Introduction 

• Sigma can either produce Tenant Bills (in PDF) or an Accounts Link file for your current Finance System to use to produce the bills
• Sigma can queue Billing Runs, therefore allowing you to process more than one Billing Period at the same time.  The Billing Runs will then be processed in chronological order
  • Once Bill Runs have been queued for a Billing Group, you will only be able to trigger Bill Runs for:
    • The same run type (e.g. Normal, Test, etc.)
    • Periods that are later than and do not overlap with all existing queued bill run periods for the billing group
• You will be unable to trigger Bill Runs for Billing Periods that are already in the the queue, a prompt will appear giving you the option to cancel the Bill Runs currently in the Queue so that you can then select the new required Bill Period(s)
• For Bill Runs that support unrestricted date range of the bill period (i.e. accrual runs, and billing groups with a "Custom" bill period duration), you will be restricted to selecting a single Bill Run period in the initiation screen.  However, re-enter the screen to queue up additional Bill Runs if required
• Bill Runs can be cancelled if they are still in the Queue - see below for more detail

During this process, you may also want to:

• Manage any gaps in Periodic Consumption
• Make revisions to bills (e.g. use alternative source of consumption)

Processing the Bill Run

• Sigma will look for queued Bill Runs every minute
• Bill Runs in the queue will be processed one billing group and period at a time, in chronological order. The order in which queues are picked up will match the order in which they were triggered.
• When Sigma detects a failed Bill Run in a queue, it will cancel all subsequent Bill Runs in that queue for the same Billing Group
  • Note, a failed Bill Run is a Bill Run with a status of "Failed". This does not necessarily include Bill Runs that have "error" level bill messages raised against them, as these may finish with a status of "Complete"
• If Sigma detects that a Bill Run has stalled (i.e. has been left at a status of "Running" despite the fact that the system is no longer processing the Bill Run), the Bill Run will be set to a status of Failed, and will have a bill message (BM0046) raised against it. 

Initiating the Bill Run

Initiating the calculation of Tenant Bills uses the Tenant Bill Run Initiation Activity.  Billing Groups are set up to bill a selection of Tenant Accounts at the same time.

More information on setting up Billing Groups, what the different options mean and assigning Tenants to the Group is available here.

Once a Tenant Bill Run has been initiated it can be monitored using the Tenant Bill Run Management Activity.

Accessing Tenant Bill Run Initiation Activity

• Click on the Tenant Bill Run Initiation icon in the Sigma Welcome Screen:

or

• Select Tenant Bill Run Initiation  from the Sigma Activities dropdown list
• Select the Tenant Bill Run Initiation sub-menu item:

The Tenant Bill Run Initiation screen opens displaying the Billing Groups that have been created as shown below:

Initiating a Tenant Bill Run

• Select the Tenant Billing Group
• Click at the top of the Activity

Alternatively

• Right click on the Tenant Billing Group and click Run Now

The Initiate Bill Run pop-up opens:

A general description of each field is given below, but for more information on these see the Bill Run Types page, click here

Bill Period

The date will default to the previous period e.g. Month/Quarter/Year, depending on the frequency of billing set for the Billing Group.

• To amend, untick Default Bill Period, then highlight the Bill Periods from the list

For monthly, this will be a list of calendar months:

For Quarterly, this will be a list of calendar quarters:

For six-monthly, this will be a list of six month periods (based on the start month set on the Billing Group)

Bill Run Type

There are 5 choices for the Bill Run Type:

• Normal Bill Run (default setting)
• Test Bill Run
• Accruals Bill Run
• Pending Actions Run
• Ad-Hoc Bill Run

More information on Bill Run Types can be found here.

Pending Actions

There are 3 choices for Pending Actions:

•  Withdraw Actions 
•  Withdraw and Rebill Actions 
•  Process Recalculations 

These check-boxes are set according to the saved details when the Tenant Billing Group was created.

More information on Pending Actions can be found here.

