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On Tue, 14 Jul 1998 21:09:51 -0700, Shawn Hogan wrote:
Re: Questions...
From: Grant Deason
Date: Wednesday, July 15, 1998
Time: 10:54:36 am
>>Now, the only problem that exists with this whole multiple accounts for
>>multiple billing cycle customer is THIS: They may make ONE payment to
>>handle more than one of these accounts, so how do we distribute funds
>>(payments) between multiple accounts? Answer that and I think I'll be
>>ready to go...;)
>
>That is one thing that you are going to have to decide how you want to do
>it. It is ABSOLUTELY impossible to assign a single payment to multiple
>accounts.
Having worked with many billing/accounting packages over the last 12 years, I can assure you this
is not an unusual request. Many times one entity or person is responsible for the payment of many
accounts. Let's say we have several apartment offices in the area, all on their own account. But all
these offices are owned by one real estate company. The individual offices have some autonomy,
but for whatever goofy reason payment *has* to go through the central office.
Let's say one of the individual offices is 5 months past due. The central office probably wouldn't
appreciate it if you got the money from them and arbitrarily split the payment up as *you* see fit
(and perhaps showing all offices past due), instead of accurately showing that only one office was
actually the problem.
This may not be the best example, but this kind of thing happens with all sorts of businesses. Many
cellular phone companies, for example, will make it so if you have multiple phones (as a business
very well might), each one is on it's own account. If they screw up the billing on one of the phones
(and you know they do that all the time), but you only send in one check to cover all accounts, they
bloody well stick the credit wherever they want to! Poor excuse for a business, but it happens.
>The WHOLE reason you want to have them as seperate master accounts is so
>that they can have seperate billing cycles. Should customers really be
>sending you seperate payments for different accounts, considering they
>get them at different times?
When you're trying to woo business customers, you find yourself having to make unusual
concessions all the time. I'm sure you realize this.
>Granted, customers are not here to make your accounting life easier, but
>you really have to draw the line SOMEWHERE. :-) Do you think a phone
>company would allow you to pay for two different bills/accounts with a
>single check? I don't think so. (I know, back to my utility example,
>but this is a better example). hehe
See above real-life example on cellular phones.
---
Grant Deason
db Technology
http://www.dbtech.net
http://web.dbtech.net/~gdeason
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