Charges on customers

Adding a service charge

Service charges can be added manually to a customer, either in conjunction with pre-created products or without.

To get started we need to head to a respective customer’s charges screen, which you can access by clicking on the Customers menu item in the left-hand navigation and then the Customers sub-menu link, selecting an applicable customer and then clicking Charges in the customer sub-menu at the top of the screen.

To add a new charge from the Charges screen, click the Add Charge button at the top-right of the screen.

This will take you to the Create New Charge wizard.

Step 1 - What to apply

What type of charge?

Field	Description
Type	Use this field to select between whether to base this charge off of a pre-created product you’ve created or to create a completely bespoke charge from scratch.

Step 2 - Charge Details*

Details

Field	Description
Product (if Type is Product Catalogue)	Select which Product to use as a template for this charge. When selected, a variety of fields in the charge wizard will be automatically completed based on the selected products details.
Description	The name of the product or service.
Details (Optional)	This field allows you to add additional details such as references, account codes etc.. Anything you put in this field will appear beside the charge in your customer’s invoices.

Type of charge

Field	Description
Type	Choose between whether the charge only occurs once or if it’s a recurring charge that occurs at a regular interval.
Frequency (if Type is Recurring)	This is how often the service charge should be applied.

Step 3 - Pricing

Base Pricing

Field	Description
Quantity	The quantity of charge you wish to assign to the customer.
Sell Price	The price you want this customer to pay for the product or service. If you selected a product as the basis of this charge, this price will correspond to the applicable tariff of pricing for this product’s category OR it will fall back to the product’s base-line sell price if no such tariff price exists on the product.
Sell Price is inclusive of Tax	Check this option if the value you've entered into Sell Price already includes tax. Billingbooth will then factor this in when calculating invoices.
Buy Price	The cost to you to provide this product or service.

Dates

Field	Description
Start Date	This is the date the charge will start from.
Pro Rata Start Date (Optional and only if Type is Recurring)	This allows you to synchronise your charge to your billing cycle in conjunction with the charge start date. For more information see Pro rata charges.
Termination Date (Optional and only if Type is Recurring)	This allows you to specify a date where the charge will end, this can be used for limited time pricing or just to ensure a customer only has this charge for a certain time period. You’re able to assign a Termination Date after you’ve created the charge against the customer.

With all the fields filled out, you now have the option of clicking Create Charge or Create Charge & Edit.

The Create Charge button will create the charge as is and return you to the Charges listings screen.

The Create Charge & Edit button will also create the charge, but will then take you to that newly created charge’s edit screen where you now have the ability to enter additional information to flesh out the charge.

Additional Information

If you amend a charge you have created, you will see that the information for the charge is now split between five tabs: General, Pricing, Categories, Dates and Accountancy.

The two tabs with information that are new from the creation process are Categories and Accountancy:

Categories

Field	Description
Category	The category you would like to group this product or service under. When you first create an account you have a base set of categories: Cloud, Data, Mobile and Voice. Clicking on the Create one link below the Category field will take you to the Category screen where you’re able to manage your categories.
Supplier	This field allows you to designate the supplier of the product, which can be utilised to filter product lists and is also used for a range of analytics. As with Category, clicking on the Create one link below the Supplier field will take you to the Supplier screen where you’re able to manage your suppliers.

Accountancy

Field	Description
Nominal Account (Optional)	This field is where you can enter the nominal account your third-party accountancy packages such as Sage, Xero etc. would use.

Once you’re done with your changes, simply click the Save Changes button to commit the amendments you’ve made.