This article covers what a billing group is, how to create a new billing group and how to edit, view and archive an existing billing group. Additionally, it covers how to use a billing group when creating a workorder and how this affects invoices in Automated Invoice using split percentages. 

Understanding Billing Groups

Billing Groups is a feature for FM Plus which allow users to create and assign group billing to work orders. Users can group properties together in a workorder and charge each of these properties collectively with custom split percentages per property. 

When the supplier has completed the work and an invoice is uploaded to the workorder, the invoice will be pushed through to Automated Invoice with the total expense automatically split per property based on the billing group split percentage configuration. 

An audit log is available to view all changes and updates to billing groups. This includes creating, editing, archiving and unarchiving.

Create Billing Group

New billing groups can be created by an FM Plus Administrator user. To create a new billing group, go to:

• FM Plus > Administration > Billing Groups > Create New
• Enter a code for your billing group. Note – this code cannot be changed after the billing group has been created.
• Enter a name for your billing group.
• Select the properties to be included in the billing group.
• Type in the percentage amounts per property equalling to 100% or click the tick box Split Equally to automatically allocate the percentage splits equally among all selected properties.
• Click Submit
   

Edit Billing Group

Billing groups can be edited by an Administrator user to change the name of the billing group, properties included, and the percentage splits per property. To edit a billing group, go to: 

• FM Plus > Administration > Billing Groups
• Click Edit Billing Group against the associated billing group you wish to edit.
• Make the required changes in the pop-up dialogue box.
• Click Submit to save your changes.

View existing Billing Group

To view a billing group as an Administrator user, go to:

• FM Plus > Administration > Billing Groups
• Click View Billing Group

To view a billing group as a Facility Manager user, go to: 

• FM Plus > Properties
• Select your property
• Click on Billing Groups on the left side menu. This will display any billing groups which this property is a part of.

Archive and unarchive Billing Group

Billing groups can be archived by an Administrator user when the billing group is no longer required. To archive a billing group, go to:

• FM Plus > Administration > Billing Groups
• Click Archive Billing Group against the associated billing group you wish to archive.
• Click Yes to the confirmation dialogue box.

To unarchive a billing group, go to:

• FM Plus > Administration > Billing Groups
• Click on the tick box next to Show Archived to display archived billing groups.
• Click Unarchive Billing Group against the associated billing group you wish to unarchive.
• Click Yes to the confirmation dialogue box.
   

Link a Billing Group to a new work order

Any FM Plus user can link a billing group to a new work order. To do this, go to:

• CirrusFM Plus Dashboard > Create New Workorder, or Workorder > Create New Workorder
• Select a property and if this property is part of a billing group, a tick box “Link Billing Group” will appear below the property address.

• Tick the Link Billing Group box and select your billing group. If the property selected is part of multiple billing groups, all results which include this property will be listed.
   

• When a billing group selection has been made, a list of properties which form the group will be listed and their respective percentage splits
   

• Click Submit. The selected billing group will now appear below the selected property. 

• Continue to complete and submit the workorder as required.

For existing work orders linked to a billing group, this is shown within the work order. Users can click on the blue hyperlink to view the billing group details:

Viewing billing group splits on an invoice

Once a tax invoice has been uploaded to the work order, the invoice will be pushed through to Automated Invoice as a pending invoice for approval.

In Automated Invoice, the invoice expense lines will be split according to the billing group percentage splits. To view the percentage splits, go to:

• Cirrus8 Dashboard > Automated Invoice
• Locate the pending invoice and click View

The invoice expense lines can also be viewed in FM Plus. To view this, go to:

• FM Plus > Workorders
• Locate and open your workorder
• Click Invoice
• Click View Invoice Details
• Click View Billing Group Split