How do you set up customer profiles, billing cycles and accounting for a utility?

Create customer profiles for your connections, generate invoices from meter readings on a billing cycle, and record the money in the built-in double-entry accounting module. It is one system rather than a register in one place and books in another.

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Why this matters

Small utilities commonly keep the customer register in one spreadsheet, meter readings in a second and the accounts in a third, so nobody can say what a given connection owes without reconciling three files by hand. Bringing them together is what makes monthly reporting possible at all, and it is what a regulator or a lender will expect to see.

How to do it

  1. Create customer profiles for the connections on your network.
  2. Set tariffs and billing cycles so invoices follow readings instead of being typed.
  3. Record meter readings, in the Portal or on a phone in the field.
  4. Log payments and other transactions against the customer record.
  5. Keep double-entry books in the accounting module, which is included at no cost.
  6. Report on arrears and collection each month, so gaps surface while they can still be chased.

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