"Prorate" and "Proration" is a word that gets tossed around pretty regularly around our offices, and for good reason.
For anyone in an industry where a customer gets charged according to how many days into a billing period they are, they know proration is exceptionally important... and CRO knows it, too! Before now, prorating a customer was certainly possible within CRO Billing, albeit with a bit of extra effort.
Not anymore! Now CRO Billing can automatically calculate proration based on a few factors that determine whether a customer or asset has proration applied to it.
Do you have some assets that require proration, and others that don't? No problem! We can handle those, too. Let's dive right into it.
First off, it's important to point out that we're aware that proration isn't for everybody. For example, if you primarily work with roll-off bins getting dumped and returned every day, there's a good chance that it won't ever enter the picture. However, if you're often renting portable toilets any given day of the month, most likely you'll be very happy to see how this works.
The first thing you'll need to do is tell CRO Billing that you are, indeed, interested in using our Proration. You can find that setting within the global billing options (the little gear at the top right).
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 to them.
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: It goes without saying, but proration is only available for customers who are set to Recur billing. Otherwise, there is no billing period to weigh the days against!
With this in mind, you'll want to apply "Flat Rate" pricing on the asset you wish to prorate for.
So, is that all that's required? Almost! The final step you'll need to take is to set up a "Proration" product, on the products page.
From there, you'll see a common sight: the screen for adding new products. However, this time around you may notice a new option is available: "Is this a proration product?"
Simply fill out the Name, Category and Description and click that option!
Now, as soon as you do click it you'll see this pop-up message. Don't worry -- it's not an error. It's simply letting you know that a Proration Product does not contain any other options, other than what you enter, above.
Now we're committed! Everything in CRO Billing is now in place, and the only thing left for you to do is 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 do schedule that new dropoff, you'll be presented with the proration options for this job.
First off, you'll see that CRO will tell you how many days are left in their billing period. This will let you know just how much CRO will prorate this asset for you.
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 or not 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 is for you to decide if you want to credit them if the pickup of this asset happens before the end of the billing period. Yup! We thought of that, too.
Finally, the last option is going to allow 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.).
That covers just about everything you'd need to know about CRO Proration! If you have any questions about the process, don't hesitate to reach out to our Support department. We'd be more than happy to explain the process and help you decide if it's for you.