EZ Pool Biller

Instruction manual

Unlike most software programs EZ Pool Biller is just that,

easy. This manual explains how to use all the powerful

features included in the program, but note that to get started

using the program it is not necessary to use all the features.

Ideally, you should read the “Getting Started” tutorial prior to

using this manual. This way you will already have an idea of

how to do some of the basics.

EZ Pool Biller is controlled by 9 buttons at the top of your

screen. As such, this manual details each button and what it

does.

Here are three important facts you need to successfully

operate EZ Pool Biller. 1. To save your work you must always either click

on a button that says “Update”, “Add” or

“Done”.

2. You can leave almost any screen by clicking on

a button entitled “Leave Customer Detail

Menu”, or simply select any button at the top of

the screen to choose where you wish to go,

however, if you haven’t first clicked update to

save your work your changes will be lost.

3. Do not use your “back” button on your browser

to navigate the program. Always move

through the screens by clicking on “buttons”

within the program.

Note: You may find these instructions more helpful if you

print them so that you can be looking at the program as you

read.

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Table of Contents

Page

Chapter 1: The Admin Button …………………....………3

Chapter 2: The Customer Button………………..……….17

Chapter 3: The Billing Button………………..………….23

Chapter 4: The Statements Button…………………….....32

Chapter 5: The Phone Notes Button………………..……35

Chapter 6: The Reports Button………………..…………36

Chapter 7: The Vendor Button………………..………….40

Chapter 8: The Expenses Button………………..……….41

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Chapter 1

The Admin Button

When you click on this button it provides you a variety of

administrative functions. We will now walk you through

each button that appears on the admin screen and what it does

for you.

Employee manager: This section allows you to add/

remove employees who you wish to provide access to your

customer information in EZ Pool Biller.

If you choose “Add employee” and click “ok” a new screen

appears. In the blank name fields type the name of the

employee you are adding. Select either “view/edit” or “view

only”. “View edit” will allow the employee to make changes

to anything such as address, billing items, etc. so be sure if

you grant this access that this is somebody you trust to work

and edit in the program. Having said that, you can always

see what changes an employee made (and correct them if you

wish). These features are discussed later in the billing tab

section and in the reports tab section. Additionally no

employees who have “view/edit” privileges have access to the

“Admin” tab. “view only” allows the employee to only see the

details, but they cannot change or add anything.

After you enter their name and select “view/edit” or “view

only”, click the add button. The screen refreshes. You will

now see your employee’s name on the top with a number to

the right of their name. This number is their account name.

Below it is their password. If you ever need to reset their

password, just check the “reset” box” and click update.

Going back to the admin page brings you back to where we

started, if you had selected “Update employee” instead of

“Add employee” you will see a drop down list box of all your

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employees. You would then select the relevant employee,

click update, make the relevant changes, and then click update

again to save these changes.

Company Info: There are 2 options in this section.

“Update Company Info” - If you click this button you are

taken to a screen where you can change your company profile

information. If you need to reset your password, select the reset

button and click update and then be sure to write down

CAREFULLY your new password.

Your Company name, full address and phone numbers ONLY

will appear on your statements.

If you would like your customers to be able to login to

their account and pay their bills online you should set up

a PayPal account to be used for your customer bill pay.

You should call EZ Pool Biller tech support so we can

assist you with setting up the correct options in your

PayPal account.

The following fields are required for Customer Bill Pay:

PayPal Merchant ID: This field needs to be completed if you

wish to accept online payments. You can get this

information for this field by logging in to your PayPal account

PayPal EMAIL: This field also needs to be completed if you

wish to accept online payments. You must enter the email

address you provided PayPal in your profile with them.

The following fields are required to email customer

statements:

Business Email: Enter the email address you want to send

your statements from.

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Email Logon ID: Enter your Email Login ID. (This is

frequently your email address but maybe different)

Email Logon Password: Enter the password to your email

account.

Outgoing Email Server: This information can be found from

your email provider or your website host. On the next page

we have provided a list of some common emails provider’s

server information. It is possible for this information can

change and we cannot guarantee the below list is are up to

date and correct.

Outgoing Email Port: This information can be found from

your email provider or your website host. On the next page

we have provided a list of some common emails provider’s

server information. It is possible for this information can

change and we cannot guarantee the below list is up to date

and correct.

SSL Port: In addition to finding out the correct Outgoing

Email Port you need know if the port is on a secure layer (SSL

Port). If the port is SSL select “Yes” if it is not select “No”.

