What does the Prorate flag do?
Using the Prorate flag
The Prorate flag only applies to Recurring Charges. The default behavior of Charges is to bill the full Charge for the entire month. This behavior can be overridden with the Prorate flag. The Prorate flag bills for a given partial date range based on the Start Date of the Charge. Proration splits the Charge into daily increments based on the Bill cycle. The period between the Start Date of the Charge and the next Bill will be used to calculate a percentage that will be applied to the Amount of the Charge to get the calculated amount for the Prorated Charge.
Admins can force ALL Charges to be Prorated with the Configuration Option BILL_MRC_CHANGE_FORCE_PRORATE .
Note: When using this Configuration Option, the Prorate flag on forms and Prorate column on grids will both be hidden. The Prorate flag will still be set, but the values are hidden to prevent confusion.
Prorate Examples
Assume the following basic information for each of the following scenarios:
The last Bill was run for the Month of April, from April 1st through April 30th.
The Charge amount is $90.00.
The next Bill will run for the Month of May, from May 1st through May 31st.
Without the Prorate flag
A User adds a Charge on May 15th, without the Prorate flag set. In June the Bill runs for the full amount of the Charge, $90.00.
A User adds a Charge on May 8th, without the Prorate flag set. In June the Bill runs for the full amount of the Charge, $90.00.
With the Prorate flag
A User adds a Charge with a Start Date of May 16th, with the Prorate flag set. In June the Bill runs for the prorated amount of the Charge, $45.00.
The calculation for this is 15 days divided by 30 days for a total bill period of .5 or 50 percent.
$90.00 multiplied by the .5 percent for $45.00 total. (15/30)*$90.00.
A User adds a Charge with a Start Date of May 8th, with the Prorate flag set. In June the Bill runs for the prorated amount of the Charge, $66.77.
The calculation for this is 23 days divided by 31 days for a total bill period of .74 percent.
$90.00 multiplied by .74 percent for $66.77 total. (23/31)*$90.00.
Note: The actual percent is much longer (23/31 = .7419... ). This was rounded down in this example for clarity's sake only.
In practice, the full decimal of this example is multiplied by the Charge amount ($90.00) and the result is then rounded based on the Configuration Option BILLING_ROUND_METHOD .
Service Catalogs
The Prorate flag on the Service Catalog sets the default behavior of any Default Charges added to the Service Catalog. If the Prorate flag is set on the Service Catalog, whenever a Service is created in the Service Desk Action , the Charge associated the Service will be set to Prorate. This can be verified by opening the Charge on the Action's Charges tab and checking the flag on the Charge.
This is the default behavior only, and any User can always override the default behavior by toggling the flag on any given Charge.
Equipment Catalogs
The Prorate flag on the Equipment Catalog sets the default behavior of any Default Charges added to the Equipment Catalog. If the Prorate flag is set on the Equipment Catalog, whenever an Equipment record is added to a Service Desk item, the Charge associated the Equipment will be set to Prorate. This can be verified by opening the Charge on the Action's Charges tab and checking the flag on the Charge.
This is the default behavior only, and any User can always override the default behavior by toggling the flag on any given Charge.
Charges
Both of the previous examples are the default behavior of the Services and Equipment Catalogs. However, the Prorate flag on individual Charges can be set for any specific Charge. This is done on the 'Add New Charge' form for Services, Equipment, Service Desk items, and GLA Catalogs.
As previously noted, this flag will be set by default to whatever the value for it is in a Service Catalog Or Equipment Catalog. In the generated Charge, the Prorate flag can be set or overridden based on the needs for that specific Charge on this form. For some Charge types, like the Service Desk Charge, or the GLA Catalog Charge, this is the only place the Prorate flag can be set.
Prorate Flag and Effective Date
Update Unbilled Charges dialogue
Charges can be one time (Non-Recurring) instances or recurring (Monthly, Quarterly, Semi-Annual, Annual) instances of expenses. For Monthly Recurring Charges, the user has the ability to update these, and specify the Effective Date for the changes. There are two update options for Effective Date: Effective Today or Date to Last Bill, and an option to cancel the update. These options dictate when the changes will become effective.
Effective Today: This means that the MRC will be stopped with the old details (GLA, Amount, Quantity, etc.) yesterday and restarted with the new details today. When the Bill is run for the next billing cycle, if the Prorate flag is set, the charge will bill a portion of the month with the old details and the rest of the month with the new details. Alternate Recurring Charges (Quarterly, Semi-Annual and Annual), can not be set to using the current Date as the Effective Date.
Date to Last Bill: This means that the MRC will be stopped with the old details (GLA, Amount, Quantity, etc.) on the Billed Through Date and restarted with the new details on the next day. When the next Bill is run the entire month should be billed with the new details. Alternate Recurring Charges (Quarterly, Semi-Annual and Annual), when updated will use this as the Effective Date.
Keep Existing: This means that changes to the MRC will be left unchanged, and all new MRCs created after this point will reflect the updated value for the Charge Amount.