Automated Download Invoicing

Automated Download Invoicing (ADI) enables you to invoice various transactions received from the company daily download. ADI saves time and provides you with accurate, automatic invoicing that matches the company accounting records.

ADI automatically invoices HOME and AUTO transactions received from a company download.

When you process data received from a company to update your policy and application details, an invoice for each transaction received is created and then processed when you choose to do so. ADI can invoice all transactions: Renewal, New Business, Endorsement, Reissue, etc. It can process Direct Bill and/or Agency Bill transactions.

The Initial Setup and Company Setup procedures enable you to have full control of what should and should not be invoiced. Before you perform the setup, examine the different levels of options that are available to you.

Initial Setup - CSIO Transactions and Equivalent in Applied TAM

The first level of options determines how you want CSIO transactions translated in TAM. For instance, if you receive an RWL (renewal transaction) in a download, you must select the equivalent transaction code in TAM. You can define up to nine different transaction codes.

There are also certain pre-classifications that have been defined. Companies may send a number of transaction codes for various reasons, but for the agency and from an accounting point of view, they are invoiced using a single transaction code in TAM. There are also a number of transaction codes may be received, but not all of them have an accounting impact.

The following is a list of the transactions for which an invoice may be created. You must assign a TAM transaction code to use in the invoice.

You must select the companies you want to invoice using ADI. You may decide to use ADI for some of your companies or for all of them. For each company, you must select what you want invoiced.

Before you begin, you must make sure that in Company File Interface Setup, on the Download Options tab, Update premiums on billing screen for the chosen policy types is not checked. Otherwise, when you create an invoice or when an invoice is generated through Automated Download Invoicing, the change to the premium occurs twice.

Note: For a New Business, it is important to create the billing screen before it is automatically generated by the Interface module. This is to make sure that it contains the right data, such as the Producer Code and Department. Transactions cannot be added without a department selected on the Policy Detail screen.

Use the following steps to set up Automated Download Invoicing, and then complete the Company Setup for each company for which you create invoices.

1. From Home Base, click Utilities.
2. On the Utility Manager screen, open the Company Interface folder in the treeview.
3. Select Automated Download Invoicing.
4. Click the arrow to continue.
5. On the Automated Download Invoicing screen, click Setup.

ADI - Company Setup

1. On the Invoice Setup screen, select the desired company.
2. Once the company is highlighted, click Add to display the Company Setup screen.
3. In the Detail window, click to highlight the line of business you wish to set up for ADI.
4. Double click in the Transaction Type field, select a transaction type for which you want an invoice to be created, and click OK.
5. Double click in the Status Type field, specify the policy status type that applies to the selected line of business and transaction type, and click OK.
6. Double click in the Accounting Transaction Type field, click to select the corresponding accounting transaction type, and click OK.

7. For each company, you must select a billing type in order to create invoices for Agency Bill and/or Direct Bill transactions. Double click in the Billing Type field and make the appropriate selection: Invoice Direct Bill, Invoice Agency Bill, or Both. Click OK.
   
   Based on the company transaction received, the system invoices in the proper mode. If, prior to the download, the billing screen is Agency Bill type and the company sends a Direct Bill transaction, the program changes the billing screen to Direct Bill mode.
   
   Note: For the Direct Bill mode, the system does not print the invoice in the Close-Day procedure. If you are using Direct Bill Commission Download or if Record Commissions is your Direct Bill Commission Reconciliation method, it is recommended that you do not use ADI for Direct Bill items.

8. Choose the desired Premium Option:

   • Full Term

   • Net Change
9. Click Save.
   

Run Automated Download Invoicing

Once all your setups are complete, use the following steps to run Automated Download Invoicing.

1. From Home Base, click Utilities.
2. On the Utility Manager screen, open the Company Interface folder in the treeview.
3. Select Automated Download Invoicing.
4. Click the arrow to continue.
5. Click the Invoice box to start processing the transactions received from the download.
   
   The program first determines if you have received an ADI download. If you have, then the necessary information is extracted to be used later in creating the invoice in TAM. Once this is done, the program brings up the list of all of the transactions to be invoiced. If no new transactions were received since the last time the program was run, a message displays: No New Download Received!
6. Click OK to continue.
   
   The next screen displays the suspense transactions, including all of the new transactions just received in the last download. Suspense transactions display in the list in the order the transactions are updated. You will see downloaded transactions that updated automatically from the day first, followed by what was updated from Policies in Suspense. Use the information on this screen to determine whether you want to create the invoice immediately or delay printing. Click the column headings to sort the list by a particular heading. For example, if you click the Trans heading, the list sorts by Transaction Type, and you can view all the REN transactions together.

