bill Run Schedule task applies special rules when generating bills for aggregate accounts.

For example, a property owner might have multiple utility accounts for different locations. To simplify the management of the customer's accounts, you can create a single aggregate master account, with the utility accounts as sub accounts.

You can then create a master bill for the master account that consolidates the charges from the sub bills for the sub accounts. Sub bills and master bills can be created separately or in the same bill run.

Sub bills are created following the standard bill generation process for service-based accounts. If an account is a sub account, then the bill that is generated for it is marked as a sub bill, with a status of Queued. Because the sub bills are queued, they are excluded from penalty and delinquency processing.

When a bill is created for the master account, the sub bills are linked to the master bill, and the status of each sub bill changes to Aggregated. The due date and delinquent date of each sub bill are then updated to match the dates from the master bill. The penalty date and discount expire date of each sub bill are recalculated based on the due date.

These columns in the BILL table identify aggregate master and sub bills:

  • AGGREGATEBILLKEY: Used to link sub bills to master bills.
  • AGGREGATESTATUS: Specifies the status of a sub bill. Can be A (aggregated), D (disassociated), or Q (queued).
  • AGGREGATETYPE: Indicates whether a bill is an aggregate bill. M indicates a master bill. S indicates a sub bill.