Bill Run Parameters 

There are a further 4 tick boxes and a date option to choose from:

• Derive Non Periodic Consumption
• Save Billing Non Periodic Meter Reads
• Auto-generate PDFs checkbox to generate PDFs
• Auto-generate Consumption CSVs
• Invoice Date - defaults to todays, but change if required

If required, the parameters can be modified in the Billing Group. 

More information on Bill Run Parameters can be found here.

• Once you have made your selection, click OK

This will trigger a Tenant Bill Run for the Tenant Billing Group using the currently selected Bill Run option and other parameters

Confirming the Bill Run

A Note popup appears to confirm the bill run has been triggered :

• Click  OK

Unable to perform error

The Unable to perform pop-up is displayed if:

• A Tenant Bill Run is currently in progress
• The selected Tenant Billing Group has no Tenant Accounts assigned

• Click OK to close the Unable to perform pop-up

Initiating Bill Runs for Multiple Billing Groups

Bill Runs can be initiated for more than one Billing Group and Billing Period without having to wait for the first Bill Run to complete. 

For example, if you have 5 Billing Groups, you can initiate each of the Runs (with more than one Billing Period selected), then move to the Tenant Bill Run Management Activity to see the progress of all of them.

If you initiate a Billing Run for a preceding or overlapping queued Bill Run, you will see the following prompt:

• Click Yes to cancel the queued Bill Runs for this Billing Group
  • Another prompt will confirm the queued Bill Runs have been cancelled

• Click OK to return to the Initiate Bill Run popup

OR

• Click No to return to the Initiate Bill Run screen and reselect the time periods Or click Cancel to return to the Tenant Bill Run Initiation Activity

If you try to run the same Billing Periods for Bill Runs that are in the queue, a prompt will appear:

• Click Yes to cancel the existing queued Bill Runs
• Click No to cancel the prompt and return to the Initiate Bill Run popup

Bill Run error

Bill Runs can be queued (as above), but you can not attempt another Bill Run for a different Bill Type for the same Billing Group.

For example, you will get an error if you try the following:

• Initiate a Bill Run for 'Normal Bill Run' for May for a Billing Group and click OK

• Go back into the Initiate Bill Run popup and initiate a 'Ad-Hoc Bill Run' for the same period (May)

• The following prompt will appear:

• Either click Yes to cancel the queued Bill Run or No to return to the Initialise Bill Run popup

Monitoring the progress

Once you have initiated the Bill Run, you can monitor the progress using the Tenant Bill Run Management Activity.

When a Tenant Bill Run is complete, the generated Tenant Bills can be reviewed using the Tenant Approve and Issue Bills Activity.

Accessing the Tenant Bill Run Management Activity

• Select Tenant Billing from the Sigma Browser Activities dropdown list 
• Select Tenant Bill Run Management:

Or

• Click Sigma Menu in the Top Bar
• Click Tenant Bill Run Management :

Or

• Click  Tenant Bill Run Management  in the Sigma Welcome Screen:

The Tenant Bill Run Management screen opens displaying the bill runs that have been triggered as shown below:
         

The screen is divided into the following areas:

• Tenant Bill Run Queue List 
• Tenant Bill Run List
• Bill Run Log
• Bill Messages

Tenant Bill Run Queue List

This section displays a list of the Tenant Bill Runs that are currently queued for processing, displaying an Order column (with 1 being first in the queue), along with the Bill Run Start Date and End Date.

Cancelling Queued Tenant Bill Runs

If a Bill Run is in the Queued section, it can be cancelled.  More than one Bill Run can be cancelled at a time.

• Highlight the Bill Run(s) that are to be cancelled (for multiple, hold the Control Key and click on the required Bill Runs)
• Right click on the Bill Run(s)
  • Click Cancel Tenant Bill Runs

     OR

• Click Cancel Tenant Bill Runs 

• Click OK to cancel the Bill run

Tenant Bill Run List

This section displays a list of the Tenant Bill Runs that have been initiated and have run.

If more than one Bill Run has been initiated at the same time, they will first appear in the Tenant Bill Run Queue, and then move to the Tenant Bill Run List when they are processing or have been completed.