“Export Company Reports” - If you click this button you

will be taken to a screen with a list of reports which can be

exported to a CSV file. Most of the options of what you can

export are obvious, but after you read the other sections of this

manual the options will be crystal clear. The export

company reports section functions very similar to the reports

section. Just select a report and click on “view report”.

After you do this the report will display on the screen.

However, unlike the reports section there will be an option at

the top of the report that says “Generate CSV File”. Clicking

on “Generate CSV File” and you are offered to save or open a

file. If you select “save” you will be asked where you want

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PROVIDER DOMAIN OUTGOING SERVER OUTGOING

PORT #

1&1 1and1.com Smtp.1and1.com 587

AOL Aol.com Smtp.aol.com 587

Comcast Comcast.net Smtp.comcast.net 465

Earthlink Earthlink.net Smtpauth.earthlink.net

587

Gmail Gmail.com Smtp.gmail.com 465

Gmx Gmx.net Mail.gmx.net 587

Orange Orange.net Smtp.orange.net 25

Outlook.com (former Hotmail)

Outlook.com Smtp.live.com

587

Verizon Verizon.net Outgoing.verizon.net 465

Virgin Virgin.net Smtp.virgin.net 25

Yahoo Yahoo.com Smtp.mail.yahoo.com 465

Mail.com Mail.com smtp.mail.com 465

to save the file on your computer. Once you have saved the

file onto your computer you have now successfully exported

the data you chose. Naturally you could also choose to open

the file if you are planning to examine your data in another

software program. The route report is the only report where

there is a difference between the CSV version and the print

version. If you select a route report in this section it will only

display the addresses of each stop without the city, state,

customer name and route notes. The reason for this is to

create a file that can be uploaded to one of the many mapping

programs on the internet. We remove the city and state

because the zip code alone will work best with the mapping

programs.

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Import / Export: This section has 4 options for you to

choose from regarding your customer data.

1. “Backup Customer Info” - To back-up

your customer info, simply click this button.

A pop up box will appear asking you where

to save your backup file on your computer.

Choose where you want to save your backup

file and then click the save button.

2. “Import Backup Customer Info” –

Click on this if you want to restore your

back-up copy. Be careful when using this

tool as it will permanently replace your

current online records. When you click this

button, a new screen will appear asking you

to browse and locate your backup customer

info file. Locate where you previously

saved your backup copy and then click

“Upload data file”.

3. “Import New Customer Info” - This is

very useful if you acquire a large number of

new service accounts. For example, if you

bought a new route of accounts and want to

import the new data (customers). The data

file you are importing should be in a CSV file

which is a standard generic format. Many

programs can export their data in CSV

format.

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To start click the “Import New

Customer Info” button. A new screen

appears. On the left side you see a box with

the titles of many fields. These titles are a

list of all the fields EZ Pool Biller uses. The

idea here is that you need to match up the

data fields from your import file to the proper

fields in EZ Pool Biller so everything imports

to the correct fields. The first thing you will

need to do is look at the CSV file you are

importing. For each record in the CSV file

there will be data separated by commas. For

example, the first record in your CSV file

may look like this:

Jones, Martha, 754-555-5555, $70.00

Well obviously starting at the left we can see

the customer’s last name, first name, phone

number, and their monthly service price. So

now returning to our field titles on the left of

our screen we would we want to do the

following. First, highlight the field title

“Billing last name” and then “Selected data

fields” below the left column. You can now

see that the field title “Billing last name” is

now on the right column. Next you would

select the “Billing first name” field and then

move it to the right column.

Note: It is important that you move the fields

in the same order as the order of your data in

your import CSV data file, so data

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ends up where you want it. A few things to

note are if your customer has a past balance

in your CSV file you will want to match this

up with the “balance” field. When the

balance imports it will be reflected in EZ

Pool Biller as “past balance” and will be

dated as the 1st of whatever month it is.

The “Monthly Service Price” is where you

want to import your recurring monthly

service fee. You will still need to manually

set recurring charges. This is explained later

in the “customer info” section.

After you select and arrange your fields in the

proper order you will want to browse to find

the file you are importing and then click on

“Upload data file”.

4. “Remove all Customer Info” – NEVER

USE this button unless you really want

to PERMANENTLY lose ALL your data.

This function is only used in very special

circumstances and you probably will never

have to use it.

Billing Credit Split: This feature can be used when posting

customer payments. You use the drop down list box below

the payment to split up what the customer paid. Note the

customer will not see this breakdown – it is strictly for your

use. By using this feature you can generate useful reports.

For example, if a customer has a $75 “service” charge and a

$90 “part” charge for a cartridge and the customer made a

$165 payment, you can split the payment to cover the

“service” charge and “part” charge.