Note: If you add a company to the automatic invoicing process, you must revise the company's setup before you begin the invoicing process. When you click the Invoice button, the program filters all the incoming transactions and rejects all the transactions that do not meet all the conditions. This means that all the transactions for a particular company could be rejected and there would be no way to retrieve them.

Option Menu

• Purge: Use the Purge function to clear transactions that have been invoiced to reduce items in the list. Invoiced transactions are indicated with a value of P (for processed) in the State column. Transactions are not purged automatically so that Applied Systems can recover the transactions if there are errors during the invoice creation process; this also allows you to re-invoice a transaction if necessary.
• Print: Select Print to print the complete list of transactions that you see on the screen. It is better to print the report in Landscape mode, but not all fields can be printed because there are too many. This function is used to track suspended transactions.
  
  Transactions print from the View Suspense screen in the exact order they display in the list on the screen, with or without a sort.

State Menu

• Remove: To remove a transaction, select the transaction, and from the State menu, select Remove. The letter P then appears in the first column. This flags the transaction as Processed which prevents the program from creating the invoice. Later, when you purge the transactions, the flagged transaction is physically removed from the file with no possibility of recovering it.
• Skip: Use this option to bypass the selected transaction and create no invoice for it. When you return to the list, these transactions appear as if they have not yet been invoiced. If you do not want to invoice them the next time you process invoices, you must again set their state to Skip. The letter S in the State field indicates that the transaction will be skipped.
• Invoice: If a transaction was marked with an S or a P, use this option to insert a blank in the State field in order to create an invoice for it.

Defaults Menu

You can process invoices using one of two modes: Batch mode and Confirm mode.

• Batch mode: By default, the program is set to Batch mode. This means that all of the transactions are processed at once, with no possibility to accept them one by one.
• Confirm mode: Confirm mode lets you modify certain fields before an invoice is created: Description, Producer, Producer Commission, etc. Only certain fields can be modified. Once you have selected the Confirm mode, the words Confirm Invoice display in the top right corner of the View Suspense screen to remind you that you have selected this mode.
  
  If you select the Confirm mode, when you click Invoice All to begin creating invoices, the following screen appears so that you can review and modify information in enabled fields before the invoice is created. Fields that are grayed out cannot be modified.

On this screen, you may enter a Description that overwrites the default that has been defined in TAM for the Transaction Type (Trans Type).

If you do not want to print the invoice during Close-Day, deselect the Print check box.

When you are done reviewing or making changes, click OK to move to the next invoice.

If you click Cancel, you advance to the next transaction. The transaction that was skipped is not deleted, but is presented again in your next session. If your next session is processed in batch mode, the invoice will be created.

Once all the transactions are processed, a message displays to confirm completion.

View Log File

Click the View Log button to display the Rejection Log and Success Log.

When you click the View Log button, the Rejection Log displays by default. This log lists all transactions that were rejected from the received download and the reasons for rejection. To switch to the Success Log, from the Option menu, select Success Log.

The transactions display in the Success Log or the Rejection Log in the order in which they were invoiced or rejected. To sort the lists by column headings, click the desired column heading.

In both log screens, there are three more options available to you:

• Print: You can print the complete list or only a selected transaction. To select multiple transactions, hold the [Shift] key while clicking on a range of transactions. If you do not select specific transactions, the complete list will print when you click Print.
  
  Transactions print from the Rejection Log or Success Log screen in the exact order they display in the list on those screens, with or without a sort.
• Clear All: This deletes all transactions on the screen.
• Clear Selected: This clears only the selected transaction. To select multiple transactions, hold the [Shift] key while clicking on a range of transactions.

Download Procedures and Changes

Please note that there are no changes in the download workflow to incorporate ADI with your daily download. However, it must be noted that specific exceptions exist for this process to function as required.

If a problem occurs during the download, do not attempt another session. Log a Support call immediately. Ensure that a pack is not turned on for that night in case Support is unable to contact you the same day. Any errors received on the screen (e.g., internal errors stopping download completely, red box messages indicating an error exists, etc.) require a Support call. Failure to do so may result in multiple/inaccurate invoicing when ADI is run.

ADI can be discontinued at any time by selecting the Disable Automatic Download checkbox on the main screen. Once checked, the download continues to process, but no transactions are created from the download.