Internet Inquiry/Pay Growing In Popularity

Over twenty-five percent of our CUBIC clients are now using this popular feature. Operations ranging in size from 2,000 to over 40,000 accounts are now providing this enhanced customer service.

The biggest single issue in moving forward with this capability is the council
or board decision of whether to absorb the processing fee or pass it along
to the customer. The majority have opted to pass it along.

The benefits of the web site are substantial. One client said that their telephone calls dropped by thirteen percent after implementing the system.

Account shut-offs have dropped dramatically. A client reported to Frey that on cut-off days they would be in the office until after eight PM processing them. After making on-line payments available, they were out of the office by their normal quitting time.

Implementing is fast and easy. Frey & Co provide a turnkey solution for the presentation of customer information and payment of bills. This eliminates the communications and security issues that are associated with hosting such an Internet application in-house.

CUBIC E-Billing, Great Way To Save Money!

E-Billing is a great way to save on postage, forms, and handling. One client calculated that the cost for sending out a bill was 41¢. That study was done before the latest postage increase. In May, postage will be increasing again!

How does it work? You advise your customers that E-Billing is now available. When they
sign up for E-Billing, you merely check the indicator in CUBIC. If you desire, you can continue sending a hard copy bill for a period of time until the customer becomes comfortable with the new process.

Customers who are using ACH payments are extremely good candidates for E-Billing because they are already comfortable with electronic processing. Customers who do not live permanently in the area are also good candidates.

One of our clients, Raytown Water, implemented E-Billing in December 2006. According to an article authored by Chiki Thompson, they saved $2,214, in postage in 2007. Practically all of their ACH customers now use E-Billing. They currently have 519 ACH customers. She went on to say:

“Estimated savings in a year, if one customer uses E-Billing and ACH services, is $10.08. Imagine the savings if all 6,600 of our customers used this service! $66,528.00 a year could be used to offset the rising cost of water for all of our customers. These savings are passed on to our customers thru rates.”

E-Billing is a great savings for the cost and effort required to set it up. Please give us a call if you have an interest or questions.

Tips From Your Support Staff

By Adam Best

CUBIC: Release 10.1 now has the ability to have reminders. These can be setup as only general note reminders. CUBIC allows for a login name and frequency to be set on all reminders. Reminders appear when logging onto the system.

BUCS: In Release 10.1, the Requisition Control Module now provides all rejected encumbrances to be archived. This would allow a user to see rejected encumbrances and the reason why they were rejected. This feature can be found in the optional Requisition Control module.

CHIPS: For customers who utilize user defined pay types, there is a report for showing all hours paid by pay type. Under the report option, the Expanded Hours report allows users to select regular, overtime, holiday and specialty hours. This report also allows the entire user defined pay types to be selected. The report shows all employees with how many hours they used in each pay type. 

By Dean Eldridge

CUBIC: In the 10.1 Release, there is now an option to have the system automatically create re-read work orders. This could be used for readings that fall above the high limit or below the low limit range that need to be re-read prior to updating the bills. To set this up, go to the Work Orders tab in System Controls. Click on the Re-Read Automation button. If we want this to utilize job codes, choose Job Codes & key in the Job Code to use for Re-reads. Once this has been setup, after readings have been entered (or downloaded from the handheld), go to Work Orders-Generate Re-Read Work Orders. This will work similar to the Edit List. Fill in the ranges to query including checking whether you want High and/or Low Readings. Once you click OK, a list of accounts will be displayed. Check those to create re-read work orders.

BUCS: When Fixed Asset posting entries are created to post to the general ledger, these entries currently (by default) post in detail. This means an entry is made for each fixed asset individually. For example, when posting depreciation, a Debit to the Depreciation Expense & Credit to Accumulated Depreciation is made individually for each Fixed Asset. There is also an option in System Controls, on the bottom of the Fixed Assets screen, to change to post these entries in summary instead. This would cause only one entry to be made to each account. The detail information would still be stored in Fixed Assets; however the entries would be in summary form in the general ledger.

CHIPS: In release 10.1, if there are certain pay types that are never used by your organization (overtime, special, holiday, sick, vacation, comp, and personal), these pay types can be disabled in the System Controls. By un-checking pay types on the Preferences tab of the System Controls, these pay types will become unavailable when entering time payroll for employees. This feature would ensure that an inappropriate pay type could not accidentally be applied when processing a payroll. This could be useful if you never pay overtime since this field could be disabled so it is never accidentally used.

By Mike Emmerich

BUCS: Journal Entry Source Documents – Release 10.1 has the new feature to add a “source document” to a journal entry. That means your handwritten notes of the Journal Entry can be scanned in and attached to the actual journal entry. If someone believes a journal entry was posted in error, they will be able to see the journal entry in BUCS, along with the supporting detail of that hand written source document.

CHIPS: In release 10.1, the Employee Maintenance screen has a new option of “ID Change”. This will enable you to change the employee number, while retaining the YTD values for W-2 purposes. “ID Change” is used when an employee moves to another department to maintain specific ranges of employee numbers for each department (e.g. EMPL 1000 – 1999 is Admin, 2000 – 2999 is Street, 3000-3999 is Utility).

CUBIC: If you need more than two Global Comment Lines and use handheld devices, this can be done using the Cubic Handheld Upload program. You now have four lines of Comments that can be keyed in. These 4 lines are being loaded into each of the personal comment lines given for each customer’s bill. When using the handheld devices, typically these 4 lines are never used. Therefore, by using this feature you are utilizing the 4 personal comment lines. That basically translates to global comments for you and the customer. Utilizing these 4 lines and the 2 Global Messages on the Bill Print program will give you 6 Comment Lines (assuming you don’t run out of room on your billing post cards). Most users of this feature would be using Statement Bills.

By John Milleck

BUCS: In Invoice processing, the user has the ability to add an invoice (journal entry) note assigned to specific invoices. A button can be clicked next to the Invoice Description field where a drop box appears. The note can be up to 256 characters. This note can be printed on the invoice/paid report as well as the posting journal. This note can also be displayed as well when viewing the source document for the invoice.

CHIPS: When printing deduction reports, the user has the ability to print a range of deduction codes on the report as well as the deduction report scheduler. A grand total of employees, deduction amounts, and employer deduction amounts have been added to the report located at the end. This mainly works when using a range of deductions to be included on the report. The deduction report does not show loan, state retirement deduction, garnishment, and union deduction types. They will not appear if they are included within the range of codes.

CUBIC: In CUBIC 10.1, when adding/editing General Ledger Codes, the user has the ability to click the magnifying glass next to the debit/credit boxes to search and select accounts from the BUCS Chart of Accounts. In using this option, entering inaccurate account numbers are eliminated. The button to Validate Accounts Against BUCS compares the G/L codes selected with the chart of accounts in BUCS to be sure the match up is correct and a report is generated.