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On the drop down box you would select “service” and then

record $75.00, then below that you would select “part” and

record $90.00. Then for example, you can later generate

reports to learn things such as how much money did I receive

in parts this month and so on. This feature is further

explained in the section on the “Billing” tab. So if you want

to use this feature you should click the “on” button and it will

turn on. if you want to hide this feature then click “off”.

Help Feature: This feature is to help use and understand all

the features in EZ Pool Biller. When “help” is “on” you will

get information and instructions when you put your cursor

over most of the buttons throughout the program. You will

also notice many titles or description will be in a bold font

with a different shade of blue. This tells you that putting the

cursor over the words will give you additional information.

Please note different browsers may affect the time that the

help views after placing your cursor over it. Firefox will

display the help for much longer than other browsers do.

We recommend that you keep this on until you are familiar

with the program. You can turn it on and off whenever you

like.

Convenience Pay Fee: Use this feature if you decide to

allow online payments. Since you are providing a service to

the customer you may decide to charge a fee for providing this

online service. You have three options. Charge a flat fee,

charge a percentage fee (this is a % of the amount the

customer would be paying), or charge no fee.

If you want to select a flat fee this is how you enter it. Click

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the radio button for “flat fee”. Then to the right of the three

choices you see a little blank white field. In here you type

the amount you are charging. For example, if you are

charging $2.00 as the online service fee you would simply

type 2.00 (do not use the dollar sign) and then click “Set

convenience fee”. You will now see the amount you typed

in the previously blank field so you know it is set. If you want

to select a percentage fee this is how you enter it. Click the

radio button for “percentage fee”. Then to the right of the

three choices you see a little blank white field. In here you

type the percent you are charging. For example, if you are

charging 2% as the online service fee you would simply type

2.00 (do not use the percent sign) and then click “Set

convenience fee”. You will now see the percent you typed in

the previously blank field so you know it is set.

If you want to select “No fee” this is how you enter it. Click

the radio button for No fee. Then click “Set convenience

fee”.

Choose Statement Cycle:

Set Closing Day: This feature allows you to choose your

statement cycle. The default is “1”. This means your

statement cycle will begin on the Second Day of each

calendar month and end on the First Day of the following

month. Your recurring charge will be automatically billed at

12:01am on the closing day of your billing cycle. Therefore

if you keep the default setting your recurring charges will take

place on the first day of each month. You can choose a

different statement cycle by changing the “closing day’ For

example if you want to charge your recurring charges on the

15th day of each month then set the “closing day” to “15”.

This means your statement cycle will begin on the 16th

of each

calendar month and end on the 15th day of the next

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calendar month. With this setting, your customers who have

recurring charges set will bill at 12:01am on the 15th day of

each month. Note: If you choose a “closing day of 29th,30

th

or 31st day of the month the program will use the last day of

the month on any month that has less days than your chosen

closing day.

Closing Days in Advance: This feature should be used if

you would like to print and prepare your bills before the date

the recurring item takes place.

For example If the “Set Days in Advance” field is set

on the default of “0” and if your statement ends on the first

day of the month your recurring charges are charged on the

first day of the month. If you want to print your bills the

night before, on the last day of the prior month, to prepare and

mail them on the next day (which is the first) the charges will

obviously not be there because the EZ Pool Biller will bill the

charges at 12:01AM on the 1st day of the month. In this

example we could set “Set Days in Advance” to “1”. This

means EZ Pool Biller will charge the recurring charges 1 day

before the charges take place but with the date the charge is

supposed to take place. In other words in this example on the

last day of the prior month, at 12:01AM all your customers’

recurring charges would be billed but the date of the billing

item would be the 1st of the next month (this is when the

charge is supposed to occur). This would now allow you to

print your bills the day before billing day and have them ready

to mail on the billing day. You can set this feature for up to 3

days in advance.

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Edit drop down lists: This feature has to do with

controlling the selections in your drop down menus in other

sections of EZ Pool Biller. Here we teach you how to add or

remove selections in your drop down list boxes. In other

sections of this manual we teach when or how you might want

to use these selections.

As you can see there are five columns:

Charge, Credit, Route, Account and Recurring.

You will learn about each of these drop downs in their

respective section. In this section we show you how to edit

the drop down list selections. Below each column title there

are some names of selections that come with default in the

program such as “fee” in the charge column. You can keep

or remove the defaults as you like. This is how you add a

selection if you like. Observe that directly above each “Add”

and “Remove” button that is at the bottom of each column

there is a blank white field where you can type. To add a

selection name you type the name in this blank field and then

click the “Add” button. To remove a selection, select the

selection you wish to remove and then click the “Remove”

button. All items in the drop down box must be 1 word. If

you wish to use 2 words use an underscore so there are no

blank spaces. Example “Route_3”. Additionally if you wish

to add multiple items at once you can do this by using a

comma after each item and then click “add”.

