Chapter 14:  Accounts and Payments with BluePrince Accounting

Introduction

BluePrince Accounting is an invoicing feature that lets you create and track fees collected by the different offices involved in Community Development. It can be turned on or off in BluePrince Configuration. This chapter discusses the features available when BluePrince Accounting is turned ON. Basically, BluePrince lets you group due fees into an Invoice and then print the Due Invoice as a bill. At that time or later the Invoice can be posted as Paid and printed as a receipt.

Most fees are created using the Fee Calculation form in the course of making a permit application or a Project Step approval. Other instances where a fee could be generated are in the course of a Code Enforcement investigation, creating a License, or re-inspection fee. Permit fees are discussed in Chapter 6 and 7, Section: Valuation and Fees. Project fees are discussed in Chapter 5 Section: Approvals and Chapter 3, Section: My Approval Activities. Code Enforcement fees are discussed in Chapter 2, Section: My Enforcement Actions. License fees are discussed in Chapter 10, Section: Modify Information.

Lastly, a fee that is unrelated to any of the above activities can be created using the Account form. See Account Form Overview below. Regardless of the process whereby a fee is created, Invoices are created and Payments are Posted using the Account form. In some cases Invoices are automatically generated for you.

Some accounting tasks require you to access multiple accounts at the end of the day or month. An example of this is Posting Payment for all outstanding Due Invoices. Those tasks are more conveniently done from the Payments form. See Using the Payments Form below.

Accessing An Account

Opening Account Form via Search Form

Whenever you search for a Company, Contractor, Owner or Person, their Account Number is displayed in the Search Results. Click on the Account Number in the table and the Details button caption changes to Account Details. You can double-click the Account Number in the table or click Account Details to open the Account form for that Company, Contractor, Owner or Person. You can also directly search for the Account number if you know it.

Opening Account Form via Building Permit or Zoning Permit Form

If you are currently viewing a Building Permit or Zoning Permit, the Account for the Account Holder can be opened by clicking the Invoice/Refund button on the Valuation Fees tab. So if you know something about the permit, you can search for the permit, open the Permit form and then open the Account of the Account Holder.

Opening Account Form via Contractor, Company or Person Form

If you are currently viewing a Company, Contractor, or Person, the Account form can be opened by clicking the Details button on the Account tab.

Opening Account Form via Approvals

If you are currently viewing a project or the My Approval Activities tab of the My Tasks form you can access the Account form via the approvals used to process Project Step fees. After a fee is created these approvals display an Invoice Details button. When you click the button, the Account form opens to show the corresponding Invoice.

Opening Account Form via Payments Due Form

If you are currently viewing the Payments Due form, each tab has an Account Details button in the upper right above the table. Select the row in the table for which you want to view more details for and click Account Details.

Account Form Overview

This section briefly describes all of the Account form features. The following sections go into more detail about the common activities you can do.

Account Group Box

The Account group box shows the Account Number, Cash Only check box, Pay Before Issue check box, Name, address, and Phone Number of the Account Holder. You must click Edit Mode before you can change the Account Number, Cash Only check box, or Pay Before Issue check box values. Note that the editable areas of the Account group box are White once Edit Mode has been selected.

Checking Cash Only causes BluePrince to only display Cash for the Payment Method whenever a payment is posted on the Account. Also the Account tab on the associated Company, Contractor or Person form shows Cash Only highlighted in red as a reminder. Checking Cash Only causes the Until Date to appear. Use this to select the date when Cash Only status will expire.

Checking Pay Before Issue prevents you from issuing a permit until the Balance Due on the permit is $0. If the Permit Type has Pay Before Issue set to No you are normally allowed to issue the permit before collecting the Balance Due. Pay Before Issue on the Account overrides this setting and will apply on every permit application the account holder requests.

The Account group box also displays the Name, address and Phone of the account holder. These are read-only fields copied from the associated Company, Contractor or Person form. If changes are needed, you can make corrections to these fields on those forms.

Balance Group Box

This group box summarizes the balance of the account.

1.       Non-Invoiced Fees Due shows the total of all fees that have not yet been invoiced.

2.       Invoiced Fees Due shows the total of all the Due Invoices on the Account.

3.       Total Due is the sum of the above

4.       Credit Balance shows the amount that has been deposited in escrow to your jurisdiction, presumably to pay for permits. It may also be used to indicate an amount on deposit to cover bad checks.

5.       These values are updated accordingly when new fees are added and when payments are posted.

Non-Invoiced Fees Tab

The Non-Invoiced Fees tab is where all Fee processing is done while the other tabs handle Invoice processing (see Figure 110). This tab shows a table of all Building Permit, Zoning Permit or Miscellaneous fees that have not been invoiced. Each fee has a check box in the Post column of the table. Click any one check box and all other fees that are related to the permit are automatically checked for you, but you can un-check any of those if you do not want them included in the same invoice.

