Concept

Why the water bill belongs to the service point, not the customer

Most small-office billing tools hang a recurring bill off the customer: a copy of last quarter's invoice, made out to a person, repeated on a schedule. That works until the person moves. Then the old schedule keeps billing the seller, the buyer gets nothing, and someone notices two quarters later. A water system doesn't bill people. It bills connections, and the connection outlives every owner. This article explains why BasicBMS puts the bill on the connection, and what that changes day to day.

Terms used here

  • Service point: one connection at one property, the tap you would shut off. It has an address, a meter if it's metered, and a reading history.
  • Customer: the person or business billed for a service point today. One customer can hold several points.
  • Rate item: the rate the point is charged, kept in inventory with its full price history.
  • Invoice template: the layout and wording a bill prints with, such as "Quarterly".

How it works in BasicBMS

The service point holds four things, and together they are everything a bill needs:

On the service pointAnswers
Customer:Who is billed today
Rate Item:What to charge
Invoice Template:What the bill looks like
The schedule under BillingWhen to bill

On each date the schedule falls on, the run reads those four fields fresh and builds a new bill from them. Nothing is copied forward from last quarter's invoice. That one design choice is why the day-to-day changes are each a single edit: (screenshot: service point with the Billing line)

  • The house sells. Change Customer:. The next bill goes to the new owner. If the seller owes for part of the period, a final bill on the point bills their share and switches the name in one step.
  • The board raises rates. Edit the rate item. Every point that uses it bills the new rate on its next run, with the old rate kept in Price History.
  • The bill layout changes. Edit the invoice template. Every point that uses it prints the new way.
  • The meter is swapped. Record a change-out. The reads stay on the point, so the usage series and the bill keep going without a break.

The last one is the same idea as the reading history. Reads belong to the point, not the meter; bills belong to the point, not the person. Both follow the thing that doesn't change: the connection.

What the customer still owns. Their bills. A bill is made out to whoever the point named on the run date, and it stays theirs, on their aging, until it's paid. Selling the house doesn't move a past bill to the buyer. And because every bill prints its service point, you can always see which property a bill was for, even for a customer with three.

What the office sees. Billing → Dashboard lists each bill with its service point number under the customer's name. Configs lists every billing schedule, and a service point's row opens the point.

What posts behind it

Nothing changes in the ledger. A service point bill posts like any invoice: Dr Accounts Receivable for the customer it was made out to, Cr the rate item's sales account. Moving a point to a new customer posts nothing. The seller's balance stays in receivables under the seller.

When it won’t let you

This service point has a billing schedule. Cancel or delete the schedule first, or mark the point inactive. A connection that is still billing can't be deleted. Its history matters. Stop the schedule, or deactivate the point to take it out of service.

What this doesn't do

It doesn't replace billing people for businesses that do. Invoice-based recurring bills still exist and still work for anyone who bills a person rather than a connection. It doesn't work out who owes what when a house sells mid-period by itself; that's the final bill. And it doesn't merge a customer's points onto one bill: each point bills on its own schedule.

Related

Questions about how this fits your system? Call (509) 955-0770.

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