Overdue payments
Important
Draft documentation
This content is a draft version of the SkyBill documentation and is subject to final review. Some information may be incomplete or inaccurate. Features, terminology, and procedures may change before the official release.
You can configure your approach to handling overdue payments in SkyBill by setting up reminders and finance charges. Both are built on standard Dynamics 365 Business Central functionality, but SkyBill adapts the processes to the utility billing context. Utility companies often handle a large number of small invoices, so automating collections is crucial to maintaining cash flow and reducing administrative overhead. Therefore, SkyBill allows you to post finance charges automatically during invoice posting, streamlining the collections process. In Dynamics 365 Business Central, invoicing, reminders, and finance charges are typically handled as separate processes.
Learn how to set up reminders and finance charges in Dynamics 365 Business Central. These processes use standard Business Central functionality. However, SkyBill adds adjustments to support utility billing scenarios.
Reminders
Reminders are follow-up notices sent to customers with overdue invoices. In Dynamics 365 Business Central, you can set up reminder terms and levels to define when and how reminders are issued.
| To | Go to |
|---|---|
| Discover how to define reminder terms and levels to set up a structured follow-up process for overdue invoices. You'll learn how to configure when reminders go out, how many levels to use, and what additional fees or interest may apply. | Set up reminder terms and levels |
| Learn how to automate the reminder workflow, so your system creates, issues, and sends follow-up notices without manual effort. The article covers how to build an automation chain and reduce administrative overhead. | Automate reminders in collections |
Dynamics 365 Business Central generates one reminder per customer. However, in the utility billing context, customers may have multiple contracts for different properties. In SkyBill, you can choose to split reminders per contract. Follow these steps to enable that:
- Select Search (Alt+Q)
in the upper-right corner, enter Reminders, and then choose the related link. - On the Reminders page, select the Create Reminders action.
- Turn on the Reminder per Contract toggle to generate separate reminders for each contract associated with a customer.
Tip
Use this option if you want to issue a separate reminder for each contract. This is especially useful for maintaining the correct balance per contract when an additional fee is associated with the reminder. If you turn off the Reminder per Contract toggle, the system posts the reminder fee to the customer account without a contract number. The fee is not associated with a specific contract. SkyBill generates a single reminder per customer, regardless of the number of contracts.
Finance charges
Finance charges are additional fees applied to overdue invoices to encourage timely payments. In Dynamics 365 Business Central, you can set up finance charge terms that define how these charges are calculated and applied.
| To | Go to |
|---|---|
| Explore how to define finance charge terms (interest, fees, calculation methods) to apply to customers with finance charges. The article shows how to link these terms to accounts and control how charges are calculated. | Set Up Finance Charge Terms |
| Get an overview of how finance charges work in practice: when they are posted, how they integrate with customer accounts and ledger entries, and how reminders and charges interact in the collections process. | Finance charges |
Dynamics 365 Business Central contains two separate processes: invoicing and finance charge posting. Utility companies often prefer to combine these two processes and handle finance charges directly within the invoicing workflow. SkyBill supports this approach. You can post finance charges automatically during invoice posting.
To enable that select Search (Alt+Q)
in the upper-right corner, enter Billing Setup, and then choose the related link. On the Gen. Info FastTab, turn on the Automatic Fin. Ch. Memo Posting toggle. This way, SkyBill calculates and posts finance charges automatically whenever you post and invoice. The finance charge is displayed as an additional line on the invoice. Turn this toggle off if you prefer to handle finance charges as a separate process according to the standard Dynamics 365 Business Central functionality described in Finance charges.
Related information
Enable online payments with Stripe
Landlords and tenants
Design details
Set up SkyBill
Calculate, create, and send customer invoices
Work with Business Central