Billing calculations in Morningstar Office are normally run on a monthly or quarterly schedule. New accounts are not automatically billed as soon as they appear in the system, but rather at the end (or start) of a billing cycle, depending on whether you bill in arrears or advance. If you use proration as part of your management fee setting, these mid-cycle entries are accounted for either at the end of the current billing period (in the case of billing in arrears), or at the beginning of the next billing cycle (when billing in advance).
However, if you bill in advance and do not prorate, it is possible to generate a Billing Summary right away for a new client who just joined your practice.
This section explains the following procedures you need to conduct in order to do this:
For new clients who join your practice in the middle of a billing period and will be billed in advance, you’ll need to create a special management fee setting specifically for them. See “Creating Management Fee Settings” on page 3 on how to create different types of management fee settings.
The following guidelines apply to creating a management fee setting for new clients:
The Bill In field should be Advance, not Arrears
For a tiered fee, the Using field should be Beginning Balance
For a tiered fee, the Proration box should be unchecked.
The management fee setting you’ve created for new clients can be applied the same as other management fee settings. Just be sure you apply the correct management fee setting to the right client(s). See “How do I change the management fee setting for a client?” on page 24 for detailed instructions.
On the Client Settings Assignments page, assign one of the “Individual Account” fee methodologies to your client.
Note: Since each account for a client can have its own Billing Start Date, new account billing calculations should be run at the individual account level, and not the client aggregate level.
If you will be billing multiple accounts at the client aggregate level, select “Individual Account Setting/Blended rate.”
If you will be billing each of the client’s accounts separately, select “Individual Account Setting/Balance.”
In order to properly bill in advance, you will need to set the new client’s Billing Start Date to the date as of when the client should be billed. This date should be no earlier than the day after the earliest transaction on record for the account.
Note: This procedure applies only to transaction accounts; it does not work with quick accounts.
Do the following:
Go to the Client Management tab.
Select the Clients page.
Double-click on the new client. The Client window opens.
Double-click one of the new accounts. The account window opens.
In the left-hand navigation pane of the account window, click Profile/Settings...Account Profile.
On the Account Profile page, in the Billing Start Date field, type the date as of which you want to bill the client
.
If you are unsure as to what date the earliest recorded transaction is for an account, go to the Transactions page to view the transaction record.
Click Save.
Repeat steps 3-7 for any other accounts belonging to this client, or other new clients.
Generating fee data for new accounts allows you to both ensure the correct fee is being billed, and create the Billing Information and Fee Calculation report (from the Reports, Billing Management menu at the top of the Morningstar Office window). This report allows you to see the fees that will be billed for the clients you select. If you notice missing or incorrect data here, you can troubleshoot these items before spending time generating a Billing Summary report that you would otherwise have to redo.
Click here for instructions on using the Generate Fee Data feature.
To generate a Billing Summary for a new client you are billing in advance, click here.
Note the following important points:
In the Report Options dialog box, the Start Date should be the same Billing Start Date you entered on the Account Profile page of the account. The End Date should be the last day of the current quarter or billing period. You could use the start date of the actual billing period (e.g., 1/1, 4/1, etc., if billing on calendar quarters), but this could result in fees for other, existing accounts which you have already billed for appearing on the Billing Summary.
Do not check the Overwrite existing management fee data box.