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| <section xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" version="5.0" |
| xmlns:xl="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude" |
| xsi:schemaLocation="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook ../../../content/dtd/docbook.xsd" |
| xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"> |
| <title>Billing Accounts.</title> |
| <para>A billing account is a way of allowing customers to consolidate several invoices into an |
| account that is paid off at a later date.Customers can be allocated a credit limit and |
| orders can be taken up to the value of the credit limit without any payment being made. |
| Statements to the customer can then be generated (eg monthly) and payment is made based on |
| the outstanding amount.</para> |
| <para>NOTE: A billing account does not change the flow of the normal Invoice and Payment |
| processes. It simply allows for a more structured organisation of Invoices and |
| Payments..</para> |
| <para>Billing Accounts can be used for the following:</para> |
| <para> |
| <itemizedlist> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Setting credit limits for customers</para> |
| </listitem> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Keeping track of credit available to customer for purchase on account</para> |
| </listitem> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Keeping track of payments made in advance (NOTE TO CHECK: Could also use |
| Financial Account for advance payments but need to understand the differences in |
| functionality and process) </para> |
| </listitem> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Keeping track of a subset of payments and invoices for a specific client, i.e. |
| allowing them to have multiple billing accounts (NOTE TO CHECK: This is from |
| David - does this mean having multiple accounts for one customer or does it mean |
| one billing account can track a hierarchy of invoices and payments.....)</para> |
| </listitem> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Allow multiple authorised parties to bill against the same account which one |
| party is responsible for paying (e.g. different offices of the same organisation |
| may have one single account with a supplier to make use of order volume |
| discounts)</para> |
| </listitem> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Managing and generating customer statements ??</para> |
| </listitem> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Customer specific order tracking</para> |
| </listitem> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Accounts Receivable / Debt Management</para> |
| </listitem> |
| <listitem> |
| <para>Analysis and monitoring customer spending (creditworthiness / discounts / |
| product popularity ???)</para> |
| </listitem> |
| </itemizedlist> |
| </para> |
| <para>NOTE: A payment that is applied (or matched) to a Billing Account it should still be |
| applied to an invoice. In the case where the payment arrives before the invoice has been |
| generated then once the invoice is generated it should be applied to the payment or |
| payments. </para> |
| <xi:include href="HELP_ACCOUNTING_FindBillingAccount.xml"/> |
| <xi:include href="HELP_ACCOUNTING_EditBillingAccount.xml"/> |
| <xi:include href="HELP_ACCOUNTING_EditBillingAccountRoles.xml"/> |
| <xi:include href="HELP_ACCOUNTING_EditBillingAccountTerms.xml"/> |
| <xi:include href="HELP_ACCOUNTING_BillingAccountInvoices.xml"/> |
| <xi:include href="HELP_ACCOUNTING_BillingAccountPayments.xml"/> |
| <xi:include href="HELP_ACCOUNTING_BillingAccountOrders.xml"/> |
| </section> |