Figure 110: Account Form: Non-Invoiced Fees Tab

Hint:  An Invoice is automatically created for you when you create fees for Project Step approvals, Licenses and Code Enforcement cases. Fees created for these reasons never appear on this tab.

Click Create and Pay Invoice to do so in a single step or you can click Create Invoice to create a Due Invoice to be paid later. All the fees that are checked are collected into the same invoice.

Select a permit fee row and click Retrieve Permit to open the related Permit form. This tab is the only place to create Miscellaneous fees. Click Add New Fee to do so. You may Waive or Void these Miscellaneous fees from here as well.

Invoices Due Tab

The Invoices Due tab shows a table of all Invoices that have not been totally paid (see Figure 111). You can print individual Due Invoices by selecting an invoice in the table and clicking Print Due Invoice.

Figure 111: Account Form: Invoices Due Tab

You can print a Summary Invoice showing all the Invoices you select by clicking the blue 'P' button and CTRL-Left Click all the due invoices of interest. Click the Print Due Invoice Summary button to print the summary.

If you created a Due Invoice to be paid later, use the Enter Payment button to post the payments. You can also click Waive or Void from here. When you Waive an Invoice the fees are Waived as well. When you Void an invoice the fees revert back to Due status. This allows you to make corrections to an invoice according to your needs.

Example:  You may need to Waive an Invoice if the Contractor has not yet paid for his permit and has canceled his project. Do this if your Building Department accounts for Waived fees separately from Voided fees. Alternatively, you may want to Void an Invoice if it has not been paid yet and more fees have been added to the permit. You may want to create a new Invoice showing the new fee total. If you wish to Void fees that have already been invoiced, you must Void the Invoice first.

You also have the option to pay multiple invoices at once. Click on the blue 'P' button, CTRL-Left Click all due invoices in the table that you wish to enter payment on and then click the Enter Payment button.

Invoices Paid/Void Tab

The Invoices Paid/Void tab shows a table of all Invoices that have been completely Paid or Voided within the date range seen at the bottom right of the tab (see Figure 112). You can change the date range using the calendar drop downs and then click Reload. Click Print Paid Invoice to print a selected Paid Receipt from the table. Click Create Refund/Credit to post a refund for the amount of an invoice or credit that amount to the Account.

Figure 112: Account Form: Invoices Paid/Void Tab

Click Back Out Paid Invoice to correct mistakes. When you do so, the invoice and all fees on the invoice revert back to Due status. You also have the option to print multiple paid invoices at once. To do so, click on the blue 'P' button. The blue ‘P’ button then changes to a blue ‘N’ button, indicating that you may CTRL-Left Click all of the paid invoices you wish to include, then click the Print Paid Invoice button.

Refund/Credits Tab

This tab shows a table of all Refunds paid out by your jurisdiction to the Account holder and all Credits made to the Account. Click Print Receipt to create a paper receipt indicating the refund or credit selected in the table.

Account Deposits Tab

This tab shows a table of all deposits made to the account. Click Create Deposit to add escrow money to the account. Click Print Receipt to create a paper copy of the deposit selected in the table.

Custom

If no custom fields have been configured for Account forms you will be able to skip over this tab. However, all required fields must be filled out before the form can be closed.

Zip Thru Accounting

You can create an invoice and post it as paid in three easy steps.

1.       On the Non-Invoiced Fees tab: Check the fees in the table that you want included in the Invoice. BluePrince will check all the fees related to a permit for you when you check a single check box. Note that an invoice can only contain fees from one permit. However, it is possible to have less than all the fees for a permit in an invoice. To do so, un-check some of the check boxes that BluePrince checked for you. This leaves only those fees you want in the Invoice.

2.       Click Create and Pay Invoice to create the invoice and open the Invoice Payment form.

1.       Check the Check All check box or check each individual fee that is being paid for at this time. Next, select a Payment Method (DrawDownFromEscrow, Cash, CreditCard, Check), enter Payment Notes (e.g., check number). If the payment is being paid by more than one method use the second line to enter payment amount, method, and notes, then click Save/Post. This Posts the Payment and if you leave Print Invoice After Save checked, a Paid Invoice will be created for printing. Use Payment Method Cash when collecting Cash, CreditCard when charging a credit card, Check when collecting a check and DrawDownFromEscrow when you want to deduct from the money in escrow in the Account.

Create Due Invoice

You can create a Due Invoice for collection later. You might do this for contractors that are billed monthly, for instance.

