How to

What happens when a meter read is missing, and how to fix it

The route got snowed out, a meter was buried, or one read just never made it into the file. The bill date comes anyway. In BasicBMS a missing read doesn't hold up the bill or stall the run: the bill goes out with its fixed charges, the miss is put on a list to chase, and the usage lands on the next bill once the read is in. This guide is how to find those misses and clear them.

Steps

1. After the run, open Billing → Dashboard. A point that billed without a read has a note on its row, for example: "No meter read for 10/01/2026 – 12/31/2026: billed fixed charges only; NoRead flagged on Read Exceptions".

2. Open Metering → Read Exceptions. Set Billing Period: to the month the service period ended (December 2026 for an October to December quarter) and click search.

3. Click NoRead in the row of reasons at the top to show only the misses. Each entry is a placeholder for that point and period, with zero usage, and its comment reads: "No meter read was on file when the 01/01/2027 bill ran, so it billed fixed charges only. Enter the read here; its usage goes on the next bill."

4. Click the edit icon on the entry (Edit the reading — it re-screens on save). The Resolve Reading panel opens for that service point.

5. Enter the Read Date, the Start Reading and the End Reading.

6. Click Save & Re-screen. The read is screened like any other. If it passes, there's nothing else to do: its usage goes on the point's next bill by itself.

7. If it gets flagged again, for example as High Usage because three months of water arrived on one read, check it and click the check icon (Accept the reported consumption as correct) once you're satisfied it's right.

What the customer sees. Two bills. The one without a read has the base charge only. The next one has the next period's fixed charges plus all the usage since the last billed read, priced on the usage blocks. Usage isn't split back across periods, so a catch-up read can reach a higher block than either period would have alone. If that matters to a customer, a short note on the next bill explains it.

Avoiding the miss. Screen the cycle on Metering → Read Cycle a few days before the bill date. No Read shows up there before the run, while there's still time to send someone out.

What posts behind it

The fixed-charges-only bill posts like any bill, at its smaller total. Entering the read later posts nothing. Its usage posts with the next bill:

	Account	Debit	Credit
DR	Accounts Receivable	45.00	—
CR	The rate item's GL Sales account (or GL Defaults Inventory Sales)	—	45.00
	Balanced	45.00	45.00

That's the bill with no read, on a $45 base.

When it won’t let you

Stuck on this one? Call (509) 955-0770 and we'll walk through it with you.