Set up billing periods and manage invoices

After verifying and approving visits, you are ready to start billing. The first step in the billing workflow is to create a billing period, which sets the frequency you wish to bill for in the invoice generation step (which comes after). A billing period allows you to create a timeline that groups visits and billable items. Within ACC, the billing period is based on set frequencies to prevent gaps between billing periods and missed visits.

The billing module features an invoicing engine that allows for billable items to be split between multiple bill-to parties according to the rules set on a payor program, as well as master and individual invoice screens, and the ability to view information about errors during invoice generation background jobs so that you can action them.

• Create a billing period
  • Create a billing period from an existing one
  • Search for a billing period
  • Billing period options from the grid 
• Generating invoices and reviewing the invoice list
• Reviewing individual invoices
• Adding miscellaneous charges
• Reviewing the billable items on an invoice
• Sending (confirming) an invoice
• Adding a transaction to an invoice

Video overviews

Create a billing period

Billing periods are created by branch and billing frequency. There can be no overlap between periods in terms of branch and frequency.

1. Go to Accounting > Billing > Billing Period. 

2. Select +Create Billing Period.  

3. In the dialog, fill in the required and appropriate form fields. 

• Please note the Start Date can only be set on the first period created for the billing frequency (of the same branch).
• If a billing period already exists for the billing frequency selected, the Start Date will be set to the End Date of the previous billing period plus one day.

• Explanation of each field:

Form field	How to configure
Branch	Select the branch.
Billing Frequency	Select the billing frequency. Only billable items with this frequency will appear in the billing period. For example, if you choose a one-week billing frequency, only items set to bill weekly will be included in that billing period.
Funder	Select one or more funder(s). If you use Electronic Billing, the list of funders in this field is filtered by the billing frequency you select. Please note that if "Funder Type" is selected, this filter will not be available.
Funder Type	Select one or more funder type(s). Please note that if "Funder" is selected, this filter will not be available.
Client Group	Select one or more client group(s).
Back Billing Date	Select a back billing date. Billable items before this date will not be pulled into the billing period. All unbilled items will be pulled in if the back billing date is not selected.
Start Date	Select the start date of the billing period.
End Date	Select the end date of the billing period.
Invoice Date	Select the invoice date, the date transactions will be posted to your general ledger and subledger.
Description	Enter a description for the billing period.

4. If you are creating a billing period with Billable Item Management and are using payor filters, you have the option to confirm the billing period creation and generate an invoice at the same time, by selecting Save and Generate. Otherwise, you can select Save from the dropdown instead. 

Create a billing period from an existing one

Users can create a new billing period based on an existing one by selecting Create Next from the line item's dropdown and then adjusting the fields in the dialog as necessary.

The billing period you create will automatically preserve the filters from the initial billing period (e.g. branch, billing frequency, funder, funder type, client group). Dates will be appropriately applied to the new billing period based on the frequency and dates of the initial period.

Search for a billing period

To view and search for billing periods, use the filtering options on the grid by selecting the icon. Any filters marked by the + symbol are multi-select, meaning you choose multiple options within that specific filter. 

Billing period options from the grid

Click the downward arrow next to View if you need to Edit or Delete the billing period, or select Restrict New Shifts if you wish to restrict new visits from being created in the billing period. You may also be able to select Aggregate Exports if a billing export is configured for your environment. Selecting this option for the billing period will allow you to view billing exports that have already been run for the billing period and create new billing exports.

Note that you can only edit the most recent billing period for the branch and frequency. You can edit the invoice date and end date as well as start date (if it is the first billing period for the branch and frequency) as long as there are no invoices for the billing period yet. If invoices have already been generated for the billing period, you will not be able to edit it.

You can only delete a billing period if invoices have not yet been generated for the period and it is the most recent billing period of that billing frequency for the agency or branch. 

The status in the Background Job column refers to the status of invoice generation and regeneration processes. If a status of FAILED or PARTIAL SUCCESS is displayed, you can click the   icon to view more details.

The Background Job Report dialogue will provide more information about the client and specific error that caused the job to fail.

Generating invoices and reviewing the invoice list

When you are ready to proceed with the invoicing process, click View to open the billing period. Note that if your organization is multi-office, the application will switch to the branch associated with the billing period and filter content accordingly.

Clicking View will open the Visits tab within the billing period. From here, you can approve all visits and premiums included in the billing period and resolve any unscheduled visits from the Unscheduled Visits tab.