1.       On the Non-Invoiced Fees tab: Check the fees in the table that you want included in the Invoice. BluePrince will check all the fees for a permit for you when you check a single check box. Note that an invoice can only contain fees from one permit. However, it is possible to have less than all the fees for a permit in an invoice. To do so, un-check some of the check boxes that BluePrince checked for you. This leaves only those fees you want in the Invoice. 

2.       Click the Create Invoice button to create the invoice. The fees are then removed from the table and a new Invoice appears on the Invoices Due tab. Open the Invoices Due tab and click Print Due Invoice to create a paper copy of the bill for the account holder if desired.

Add a Miscellaneous Fee

You can add a Miscellaneous fee from the Non-Invoiced Fees tab by clicking the Add New Fee button. This opens the Add Fee form (see Figure 113). Here you can select one of the configured Fee Categories, overwrite the default Description and enter an Amount. Click Save to save the fee and return to the Account form. The new fee appears in the table with “None” in the Permit column.

Figure 113: Add Fee Form

Waive/Void Fees

Miscellaneous fees can be waived or voided from the Account form. Permit fees can only be waived or voided from the Permit form.

Waive/Void Miscellaneous Fees from Account Form  

On the Non-Invoiced Fees tab of the Account form, select the fee you want and click Waive/Void Fee. This button is only enabled if the fee has "None" in the Permit Column indicating that it is a Miscellaneous fee. The Select Fee Status dialog opens asking you to select Waive or Void (see Figure 114). Pick one and click Save to change the status of the fee. Click Cancel if you want to leave the fee due. Once a Miscellaneous fee is waived or voided it is removed from the table on the Non-Invoiced Fees tab. BluePrince will not display the fee again, but it could be accessed by a BlueReport report.

Figure 114: Waive/Void a Miscellaneous Fee

Waive/Void Permit Fee from Permit Form

On the Non-Invoiced Fees tab of the Account form, select the fee you want and click the Retrieve Permit button. This button is only enabled if the fee has a Permit Number in the Permit column indicating that it is a permit fee. This opens the Permit form. Click the Valuation/Fees tab and click Details to open the Fee Calculation form.

Here you can waive or void any of the due fees on that permit. Select the fee you want and click Waive/Void Selected Fee. The Select Fee dialog opens asking you to select Waive or Void (see Figure 115). Pick one and click Save to change the status of the fee. Click Cancel if you want to leave the fee due. Once a fee is waived or voided, the Status Column in the table reflects the new status. When you Save and Close the form, the Balance Due on the permit is adjusted accordingly by subtracting the amounts that were waived or voided from the Balance Due.

Figure 115: Waive/Void Permit Fees

Invoice Processing

Waive/Void a Due Invoice

On the Invoices Due tab of the Account form, select the invoice you want and click Waive/Void Invoice (see Figure 116). (Make sure the “P” is visible and the highlight is yellow. The Select Invoice Status Dialog opens asking you to select Waive or Void. Pick one and click Save to change the status of the invoice. Click Cancel if you want to leave the invoice due. Once an Invoice is waived or voided it is removed from the table on the Invoices Due tab and now appears on the Invoices Paid/Void tab. When you waive an Invoice the fees become waived as well. When you void an invoice the fees revert back to due status. This allows you to make corrections by canceling an invoice and creating a new one.

Figure 116: Waive/Void an Invoice

Enter Payment for a Due Invoice

On the Invoices Due tab of the Account form, select the invoice you want and click Enter Payment to open the Invoice Payment form (see Figure 117). Check the Check All check box or check each individual fee that is being paid for at this time. Next, select a Payment Method (DrawDownFromEscrow, Cash, CreditCard, Check), enter Payment Notes (e.g., check number).  If the payment is being paid by more than one method use the second line to enter payment amount, method, and notes, then click Save/Post. This Posts the payment and if you leave Print Invoice After Save checked, a Paid Invoice will be created for printing in Adobe Acrobat. Use Payment Method Cash when collecting Cash, CreditCard when charging a credit card, Check when collecting a check and DrawDownFromEscrow when you want to deduct from the money left in escrow in the Account.

Figure 117: Invoice Payment Form

Back Out a Paid Invoice

On the Invoices Paid/Void tab of the Account form, select the invoice you want and click Back Out Paid Invoice. Note that the button is only enabled when you select an invoice with Status = P. A confirmation message appears to inform you that the invoice and associated fees will become Due again (see Figure 118).

Click Yes to Back Out the Invoice, No to return without making a change. Once the Invoice becomes Due again it appears back on the Invoices Due Tab. If necessary you can then waive or void the Invoice as described above. Also, you may find the need to back out a paid invoice because you marked it as paid on the wrong day. To do so, follow the information above in regards to backing out a paid invoice and when the invoice is listed as Due again you will want to mark the invoice as paid, making sure to select the correct invoice paid date from the date drop down field provided.

