CC Invoice Export

Some newspapers print invoices for their carrier collect subscribers, which they give to their carriers. The invoice tells the carrier how much to collect from the subscriber for a particular period. This is useful, for example, in cases where the newspaper wants to extend promotions to carrier collect subscribers, or has a number of carrier collect subscriber rates. CC Invoice Export is the option that produces carrier collect invoices. It writes invoice information to an export file, which can then be imported into a word processor or other system for invoice printing.

There are two basic ways the option can be run:

• Carrier collect invoices can be created for all carrier collect subscribers on routes in the area selected.

• Carrier collect invoices can be created for carrier collect subscribers who have had certain activity before or after a particular date (the billing date) within the period—this is known as “in between” billing. The reason code of a transaction determines whether it should cause a carrier collect invoice to be generated.

Advance vs. Arrears

In order to print carrier collect invoices, the Business Rule, Are carrier collect invoices produced? (Account Finance section), must be set to “y”. The Print CC Invoices field in Route Setup (see Home Delivery Route in the Setup Manual) determines whether invoices will be created for a particular route. And the next field, Bill When, determines whether the invoices are created in arrears or advance. These two terms are also used in account billing, and have a similar meaning:

• If a route prints in arrears, the amount on the carrier collect invoice is based on the subscriber’s draw in the current period. This will be the actual draw for days published, and projected draw for unpublished days (not pending draw—unprocessed transactions will not be taken into account).

• If the route prints in advance, the amount on the carrier collect invoice is based on the subscriber’s projected draw in the next period.

If the actual draw turns out to be different from the projected draw (for example, because of a delivery schedule change or temporary stop), there will not be an adjustment on the next period’s invoice—it is up to the carrier to modify the amount collected accordingly.

Billing Periods and Rates

When it generates invoices, CC Invoice Export will bill carrier collect subscribers for a certain billing period. The amount owed that appears on the invoice will be calculated using the subscriber’s rate, in the same way an office pay subscriber is rated (see About Subscriber Rating for more information).

Billing periods for carrier collect invoices are independent from account billing periods and must be set up in advance, using the CC Invoice Calendar (see CC Invoice Calendar in the Setup Manual). The billing dates themselves must also be set up, on the CC Run Date Calendar (see CC Run Date Calendar in the Setup Manual). Only one billing date should be set up per billing period.

The billing date is entered when CC Invoice Export is run, and indicates the billing period that should be used. The billing date also defines what transactions are picked up when “in between” billings are done—our next topic of discussion.

Before Batch and After Batch Options

As mentioned before, CC Invoice Export can be run to include all carrier collect subscribers (the regular billing) or subscribers with transactions before or after the billing date, based on the reason code of the transaction (“in between” billing). If running an “in between” billing, you can specify whether transactions with transaction dates before the bill date (Before Batch) or after the bill date (After Batch) should be considered.

Whether or not a transaction causes an invoice to be generated is governed by the reason code. Two fields in Reason Code setup, Generate Arrears and Generate Advance, control this (see Reason in the Setup Manual). Generate Arrears is used when CC Invoice Export is run for arrears; Generate Advance is used when this option is run for advance. Each field has four possible settings:

• Before Batch. Transactions with this reason code will cause an invoice to be created if the transaction date is before the bill date and CC Invoices is run with the Before Batch option. The bill will reflect the amount owed from the start of the billing period to the transaction date.

• After Batch. Transactions with this reason code will cause an invoice to be created if the transaction date is after the bill date and CC Invoices is run with the After Batch option. The bill will reflect the amount owed from the transaction date to the end of the billing period or (if running for advance) the end of the next billing period.

• Both. Transactions with this reason code will cause an invoice created in both the “before” and “after” scenarios described above.

• Never. Transactions with this reason code will never cause an invoice to be generated.

Different transaction types will typically have different settings. For example, it makes sense to set a stop reason code to “Before Batch”. Then, if CC Invoices is run before the bill date, an invoice will be printed for the stopped subscriber, and the carrier can collect sooner (before the subscriber moves out of town, for example). In contrast, it makes more sense to set up start reason codes to “After Batch”—this insures that start transactions occurring after the bill date will produce invoices for that period (if you wait until the next bill date, the amount owed in the current period will not be included in the invoice). You may want other transactions, such as reroutes, set to “Both”.

Three common scenarios for “in between” billing are given in the following illustration.

Running CC Invoice Export

To generate carrier collect invoices, follow the procedure below:

• Select CC Invoice Export from the Subscriber menu to display the Carrier Collect Invoice Export window.

• Click Add and complete the following fields.

Field	Type	What to enter
PRODUCT	setup	Enter the product for which you are generating carrier collect invoices.
RUN DATE	date	Enter the billing date for the invoices. This date must be set up in advance on the CC Run Date Calendar. Note that you do not have to be generating the invoices on this date—the run date is simply used to indicate the billing period to use and determine what transactions to include, if this is an “in between” billing.
COLLECTION TYPE	predefined	Indicate whether invoices should be created for routes that bill in arrears (for current billing period) or advance (for the next billing period).
RUN TYPE	predefined	Indicate whether invoices should be created for all subscribers (regular billing), or only subscribers with transactions that have transaction dates before the billing date (before batch) or after the billing date (after batch) and applicable reason codes.
START DATE, END DATE	date	If this is an “in between” billing (i.e., “before batch” or “after batch” are entered in the field above), enter the date range for the billing. Only transactions with transaction dates within this date range will be considered.
SELECTION AREA	predefined	Indicate the area for which you are generating carrier collect invoices. You may pick certain routes, include all routes in an area, region, distribution zone or district, or include all routes.
SELECTION	setup	Enter an area, region, zone, district or route, or enter * to multi-select areas. If you entered “all” above, this field will not open.

• Click OK and then Continue to generate the invoices.

• When processing is complete, the file ccinvddmm (where d=day and m=month) will be created in /dti/exchange/cm. See Appendix B for the format of this file. The Carrier Collect Invoice Export report will be produced, listing information about the process.

Example—Carrier Collect Invoice Export report