When you have finished approving source items, click on the Invoices tab and select Generate Invoices. This action will queue a background job to generate invoices for any billable items for the billing frequency that have not yet been invoiced.

Once you click to generate the invoices for the approved source items, the system will check each billable item in a billing period to see if it is associated with a payor program configured on the client's profile or uses single payor as the funding methodology. If the item is tied to a program, the system will check to see how the item should be billed according to the benefit rules set on the program. The rates applied to each item  will be determined by the rating funder selected for the service or client billing premium.

If the status of the generation background job is PARTIAL SUCCESS or FAILED an info icon will appear next to the status. Click the icon to view the background job report and identify which programs caused errors during invoice generation.

Once the generation background job has finished, the invoices list will display the Invoice number and version, Client name, Payor, Funder methodology (long-term care insurance,  single payor, co-payment, etc.), Program name (applicable only for multi-payor programs), Master invoice ID (applicable only for multi-payor programs), invoice Status, current Balance, and Total amount billed for each individual invoice in the billing period.

You can filter this list by Invoice number, Client name, Invoice status, Client group, Program name, Funder methodology, Bill-to party, Master invoice ID, and Balance amount range. By default, the list will filter to all statuses other than Void and Deleted.

At the top of the list, you will see action buttons to Create PDFs, Download PDFs, Void, Send (Confirm)*, Delete, and Regenerate invoices. You can use these buttons to perform the following bulk actions on invoices in this list:

• Create PDFs: this action button allows you to create a PDF file of the invoices that can then be downloaded or emailed from AlayaCare. The templates available for these PDFs are the AlayaCare standard invoice and AlayaCare standard invoice with summary page.

• Download PDFs: after you have created a PDF file for an invoice, you can download it to save or send outside of AlayaCare. When downloading invoice PDFs in bulk, you can choose to download the invoices as either a single PDF file or as individual files in a zip folder.

• Void: this action button allows you to void the sales transactions associated with the selected sent (confirmed) invoices and change their status to void.

• Send (confirm): this action button allows you to mark the selected draft invoices as sent (confirmed) to indicate that they ready to send to the payors. A sales transaction for each invoice will be created in the subledger.

• Delete invoices: this action button allows you to delete any selected draft invoices from the billing period.

• Regenerate invoices: this action button allows you to delete the selected draft invoices and re-run the background job to account for any changes to the source items. The version number of the invoice will be indicated in the invoice number for the individual draft invoices.

When choosing one of the bulk actions, any invoices that the selected action cannot be applied to will be filtered out (for example, only invoices in draft status can be deleted, sent (confirmed), or regenerated, and only sent/invoices can be voided). Any filters that you selected will remain in effect when applying the actions (for example, if you filtered for a specific client and then selected Create PDFs, only PDFs will only be created for that client’s invoices).

After clicking the action button, you will be able to select which invoices you wish to perform the action by checking the box next to the invoice you wish to include or clicking the box in the top left corner to select all. Then click the blue action button.

To perform actions on a specific invoice, click the downward arrow next to View. For invoices with a status of draft, you have the option to Send (Confirm), Delete, Regenerate, or Create PDF. For invoices that have been sent (confirmed), you have the option to Void. None of these actions can be performed from this list on invoices with a status of deleted, paid, written off, void, or copy.

Keep in mind that clicking Generate Invoices again will create new invoices for any billable items with a single payor or multi-payor program funder methodology with the billing frequency that do not have invoices in the billing period yet and create new invoices for any newly approved items that have sent invoices for that billing period. It will not modify any existing draft invoices. If you have newly approved source items that should be included on an existing draft invoice in the billing period, you should select Regenerate rather than Generate Invoices.

Reviewing individual invoices

To review the individual invoices, click View invoice for the master invoice you wish to review. Note that a single invoice will open if the funding methodology for the billable items is single payor, and a master invoice view will open for other payor programs.

This action will open a screen that displays the invoice status, Billing period summary, Payor program summary, and Invoice details for the bill-to parties along with a list of all billable items included on the invoices.

Multi-payor program example:

Single payor example:

Payor programs only: the status of a master invoice depends on the status of all invoices for that client and program. If all the invoices have the same status (draft, deleted, sent (confirmed), paid, written off, or void), then that will be the status displayed in the Invoices list. If at least one of the invoices has a status of paid, written off, or copy, then the master invoice status is sent. Note that the master invoice cannot have a status of copy.