Figure 118: Back Out Paid Invoice Confirmation

Refunds and Deposits

Create a Refund/Credit

On the Invoices Paid/Void tab of the Account form, select the invoice you want and click Create Refund/Credit to open the Account Refund/Credit Form (see Figure 119). If you are not refunding a specific invoice, it does not matter which row you select. Leave Link Invoice to Refund/Credit checked when you are refunding the amount on the invoice you selected. Un-check it if you are making a refund/credit that is not associated with an invoice. You can either refund a specific dollar amount by checking of a fee in the table or enter a percentage of refund at the top of the table. Since your jurisdiction is making the Payment, only two Payment Methods are available, RefundCheck and PayIntoEscrow. Select RefundCheck if you are issuing a check or cash to the Account holder. This creates a refund. Select PayIntoEscrow if you want the amount to be added to the Credit Balance of the Account holder. This creates a credit. Enter Payment Data (e.g., check number), and click Save/Post. If you check Link Invoice to Refund/Credit then the Invoice on the Invoices Paid/Void tab will have Status = P-R to indicate that a refund/credit was made to the Paid Invoice. The Refund/Credit now appears on the Refunds/Credits tab. You can click Print Receipt to print a paper receipt for the refund indicated by the selected row.

Figure 119: Account Refund/Credit Form

Create a Deposit

On the Account Deposits tab of the Account form, click Create Deposit to open the Account Deposit form. The amount entered and Saved here is added to the Credit Balance of the account holder. Select the Payment Method (Cash, CreditCard, Check) and enter Payment Notes (e.g., check number), and click Save/Post. Use Payment Method Cash when collecting cash, CreditCard when charging a credit card and Check when collecting a check.

Using Payments Form

On the BluePrince Main Tool Bar click Payments to open the Payments Due form. The Payments Due form provides convenient access to all the Due fees and Due Invoices on multiple accounts.

Due Invoices Tab

The Due Invoices tab displays a table of all the current due (unpaid) Invoices (see Figure 120). To post a payment, select the row containing the invoice you want to process and click the Enter Payment button. This opens the Invoice Payment form. On the Invoice Payment form, check the Check All check box or check each individual fee that is being paid for at this time. Next, select a Payment Method (DrawDownFromEscrow, Cash, CreditCard, Check), enter Payment Notes (e.g., check number). If the payment is being paid by more than one method use the second line to enter payment amount, method, and notes, then click Save/Post. This Posts the Payment and if you leave PrintInvoice After Save checked, a Paid Invoice will be created for printing in Adobe Acrobat. Use Payment Method Cash when collecting Cash, CreditCard when charging a credit card, Check when collecting a check and DrawDownFromEscrow when you want to deduct from the money left in escrow in the Account. When you return the Payments Due form, the Due Invoice is no longer displayed. You can access other invoices on the Account by clicking Account Details. You can print multiple Due Invoices by clicking the “P” button to enable Print Mode. This allows you to select multiple rows in the table. CTRL-Left Click the rows you are interested in and click Print Due Invoice to produce a document that can be used as a Bill.

Figure 120: Payments Due Form: Due Invoices Tab

Create a Due Invoice for Permits with Non-Invoiced Fees

The Permits with Non-Invoiced Fees tab displays a table of all the permits that have fees that have not yet been invoiced (see Figure 121). If an invoice has not yet been created for an Applied permit it will appear here. If your normal procedure is to create a due invoice at the time a permit is Applied then this table contains all the permit fees that have been added since then. Fees can be added by amending a permit valuation, charging a re-inspection fee or making a correction to the original fees. Make sure to select the appropriate Permit Type (building or zoning) from the show drop down box. Select the row containing the permit you want to process. Press Account Details to open the Account form. From there you create an Invoice and/or post a payment as discussed in Zip Thru Accounting and Create Due Invoice above.

Figure 121: Payments Due Form: Due Invoices Tab

Create a Due Invoice for Accounts with Other Non-Invoiced Fees

The Accounts with Other Non-Invoiced Fees tab displays a table of all fees that were added to the account from the Account form but have not yet been invoiced. Only miscellaneous fees can be added to the account from the Account form. Your jurisdiction can use this ability to collect license fees or track fines. This tab provides a convenient way to find these fees for end of day or end of month billing. Select the row containing the Account you want to process. Click Account Details to open the Account form. From there you create an Invoice and/or post a payment as discussed in Zip Thru Accounting and Create Due Invoice above.

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