Note : If you are planning to print route reports you will

want to add some field names in this column. For example,

“Route_1”, “Route_ 2”, etc.

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Manage Standard Charges

This section is for creating standard items that you bill for on

a regular basis. For example if you frequently install a C900

cartridge filter you could add the item by typing a description

and the price (use the dollar sign when typing the amount).

In this example you could add this standard item by typing

“Hayward C900 replacement filter cartridge $110.00” in the

field just above the “add” & “remove” buttons. Then click

the “add” button. The item will be added in a list box just

above. You can add as many items as you like. If you want

to remove a standard item, select the item, and then click the

“remove” button. The item will be deleted. We will

explain how to use this feature in the billing section.

Invoice Settings: This is where you can customize your

statements. There are 5 things you can do to your statements.

1. Show Customer Login Info on

Statement/Invoice. If you want all your

customers to be able to login to their account you

can turn this feature on. When this feature

is “on”each customers password and the web

address where to login will be displayed on their

print statements. If you email PDF statements

the information will be on the statement but will

not display on text email statements. You can

turn this feature on and off whenever you like.

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2. Attach Statement to email as PDF. If you

are set up to send email statrments this feature

allows you to choose what type of email

statements you will send. The default setting is

“off” and emails will be sent as text. If you turn

this feature on a PDF statement will be attached

instead.

3. Upload company logo – This will appear in

the upper right hand corner of your

statements, invoices and estimates. If you

have a company logo that you would like to

appear on your statements you should click the

“Upload Company Logo” button. You are then

asked to browse on your computer to locate your

logo file. After you locate the image, select the

image and then click “Upload image”. Note that

the image must have a ratio of 1.5/1 width/height,

or the image will be distorted. For example,

your image could be 3 inches wide and two

inches tall. If you ever decide that you want to

replace your logo simply upload the new logo

and the old logo will be replaced by the new logo.

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4. Upload company image/banner – If you

have a company image/banner that you would

like to appear on your statements you should

click the “Upload Company image/banner”

button. You are then asked to browse on your

computer to locate your banner file. After you

locate the image, select the image, then click

“Upload company image/banner”. Note that the

image must be 400 pixels wide by 50 pixels tall

or the image will be distorted.

5. Upload additional text line – If you would

like your statements to have a personalized

statement you can type it in the empty field in

this section and then click “Upload additional

text line”. Note that you cannot exceed 75

characters on this statement.

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Chapter 2

The Customer Button

When you click on this button you are able to add new

customers as well as manage your customer’s information.

Active vs. Inactive selection: By default you will see a

list of your active customers. If you wish to see a list of your

inactive customers, select the “inactive” radio button and

click “OK”. You should move a customer to inactive status

when you no longer service that customer.

Add Customer: This button allows you to add a new

customer. When you click on this button a screen will

appear with all the fields you need to add a new customer.

Most of the default settings are what you will want. As you

look at this screen you’ll notice that there is a top section that

begins with “active customer” and ends with “Billing address

same as Service Location” When you are adding a new

customer you will want to answer/fill- out the questions/fields

listed below.

1. Active customer – the default is yes, unless you

have stopped service you will want to leave the

answer as yes.

2. Customer password – This is the customer’s

password you will need to provide the customer if

you choose to offer online bill pay. If you ever need

to reset their password you select the “reset” radio

button and click “update” at the bottom of the page.

3. Start date – Write the date when you began the

service (format doesn’t matter, you can skip this entry

if you like)

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4. Route and Route Day – These two fields will

only be visible if in the admin section you added the

name of at least one route to the drop down list box.

See the section on “Edit drop down lists” in chapter 1

“The Admin Button” to learn how to do this. If you

have this option on you can then select which route

and day you want this customer on.

5. Statement – You have four choices here. You

can choose to only print the monthly statement or to

only email the monthly statement, to do both or to do

none. Select the option you prefer. Keep in mind

that you must have an email address entered into the

company info business email field in order to select

email or both. When email statements are sent they

will show your business email address as the sender.

Also remember that if you have some customers set

to only receive email statements that no statement

will be printed when printing paper statements.

6. Billing Address same as Service Location

– the default setting is for this to be on and the service

location information will be automatically entered

when you click the “add” button if this feature is on.

