Overview
This document explains the ‘Storage Billing’ functionality in RedSky which allows companies to:
- Setup permanent storage files for tracking and invoicing
- Track storage locations for permanent storage service orders
- Compute recurring charges
Please note that the functionality works for complete periods (months, quarters, etc.) only, so the user has to compute the first and last invoices as well as invoice any crating and/or access charges manually using normal invoicing functionality.
The storage billing functionality is a combination of the following activities:
- Reference setup à setup the billing parameter and billing groups, etc. for the company. This is a one-time activity when a company is being setup for R/S and one may need to modify if any major accounts billing needs to be performed in batches or differently.
- Storage Contract à This is very critical as one can create charge codes which can compute storage or insurance amounts to be billed. You can use any combination of fields to compute charges, typically the fields used to compute are in the Storage/Valuation
- Billing à Set up Billing Parameters such as type of storage, billing cycle, insurance details, etc. This will be a regular process and is part of managing a Service Order.
- Work Tickets à To manage activities for supporting storage on hand amounts using the ‘Storage’ section of the work ticket detail page. This is regular processing for handling storage operations.
- Storage Billing Invoicing à Account line creation. This is batch invoicing functionality to allow multiple storage invoices to be produced in one-lot.
This document describes the steps and the processes to be followed.
Billing – Storage/ valuation
The “Storage/valuation” section is only available for Storage job types in the “Billing screen” related to Service Order. This section appears only if you have selected Storage job types (STO, TPS, etc.)
The Storage Valuation section accepts the following information related to the storage:
- Storage Measurement: Basis for charging billing e.g. per container, per weight, volume, units, etc. Based on this, the storage billing amount will be calculated
- Rate: Billing rate picks up from the Charge type associated with the pricing contract (Price Value if entered) users will have the option to edit, see ‘Step 2’ below.
- On Hand Amount: Is picked up from Work ticket, see the ‘Step 3’ below for this, but it can be edited also.
- Remarks: Enter the remarks
- Charge type: Charge code or basis for billing governed by the contract selected.
- Months to bill: Defines the billing cycle like e.g. 1 for monthly, 3 is for quarterly etc.
- Storage per month: Storage amount per month amount
- Warehouse: Warehouse containing the storage items
- Storage out: A value in this field implies that Storage is released so no further batch billing is required. If this is blank, then only the service order will be considered when executing the storage billing.
- Billed Through: Last billing date till which invoicing has been done
Charge Type
Depending upon the pricing contract chosen, a charge list is available in the “Storage/valuation” section as shown below:
The “Rate” on the “Billing screen”
Rate will get populated from the Charge type associated with the pricing contract (Price preset value if entered and chosen as the radio button or adjustment factor), but can be edited later on. The Rate amount can be checked from Administrationà Contractsà Charges:
The Rate amount is coming below on the “Billing screen”, related to the charge chosen:
Work Tickets
They are used to manage storage activities:
- Packing: preparing items at residence for putting into storage
- Loading: putting into storage
- Accessing: customer wants to access items in the storage
- Release: removing items from storage
- Deliver: delivering items from storage to customer’s residence
The storage section on the Work tickets screen is editable by Role_Billing and this section is available on the work ticket’s detail page for Storage job types:
- Effect On hand Storage – is a drop-down field with value + and – (Using + and -, storage items can be added and deducted from the storage)
- Quantity - Numeric entry
- Storage Measurement – is a display-only field, default data from Billing screen users can edit this field only from the billing screen, pick up the changes from Storage measurement in the billing screen.
- The logic for On-Hand Amount: A refresh button next to On hand Amount, when clicked, Red Sky goes through all the work ticket and do the mathematical calculation based on the Effect on Hand Storage and Quantity. E.g. If there are three work tickets
- 1st ticket Effect on hand (+) Quantity = 100
- 2nd ticket Effect on hand (-) Quantity = 50
- 3rd ticket Effect on hand (+) Quantity = 100
On Hand Amount in billing screen will be 150 – if new tickets are added on refresh do the calculation based on the Effect on Hand Storage and Quantity. In the example taken On hand Amount is 1:
Calculation on Billing Screen
It is done by clicking on “Get Current Charges” gets calculated from the build formula:
The Amount Description from the charge code, above will get displayed later at the time of “Preview/ Creating invoice line”, after Storage Bill execution.
Rate (Adjustment factor) * On Hand Amount * Billing Cycle (Months to Bill) = Storage charges but always gives the per month charges:
Execute Storage Billing
For “Storage Billing”, please go to Finance Menu and sub-menu “Storage Billing” option:
- Add the billing through/from and to dates, the storage jobs/ service orders where ‘Billed Through’ dates matches, with the criteria and storage out date is blank, will get executed.
- Include storage billing group, after selecting, those service order where billing party is same as the billing group and above criteria also matches, will get executed.
Pre-settings for Storage Billing
Storage Billing Party: The preferred billing party for the storage can be associated with the storage billing group. The example we have taken above, has the storage billing party as ‘ABC Group’, this partner code/ bill to code, can be found under AdministrationàPartner, and the storage billing group can be associated under the ‘Additional Info’ tab, as shown below. The Storage billing group drop-down below is handled by the ‘BILLGRP’ ref master parameter:
Similarly, the Storage billing multi-select box while executing the storage run is handled by the ‘STORAGEBILLINGGROUP’ ref master parameter. In order to map ‘BILLGRP’ with ‘STORAGEBILLINGGROUP’ code should be the same for both of them:
- Click on the Preview Billing Report button (just to preview), as shown below. Here the storage charges according to billing cycle and VAT amount will get calculated, with the total number of records affected and total amount:
Click on Create Invoice lines (to create accounting lines), as shown below:
Once the action is processed, the below screen will be displayed
The Invoicing account line will get inserted into the service order as shown below:
After storage billing execution, the Billed through date, will get updated as per the months to bill, before run it was 15-Jul-2020, as months to bill in our example is ‘2’, therefore it will get updated as ’16-Sep-2020:
The invoice account line will get created by name and modified name as ‘Stg Bill’, which implies this has been created through ‘Storage Billing’ execution in Red Sky:
Manage and Audit active Storage Files
There are 2 extracts in RedSky that will allow confirming the items in storage as well as location occupancy. Both these extracts will be Excel formats and the users can run them anytime. 
- The Storage Extract will give storage files that are not canceled or closed and don’t have Storage-Out. This extract can be used to validate and confirm the setup of billing parameters.
- The Storage Location Extract will give an extract of locations by a warehouse with an indication of the ones marked for occupancy. This extract can be used for regular audits to confirm storage locations and for capacity planning.