How to

How to set up a water rate with a base charge and usage tiers

Your rate sheet says $45 a month covers the first 5,000 gallons, the next 10,000 cost three-tenths of a cent each, and everything past 15,000 costs twice that. That has to be entered once, priced the same way on every bill, and changed in one place when the board votes an increase. In BasicBMS a rate is an inventory item, the same kind of record as a part or an hour of labor. Its price is a Tiered set: fixed charges that bill once per bill, and usage blocks that each charge the units inside their range.

Steps

1. Open Inventory → Management and click New item. Choose the Rate template and give the item a name your office will recognize in a picker, such as "Residential 3/4 inch". The item page has three sections: Header, Price and Properties.

2. Under Price History, click Add and set Style to Tiered. On a rate item, Style offers only Fixed, Linked and Tiered.

3. Click + Fixed charge for the base charge. Fill in its Line label, which is what the customer reads on the bill (Base Service Charge if you leave it blank), and its Amount. Add another fixed charge for anything else billed every time, such as a meter fee. Each one prints as its own line.

4. Click + Usage block. The first block starts at 0. If the base charge includes water, make this the included block: Max 5000, Unit Price 0.

5. Click + Usage block again. The new block starts where the last one ended. Enter its Max and Unit Price, and repeat for each tier. Leave Max blank on the top block; it reads no limit. Prices below a cent are fine: 0.003 prints in full on the bill as 10000 gal @ $0.003/gal.

6. Under Preview:, type a number in Units used and click What would this bill? You get every line the bill would carry and the Total, priced by the same code that prices invoices. Try a light month and a heavy one before you save.

7. Click Save. The app says Rate saved. and the new set becomes the top row of Price History, with its Change Date and Changed By.

8. Open the service point from Metering and pick the item in Rate Item:. The picker lists Rate items only, and leaves out any item whose Active property is False.

9. If several items share one rate (3/4 inch, 1 inch, duplex), give each of the others a Linked price and pick the item that holds the Tiered set. A rate change is then one edit.

Changing a rate later. Open the item and click Add under Price History. The editor opens filled in with the rate in force, so you edit what's there, preview and save. The new set applies from the moment you save, and the old one stays below it as history. There is no "effective from" date, so enter an increase on the day it takes effect. To drop a block, click its trash icon before saving.

How the blocks add up. Each block charges only the units inside its range. A 22,000-gallon month is not billed at the top rate. On the rate above, plus a $5 meter fee:

Line	Units	Amount
Base Service Charge		45.00
Meter Fee		5.00
Included water (0–5,000)	5,000 gal @ $0	0.00
Metered Usage (5,000–15,000)	10,000 gal @ $0.003	30.00
Metered Usage (15,000 and up)	7,000 gal @ $0.006	42.00
Total		122.00

A block with no label prints as Metered Usage (5000–15000 gal). A service point set to Flat bills the fixed charges only and needs no meter.

What posts behind it

Rate lines are ordinary invoice lines, so they post with the invoice. On the $122.00 bill above:

	Account	Debit	Credit
DR	Accounts Receivable	122.00	—
CR	The rate item's GL Sales account (or GL Defaults Inventory Sales)	—	122.00
	Balanced	122.00	122.00

Saving or changing a rate posts nothing. Money moves only when a bill is priced with it.

When it won’t let you

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