Customer Accounts

Advanced Edition subscribers have the ability to track up to four accounts related to each of their customers – Urgent, Charge, Prepayment, and Special.  

• Urgent accounts are temporary and indicate the need for immediate collection activity. 
• Charge or Prepayment accounts can be billed each month if desired. 
• Special accounts can receive charges and credits only.  

Each type of account is enabled and its features specified in the Customer Accounts area of your Financial Parameters, accessed via the Admin Tab / Parameters & Settings menu.

Note:  MyFBO Premium Edition tracks flight times and prepares customer receipts but does not track customer balances. Advanced Edition is required to use customer accounting features.

Urgent Accounts

Urgent accounts are enabled by creating an Urgent Accounts Override Code in the Financial Parameters. An override code is like a password and should be shared judiciously.

Urgent accounts are those in need of immediate collection. They are created as the result of an unpaid receipt that is closed to urgent status. Only employees with the urgent accounts override code will be able to close a receipt to an urgent account. 

A receipt cannot be closed to an urgent account if the customer has another account with you and still has credit available on that account, whether it's a prepay account that still has money in it, or a charge account that isn't over the credit limit. You cannot split a ticket between an urgent account and another account type. 

If a customer pays $40 cash on a $100 ticket, you would take the $40 payment as cash and then put the remaining $60 to the 'urgent collections' option available in the "Specify Customer Account to charge or credit" drop down at the bottom of the receipt preparation screen. You can then close out the transaction.

Urgent Collections Transaction

An urgent collections account can be used if a customer forgot their credit card or only has a partial payment. It can be used to close out tickets when you need to have complete reporting for payroll or end of month close out. It can be used when two customers want to split the cost of a flight with different payment types and each need a receipt for their payment.

If a customer has an urgent account balance, you'll see the hot pink indicators when you have their name in focus. Also, if you have any active urgent account balances, you'll see an Urgent Collections Due flasher in the footer of the system when you login.

Partial or full payment is applied to clear an urgent collection account just as it is applied to any other account type (please see Guide to Receipt Preparation).

Once enabled, a list of Urgent Collections is available from the Review Tab. From this report you can add notes for follow up, see contact info, and email the customer if they have an email address on file.

Urgent Collections Report

Charge Accounts

Charge accounts exist primarily for the purpose of accepting customer charges on receipt preparation – for flight time, merchandise, fuel, etc.  A customer's charge account can also accept monthly charges such as dues, tie downs, or hangar space, as well as monthly credits for aircraft leaseback arrangements or dues reductions.

Each customer charge account can carry a credit limit. (A zero credit limit is the same as no limit at all.) The credit limit restricts the ability of staff members to charge to a customer's account during the receipt preparation process. If receipt preparation is blocked, a management user who knows the credit override code (established in your Financial Parameters) can override the block and/or increase the credit limit.

The available credit balance (the credit limit minus the charge account balance) can be checked as a part of Qualification and Limitation checking to prevent scheduling or dispatch of customers with insufficient credit.  This checking is enabled in your Qualification and Limitation Parameters.

Charge accounts are enabled by creating a Charge Accounts Override Code in the Financial Parameters. An override code is like a password. Only staff users who know the charge account code are able to create charge accounts.

Please see the Monthly Billing Overview help topic for additional information.

Prepayment Accounts

Customer Prepayment Accounts are designed to hold credit balances – where the customer has funds on account for future flights. Prepayment accounts cannot receive monthly charges (e.g., dues) or credits (e.g., leaseback payments). However, prepayment accounts can be included in the monthly billing process if it becomes a debit because the account has been overspent. Optionally, credit-balance prepayment accounts can be included in the monthly billing process to advise customers of the funds they have "on deposit."

The available prepay balance can be checked as a part of Qualification and Limitation checking to prevent scheduling or dispatch of customers with insufficient prepaid amounts. This checking is enabled in your Qualification and Limitation Parameters.

Prepayment accounts have a number of special features including the ability to affect the prices charged for aircraft and instructor time. Every resource has a prepayment rate included in its resource data (set from the Resource Management Menu). The prepayment rate is used whenever the prepayment minimum balance specified in your Financial Parameters is met. In effect, this provides prepayment customers with a "block time" rate provided they keep a minimum deposit with you. (See below for more information on "block time.")

Special Accounts

Special accounts can be used for a variety of purposes including:

• Separately tracking charges related to a college or university program.
• Tracking club deposits or paid-in capital.

MyFBO.com strongly recommends that the Special account be used for only one of these purposes.

Special accounts cannot be billed through the monthly billing process. However, the Special account balance can be included on the bill as a memo.

Customer Accounting and Receipt Preparation

As each receipt is prepared, the account to be charged or credited (Charge, Prepayment, Special. or Urgent) is specified in step 4 of the process (see Receipt Preparation). Care must be taken to select the proper account – particularly if a customer has more than one account.

Transfers Between Customer Accounts

Amounts can be transferred between the accounts of a single customer (e.g., from Special account to Charge account) or across customers (e.g., from Joe to Mary) using the balance transfer function on the Financial Tab / Transactions & Balances menu. 

Quickly learn how to perform both of these options by watching the Transfer Customer Balances e-learning.

Master Billing

A special type of customer called a Master Account can be used to collect charges from other related customers. To avoid confusion, no reservations can be made for the Master Account. It's a financial entity only. Only sales and payments can be made to it, and any charges made by it's linked customers can be charged to it. 

Individuals linked to a Master Account still make their own reservations, their flight times are tracked in their individual records, and all non-financial data stays associated with the individual customers.  
 
When a flight is checked in or any kind of receipt is opened for one of the linked individuals, there will be an option on the receipt to charge it to the Master Account. These individuals can still buy and pay for things themselves, or pay part of the receipt themselves; the Master Account option on the receipt is only used when part or all of the transaction should be billed to the Master Account.  

Master Account Setup

If you want to explore the Master Account option without affecting your live system, you should Test it in the Sandbox!

• Create a brand new customer and name it for the family or organization (e.g., Last Name = Brown Family). 
• In the resulting customer record, select Accounting and Billing Information.
• Change Account Type in the drop down box from Regular to MASTER ACCOUNT, then scroll down and update the page.
• In the customer record, select Additional Receipt- and Billing-Only E-Mail. Input the email addresses of anyone who should routinely receive copies of the Master Account financial documents. 
• In the existing customer record for each individual that should be linked to the Master Account, select Accounting and Billing Information. Change Account Type in the drop down box from Regular to the appropriate Bill to account (e.g., Bill to: Brown Family). Scroll down and update the page.

Block Time Contracts

An optional Block Time feature allows subscribers to offer special pricing to customers on a block of hours in a specific aircraft or type of aircraft at a rate defined by the subscriber. A block expiration date (maximum one year) is also defined at the time of a block purchase. Block Time may be sold for Aircraft and Flight Training Device resources only. The Block Time feature keeps track of the time remaining in a block purchase, and automatically suggests the use of available block time during receipt preparation.

The Block Time feature can be used with Master Billing, allowing the master to purchase special-rate blocks and have those rates available to the master's related customers. Please see Block Time Contracts for additional information.

A Note About "Block Time"

There are a number of ways to handle special rates in the MyFBO.com software including:

• Use of the Block Time feature above.
• The use of Prepayment accounts as defined above.
• The assignment of customers to a customer level with special pricing for that customer level.
• Application of a credit at the time the block payment is received. For example, if a $1000 prepayment yields a 10 percent discount, credit the customer's account with $1100 at the time of payment.

If you want to explore the options without affecting your live system, you should Test it in the Sandbox!

01/31/11 cli