Depending on the status of the master invoice, different action buttons will be available (delete, send (confirm), and regenerate if draft and void if sent). Create PDFs will be available for invoices of all statuses. Note that if you use these buttons, the actions will be performed on the invoices for both the payor and the guarantor (in other words, you cannot delete/regenerate/send a single invoice from these buttons).

Important note: if you select Create PDF at the master invoice or individual invoice level, you will not be able to download your exprot from this screen. You must go back to the invoice list and select the Download PDFs button to retrieve the files you created. Our team is currently looking at improving this workflow.

In the Invoice details section, you will see invoice details listed for all invoices generated (one or more depending on whether there is a single payor or multiple payors). The Invoice number and Payor/Guarantor name, Invoice amount, Amount due along with any Payments and Adjustments for the payor/guarantor will be listed. If the invoices have been regenerated to account for any changes to the source items, the version number will be indicated in the invoice numbers (53 v.0, 53 v.1, etc.).

Adding miscellaneous charges

For invoices in draft status, you will be able to add miscellaneous charges to individual invoices from the Invoice details section. To add a charge, click the Add misc. charge button.

For single payor invoices, the button will appear at the top of the screen:

In the Add misc. charge dialogue, enter a Description of the charge being added. This description will appear on the invoice.

Select a Reference date, GL revenue account, and if applicable, a Cost centre. The reference date will be the date shown for the charge on the invoice. Note that only dates within the current billing period can be select. The Cost centre field will only be displayed if cost centres are configured for your organization.

Enter the Quantity and Rate of the charge. The quantity must be above 0 and can contain up to 2 decimals. Once entered, the Sub-total (excluding taxes) will appear below.

Finally, select one or more Tax that should apply on the charge if necessary. The taxes available to select will correspond to the taxes available in the branch that the payor program belongs to. The Total taxes and Total amount of the charge (including taxes) will appear in the corresponding fields.

When you have finished, click Save. The charge will be added to a Miscellaneous charges list in the Invoice billable items section.

Note that for co-contribution payor programs, the contributions will be listed as miscellaneous charges of type automatic.

Reviewing the billable items on an invoice

In the Invoice billable items section, the billable items will be divided into billed items and split billed items depending on whether the item is covered by a single party or divided among multiple parties.

The Type, Reference ID, Service date, Scheduled time, Employee (if applicable), Quantity, Rate, Service description, Payor(s), Amount, and Total cost charged will be listed for each item. You will also be able to click on a hyperlink for the billable item in the Ref ID field to view more details about the visit or premium.

For Billed items covered by a payor program on a draft invoice, you can edit which party should be billed for the item by clicking the pencil icon. You will then be able to choose either the payor on a policy/contract or the guarantor as the payor.

For Split billed items covered by a payor program on a draft invoice, you can edit how much of the item’s total cost should be paid by each payor on the program and the guarantor by clicking the pencil icon in the Payor column. You will then be able to enter the amount toward the item’s total cost that each of the payor(s) on the program and the guarantor should be billed.

Sending (confirming) an invoice

If you are ready to finalize the invoice/master invoice, select the Send (confirm) button.

In the dialogue, select Send to confirm the invoice.

Once you confirm an invoice, a corresponding sales transaction will be created in the subledger.

Adding a transaction to an invoice

Once you have sent (confirmed) an invoice, you can add additional transactions to it as necessary.

Note that you must be in a role that has the Manage transactions ACL to view the +Add transaction button.

To add a transaction ( to an invoice, select the +Add transaction button. For single payor invoices, this button will be found at the top of the page.

For payor program invoices, the button can be found at the individual payor invoice level.

In the dialogue, select the transaction Type (payment, write-off, or credit note) and complete the required fields. When you have finished, click Save.

After saving, the invoice balance will be updated to reflect the transaction.

*Important note about billing terminology

Over the next few months, AlayaCare will be changing the term for finalizing an invoice and creating a sales transaction in the subledger from send to confirm in the new billing module. The invoice status sent will gradually be replaced with confirmed in order to avoid confusion over whether an invoice has been successfully emailed from the application with the upcoming introduction of bulk invoice emailing. During the transition phase, both words will be displayed in the interface to start familiarizing users with the new term. For example, in the new billing periods the invoice status sent is displayed as sent (confirmed) and the send action button will appear as send (confirm).