Rate Change

The Rate Change utility facilitates across-the-board changes to account rates. You can use it, for example, to add 0.05 to the draw charge for all routes in the “City” AAM zone. The utility will change the value of rate codes, which are selected by one or more parameters, including:

district	delivery schedule	account type
route	route type	account rate class
AAM zone	route rate class	draw type
rate code (selected directly)

Using the account rule/rate links, this utility finds all rate codes that meet the entered criteria. For example, if route 07 is entered as the only parameter, the utility will find all rule-rate links for which route 07 qualifies—those with a Route Rule with a route of “07” or “*”. To extend this example, if delivery schedule “DO” were entered along with route 07, only rule/rate links that had both a qualifying Route Rule and qualifying Delivery Rule would be selected.

Once rate codes are picked, the utility will determine if the rate code appears in any other rule/rate links. If the rate code appears in a rule/rate link that the selection parameters do not qualify for, the rate code will not be changed; instead it will be listed in the processing report that is displayed after the rate change is complete.

To run the Rate Change utility:

• Select Rate Change from the Account menu to display the Account Rate Change Utility screen.

  
• Select Add and complete the following fields. It is a good idea to run the utility once with Update set to “n”, verify that the correct rate codes are being selected, and then run it again with Update set to “y”.

  Field	Type	What to enter
  EFFECTIVE DATE	date	Enter the date on which the rate change should take place. Account draw on or after this date will be rated with the new rate.
  PRODUCT	setup	Enter the publication for which you are changing account rates.
  DISTRICT, ROUTE, AAM ZONE, DELIVERY SCHEDULE, ROUTE TYPE, ROUTE RATE CLASS, ACCOUNT TYPE, ACCOUNT RATE CLASS, DRAW TYPE, RATE CODE	setup	In these fields, enter your parameters for selecting rate codes. You can enter a single entity in a field, enter “*” to multi-select entities, or leave blank. Note that Rate Code refers to the account’s rate code (i.e., you will be picking rate codes directly). If multiple entities are entered, an account rating rule will qualify if it matches any of the entities or is “*”. If a field is left blank, it will qualify for all account rating rules.
  CHARGE TYPE	predefined	Indicate whether charge rate codes, credit rate codes, or both charge and credit rate codes should be changed.
  UPDATE	yes/no	Indicate whether rates should be changed. If you enter “n” here, no rate change will be created, but the utility will report which rate codes were selected and if any rate codes had conflicts.
  UPDATE TYPE	predefined	If Update is set to “y”, the New Rate window will open with these additional fields. Indicate whether to adjust or replace the rate codes selected.
  UPDATE AMOUNT	decimal (9)	Enter the rate change amount. If Update Type is “adjust”, the existing rate will be adjusted by this amount (enter “-” to adjust a rate down). If Update Type = “replace”, this will be the new rate. The wholesale rate (what the account is charged or credited) and retail rate (what account taxes are based on) may both be changed.

• Once the rate change amount is entered, select Continue to change the rates. If a rate code is to be changed, the utility will end-date the old rate code record and create a new rate code record with a start date equal to the effective date. After the rate changes are made, a processing report will display the rate codes that were changed and any rate codes that were not changed due to conflicts (i.e., some rule/rate links using the rate code were valid while others were not valid).