This shows all of the completed and cancelled Bill Runs, and the Bill Run that is currently being processed. 

Filtering the Tenant Bill Run List

Initially all Running, Completed or Cancelled Tenant Bill Runs are displayed. The list can be filtered by Bill Run Type and/or Bill Run Status.

To filter the list of Tenant Bill Runs by Bill Run Type

• Tick the Bill Run Type checkbox
• Select the required value from the dropdown list (Normal, Test, Accrual, Pending Actions, Ad-Hoc)

• The data in the table is displayed/updated as per the selected filter

To filter the list of Tenant Bill Runs by Bill Run Status

• Tick the Bill Run Status checkbox and select the required value from the dropdown list (New, Running, Complete etc).

• The data in the table is displayed/updated as per the selected filter
• The rows may be highlighted depending on the status of the bill run:
  • Running - no highlight
  • Complete - no highlight
  • Failed - highlighted in red (highlight the line and view the Bill Messages for more details)
    • A Failed is typically one in which there has been a severe or unforeseen error.  Other errors such as configuration problems, bill validation failures etc. would not cause the Bill Run to fail, but Bill Messages would display
  • User Cancelled - highlighted in orange and indicates that the User has manually cancelled the Bill Run
  • System Cancelled - highlighted in orange (for example where multiple Bill Runs have been triggered, and one has Failed, the others will be System Cancelled 
  • Failed & Retried - highlighted in red (for example where there has been an outage in Sigma and the Bill Run could not complete.  Sigma would automatically retry

Changing the Size of the Sections

You can change the size of the two sections by using the ellipse (3 dots):

• Click on the ellipse between Tenant Bill Run Queue List and Tenant Bill Run List to close the Tenant Bill Run Queue List and view just the Tenant Bill Run Queue
  • Click on the ellipse above the Tenant Bill Run Queue List to bring back the Tenant Bill Run List
• Click on the ellipse below the Tenant Bill Run List to hide both the Tenant Bill Run Queue List and the Tenant Bill Run Queue
• Click and hold the ellipse to change the size of the Lists, move it up to see more of the Tenant Bill Run List and move it down to see more of the Tenant Bill Run Queue List

Bill Run Log

This section displays a list of up to 500 of the latest Bill Run Log messages that have been generated by the Tariff Engine since the screen was opened in the current session.

Here you will see the Batch Number that has been created (this is also visible in the Approve and Issue Bills Activity)

• Click on an individual Bill Run Log message to view the message details

A pop-up opens displaying the message in full.

• Click  OK  to close the pop-up

Note:  The log will clear when the User logs out.

Bill Messages

This section displays a list of the Bill Messages that have been generated by the Tariff Engine for a selected Tenant Bill Run.
Initially no Bill Messages are displayed in this section.

To display Bill Messages for a selected Tenant Bill Run:

• Select the Tenant Bill Run in the Tenant Bill Run List section
• Hover over an individual Bill Message to view the message details in full within a tooltip

Bill Run Message Types 

Click the link to see the Bill Run Message Types

Refreshing the Activity

Both the Tenant Bill Run Queue List and the Tenant Bill Run List can be Refreshed.  Refreshing one will refresh the other.

• Click either  to refresh both Lists

Exporting Tenant Bill Run data to Excel

Exporting the Tenant Bill Run List

• Click  Export Table to Excel at the top of this section

Exporting the Bill Run Log Messages

• Click  Export Table to Excel  at the top of this section

Exporting the Bill Messages 

• Click  Export Table to Excel at the top of this section

Editing / Viewing a Tenant Account

• Select the Bill Message
• Right click on the Bill Message
• Click  Edit/View 

The Tenant Account Editor opens for the selected Tenant Account 

Approving and Issuing Bills

• Select a Bill Run and right click Go to Approve and Issue Bills. The Approve and Issue Bills Activity opens displaying the bills generated by the bill run.
• Click here to move to the next section -  Approving and Issuing the Bills Section