In industries where customer charges are calculated based on the number of days in a billing cycle, proration is a critical component of accurate billing.
CRO Billing offers automated proration calculations, simplifying this process by applying relevant factors to determine whether proration should be applied to a customer or asset.
This functionality accommodates scenarios where certain assets require proration while others do not, ensuring flexibility in billing operations.
It's important to recognize that proration is not applicable to all use cases. For example, if you primarily work with roll-off bins getting dumped and returned every day, there's a good chance you won't need to do any proration. However, if you're often renting portable toilets on any given day of the month, proration can significantly enhance billing accuracy.
To enable proration within CRO Billing, navigate to the global billing options, accessible via the settings gear icon at the top right of the interface. There, you can activate the proration feature to align with your billing requirements.
NOTE: You will need to tell CRO Billing that you also bill in "Advance". This is the only scenario where proration would be necessary, as your customer may be partially into their billing period when you deliver a new unit.
After turning that feature on, you're ready to start telling CRO who gets prorated! Now, we don't have a single checkbox on an account that says, "Prorate this customer" as you may want to prorate one asset, but not another.
NOTE: Proration is available only for customers set to Recur Billing. Otherwise, there is no billing period to compare the days with.
You should apply "Flat Rate" pricing to the asset you want to prorate.
The final step is to set up a "Proration" product on the products page.
Click on the Create New Product or Service button.
Then, fill out the Name, Category, and Description. You'll notice that there is now an option for proration. Turn on that setting.
As soon as you enable it, you'll see a warning message that any other conditions or adjustments will be removed.
Now, when you schedule your next Dropoff, if the asset you're deploying is set to Flat Rate, and the customer has a billing period, all proration is handled automatically.
As soon as you schedule the new dropoff, you'll see a pop-up for the proration options for this job.
CRO will tell you how many days are left in their billing period. This will let you know precisely how much CRO will prorate for this asset.
Next, you can tell CRO to include the remaining days in the cycle (99% of the time, you'll want to turn that one on), followed by whether you want to include the following billing cycle as well. This is for when you want to bill for the following month, in advance.
The "Pickup Pro Ration" option lets you decide whether to credit them if the pickup of this asset occurs before the end of the billing period.
The last option allows you to create their initial invoice right now. If you just want to wait until their next "scheduled" invoice, you can leave this option unchecked. Bear in mind, the invoice will not be created until the dropoff is completed, in case the details change (rescheduled, canceled, etc.).
If you have any questions about the process, please don't hesitate to contact customer service. We'd be more than happy to go over this process and give you any additional training you need.