Aquira Back to Basics: Invoicing
We’re reviewing a Traffic Manager’s daily workload, highlighting how Aquira can help you with your commercial traffic needs. So far, we’ve reviewed how to add a client, add a contract, schedule spotlines, how to handle reconciliation and now it’s time to discuss Aquira’s invoicing. It’s the end of the month and you’re looking to close the books, send invoices and get paid. Dawn Newberry, our Aquira Traffic Specialist, joined us to outline the invoice process and offer tips on how to maximize your efficiency. If you need a refresher, check out past Aquira Back to Basics videos via the RCS Live Archive.
Invoicing is typically done during the end of the month, unless specified by the client. For example, Dawn discussed how some clients prefer a weekly invoice, or at a more frequent invoice request than once a month when accounting closes their books. As a reminder, it’s important to reconcile your logs almost every day so that you know your as played logs are all accounted for and accurate. If you have any lingering spotlines that weren’t scheduled, the reconciliation window is the first place to see if you have any invoicing issues. Essentially, if you don’t run reconciliation and a spotline was missed, never to be made up via a make good, then that spot never aired, there’s no invoice to email and you’ve lost that revenue for the station. Versus catching the missed spot, rescheduling the spot via a make good, confirming it did air and you can successfully bill the client for the completed contract.
It’s not uncommon for Traffic Managers to run a Revenue / Invoice Analysis report to cross reference the proposed invoice total versus the spots that actually ran. Simply put, you want your proposed revenue number to match the invoice total. If there is a discrepancy, it’s up to the Traffic Manager to report back to the Sales Manager, justifying why the numbers are off. These types of reports can be docked as reoccurring icons for a quick trigger every time you run invoicing.
While working within the Accounts Receivable | Invoices workspace, make a note of the quick header filter navigation. If you want to organize your data by Billing Frequency: End of Contract, Weekly, or Monthly, left click and drag the Billing Frequency header to the top of the workspace and Aquira will reorganize your data. Also, make a note of the Post Date for even further data filtering. For example, if your Post Date is in the middle of the month, Aquira won’t display the Billing Frequency: Monthly as we’re in the middle of the month. We highly encourage you to customize these types of workspaces – if you need to see it quickly, then isolate it.
Users can print their invoices or even email their invoices directly to the client. Back during the “Adding a Client” video, we reviewed how to add a client’s email and contact information for future tasks, like emailing them their invoice. There is a section for failed emails, so just in case there was a random issue emailing your client their invoice, Aquira will clearly display what emails did not get sent, allowing the user to select the failed email and resend it. As a reminder, when you’re emailing these invoices, from the View, Traffic Managers can customize their printable invoices, including adding their own logos or even QR Codes with instructions on how to pay your bill.
Here in the United States, we have some agencies that work on behalf of larger advertisers and they handle all their invoicing via a unique Clearing House workflow. Essentially, the agency will collect all national plays on behalf of the client’s campaign, asking for individual stations to export their invoice based on the agency’s specific format. This can be exported via E-Billings Settings with saved, pre-populated values. And yes, don’t worry about setup and some of the specifics. The Aquira onboarding team will work with your station to properly configure these types of tasks or if you inherited a database, feel free to call into Support with your questions so that you better understand how to tailor Aquira to fit your needs.
If you feel this Aquira Back to Basics series is helping you, we want to hear it! Reach out or contact us through our socials so that we can schedule more of these types of training videos or investigate other ways of helping you and your team. We do have some exciting Aquira features to reveal on the horizon, so keep it locked to our socials for more information. If you want to check out over 150+ training videos, the RCS Live Archive is available on our website under the Blog and RCS Live section. If there’s a specific topic, view one of the videos and use the Seach field on the right to find videos based on specific keywords. RCS Academy also offers training and education resources, with courses highlighting Zetta, Zetta for Engineers, GSelector and Aquira. Or if you need more assistance, RCS Support is only a phone call or email away.
As a reminder, due to Windows and other third-party evolving requirements, RCS has announced an end-of-life supporting NexGen. Reach out to your local RCS Sales Representative for special Zetta or ZettaCloud discounts. In addition, we’ll meet you where you need us. RCS has a full suite of cloud, on prem or hybrid solutions that can fit your station’s specific needs. We offer creative pricing and payment methods, like barter. Plus, with a global team of developers, backed by $10+ million dollars in cloud development, and the worldwide leader in radio support, RCS can help you and your team operate at its maximum efficiency.