Begin Course
Hello! Welcome to CRO University.
In this course, we'll cover the different ways you can work with your customers within CRO Billing.
Please click, "Begin Course" to get started.
Right off the bat, let's head over to the Customers page.
Let’s head into Customers.
Alright, even though CRO Dispatching and CRO Billing both come with a Customer List they both serve a different purpose. Sure, you still get all your customers in both places, but on the Billing side we're mostly interested in... you guessed it! ... how they get billed.
First, we get a list of each customer location, along with the billing account, as well as the Address, Billing Group (more on those later), Status, Sales Rep (if any), Renewal Date and remaining Balance.
Here at the top left we have our filter options, which let us narrow down just what we're seeing on this page. In fact, let's dive in there and see how we can sort these customers.
This will let us sort this customer list.
As you can see, we can search by the Customer name (which is the location, or child account) as well as the Billing Account (which will show ALL locations under that account). After that, we can search by Sales Rep, Street Address, City, Postal Code or Billing Group. We can also sort by Status, Suspension or an account that will soon expire, or has expired (which is based on the customer's Renewal Date).
The final option also lets us see customers, specifically, who are not in a Billing Group. If you're just getting started then that's ALL of them!
Alright, let's just click Submit to move on.
This will let us sort this customer list.
The only other thing we can really do on this page is... select a customer! Let's select the one, there, at the top.
Let’s open this customer!
Aces. This, here, is essentially a personalized report for this customer! We get the billing and location information, the remaining balance (if applicable) and a list of each and every invoice and payment, down at the bottom. We have a few different things to look at, here, but let's see how we can sort this customer's invoices.
What sort options do we have?
There we go. At first, we were seeing ALL invoices. In here, though, we can search for specific status of invoices (like Draft), either Invoices or Expenses, set the date range of invoices you want to see and finally you can jump RIGHT into a particular invoice, based on the invoice number.
Let's go ahead and click Submit, again. No need to set any search options right now.
We can Submit this to move on.
Next, let's take a look at the real deal: this customer's billing options. You get there by clicking on the "Edit" link at the top right.
Here we can edit this customer’s billing options.
Oh, yes, sure enough here are ALL the different ways you can adjust this customer. We cover every single detail in here, though, in our Customer Billing Options course. Let's close this pop up, for now.
We can close this pop up, for now.
Okay, now let's move onto Billing Groups. Remember how I mentioned those?
Time to head into Billing Groups!
So, what is a billing group? Ah, well, this is a way that we can apply customer options to entire GROUPS of customers, as opposed to setting them individually. Instead of looking at an existing one, let's go ahead and create a new billing group with this plus sign at the top right.
Time to head into Billing Groups!
Here we go. So, all of these pertain to customer options within this group. First, of course, we need to give this billing group a name, here.
Here is where we give this Billing Group a name.
That'll do! Next, this option lets us set this as your DEFAULT billing group. All this means is that whenever you add a new customer to your CRO system it will select this billing group by default. If the vast majority of your customers all have the same settings then this is a great option.
Just after that, you can also mark this whole group as EXEMPT, so they never receive an invoice or ever get charged for activity. This could apply to non-profit organizations, like churches, or even employees of yours that you don't charge. Let's check out the Recur Types, though.
We can change the Recur Type right here.
This'll look familiar from the Customer Billing Options course! Here we can tell CRO whether this group encompasses customers that are billed manually (with Does Not Recur) or if their invoices are generated automatically on a monthly or in an interval, such as every 28-days. Great! Let's re-select Does Not Recur.
Here is where we give this Billing Group a name.
For our last two options we can set the Default Invoice Delivery Method (Email or Print) as well as set the Billing Period (for Arrears or Advanced billing). Great stuff. Over here on the right, though, we can now adjust prices and individual asset types. In fact, let's go ahead and add a new asset to adjust with the plus sign.
Let’s add an Asset Type.
Woop! That was quick. This is an Asset search. Let's choose an asset type to start with.
Clicking here will add an Asset Type.
Like I said, this is a search so you can actually search for ANY asset type you have in your system. We also show you a list of a few of them, so let's go ahead and choose one. We'll go for the 30yd rolloff.
Clicking here will add an Asset Type.
One more click on that plus sign to add this asset type to your group.
One more click on this plus sign.
Check that out! So, if everyone in this group pays your usual base rate for 30 yards then you can skip this step. This is only if the customers in this group pay a price that's DIFFERENT from your base price. Based on job type, we can make individual jobs for this particular asset type exempt. Do you not charge for dropping off 30 yards? Then we can make it exempt!
One click makes this exempt!
DONE. The customers within this billing group will never see a charge for dropping off a 30 yard. Let's take it a step further, though. Let's say that the customers in this group get a little bonus: a 25% discount on their Services. First we'll need to change this from a Dollar ($) adjustment to a Percentage adjustment.
Let’s see what we find in here.
Yup! Now go ahead and set it to the percentage option.
% will set this to Percentage.
Now we're in PERCENTAGE MODE! Now let's put "-25" as the adjustment amount.
Now let’s apply our adjustment.
That's it. Simple as that. Now every customer in this group gets a 25% discount on their services for a 30 yard! Let's go ahead and save this billing group.
Let’s save, now.
Alright, the last two options (Product Pricing and Conditions) are both covered in detail in the Customer Billing Options course so there's no need to rehash them, here. Since we've created this Billing Group, now, let's see how to put a customer into the group! So, let's head over to Customers.
Back to Customers we go!
And let's head RIGHT back into that first customer, again.
Time to head right back into this customer.
Here we go. Now let's move right onto the Edit section, again.
Let’s go into EDIT, again.
Look familiar? This time we're actually going to do something in here. You'll notice that we actually have TWO options for setting a billing group: Default Billing Group and just "Group". These are the two different ways we can put customers into groups. First, let's put just this ONE location into the group with "Group."
We’ll start here.
Now let's choose the Billing Group we just made: "New Billing Group."
Here it is!
There we go. Again, this puts just this one location into this Billing Group. If we want to put ALL the locations under this billing account into the same group we can use this other option: "Default Billing Group". Go ahead and select it, now.
Now we can try THIS option.
BOOM. Done. Get how powerful this option is: not only will this put other customers into this group under this billing account but it is also now the DEFAULT group for all NEW customers put into this same billing account! How great is that?
Alright, since we made some changes in here, let's save this customer again.
Let’s save one more time.
One more thing to check out: Customer Pricing. This is a report, believe it or not.
The Customer Pricing report can be found in here.
Yup! Like I said, this is a report, actually. At this point, you likely know that you can adjust every job type for every asset type on a per-customer level. Do you have contracts with your customers that determine their pricing? No problem! What this report does is show every one of your customers and every single one of their adjustments. Very transparent.
Up here, you'll notice that you can export this list or print it for your records. Not only that, but would you check that out? We have filter options again! Let's see what we can do with THESE filters.
One last look at some filter options.
WOW. Look at all of that! You can search by the usual fields (customer name, street address, city, etc.) as well as show individual asset types on this report, as well. Want to just see one asset type, or even just one group of asset types? We have checkboxes! Couldn't be simpler.
... and, yeah! That about does it. These are all the different aspects of customers that we can adjust or view within CRO Billing.
Please click the "X" at the top right to complete this course.