However, if the bill goes to an address different than

you service (e.g., when you have a renter), uncheck

the box and enter the appropriate information in the

billing and service location fields.

Now you will see the next two sections are called Billing

Information and the other Service Location Information.

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Add your customer information to the relevant fields. Any

notes you enter into service notes field will print out on your

route reports. Any notes you enter into the office notes field

will NOT show up on route reports.

Any notes you add in phone notes will only display in the

“phone notes” tab. You can add unlimited customer notes by

repeating this process.

*Please Note: The field will clear after you update the

customer record.

Below you will see a series of fields for where you can list the

customer’s pool equipment. Fill in only the fields you want.

These fields are all optional.

Recurring Info - The last section is where you can schedule

the recurring charges. You can schedule up to 6 recurring

items. First we will show you how to set up to automatic

monthly pool service billing and then how you can set up any

other recurring charges.

First you choose the “charge type” from the drop down list

box. The “charge type” is for your use in reports and will not

show on your statements. We have added 5 types,

SERVICE, STABILIZER, REPAIRS, PARTS and FEE,

however this drop down list box can be modified in the

Admin section of EZ Pool Biller. For monthly pool service we

suggest you choose “service”.

Then choose the “recurring type” from the drop down box.

The “recurring item” is the description of the charge that will

show on your statements. We have added 2 types, POOL

SERVICE {MTH} and STABILIZER SEMI-ANNUAL

FEE, however this drop down box can be modified in the

Admin section of EZ Pool Biller. If you use {MTH} at the end

of your description, the program will insert the current month.

For example if your description is “pool service {MTH}”

then the program would insert “pool service April”. You

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could also use “MONTHLY POOL SERVICE” and no

month would be in your description of the service.

Next fill in the amount you would like to bill monthly.

Now choose how frequently you want the charge to be billed.

If you put a “1”, your customer would be billed every 1

month. If you put a “3”, your customer would be billed

every 3 months. Next check the “ON” box. Lastly select

the month to start billing from the next drop down list box.

For example if the date is November, 10th 2013 and you

would like monthly service to begin in December choose

“DEC 2013”. If you have other recurring charges you can

add them as well. For example if you want to bill stabilizer

every 6 months you can choose the “charge type as

“stabilizer”, choose the “recurring type” as “STABILIZER

SEMI-ANNUAL FEE”, CHOOSE THE AMOUNT YOU

WISH TO CHARGE, Fill in 6 for the “recur” field, check the

on box and choose the month you wish the first charge to take

place. The program will automatically charge this on the

start month you selected and then every 6 months thereafter.

Remember you can add charge types in the “admin” section

and set up to 6 recurring items. You can set multiple items to

bill each month or on the same frequency but you must create

different “recurring items” so that each charge is unique.

Now you can click the “Add” button to save your work and

EZ Pool Biller will automatically take you to the billing

tab/section (we will explain the “add/view pictures” button at

the end of this section). We will explain what to enter in the

billing tab in the next chapter. However, a few quick

comments before we move on to chapter 3.

Return to the main section of customers by clicking the “leave

customer detail menu” at the top of the screen and then click

the “customer” button at the top of the page. We now see a list

of your customers. There are a few things you will want to

20

notice. Customers are automatically alphabetized. Next to

each customer’s name is an account number that EZ Pool

Biller assigned when you added a customer. This account

number serves as the user name if you decide to issue login

information to your customers. Also, at the top of the screen

there is a list of the alphabet. If you click on a letter you will

be taken to that part of the alphabet of your customer list.

You can also push the control button on your keyboard and

letter “f” simultaneously and then type a customer’s name

into the find box to help locate customers quickly. If you

ever want to update any information on a customer simply

click on the individual customer, edit any field or selection

you wish, and then click “update” at the bottom of the page.

If you wish to add pictures to a customer record you can click

the “add/view pictures” which is on the right side of the

“update” button at the bottom of the customer info page.

This feature allows you to upload pictures of the customer’s

pool or equipment. You will see a “choose file” button to

the right of an empty field. Click “browse” and find the

picture on your computer that you want to add (pictures have

to be under 200kb and in JPEG format). Then click “open”.

The file name will now appear in the box to the left of the

“browse” button. Now click “upload image”. You will

now see a thumbnail of the picture you uploaded. You can

add more pictures or view the picture by clicking on the file

name. If you are done with managing your pictures you can

choose the “customer” button at the top of the page. This

will bring you back to the main customer info page. You can

add as many pictures as you like to each customer however

there is a storage limit of 200 pictures total for all your

customers. If you want to remove a picture you can click the

“delete” button below the thumbnail. Please keep in mind

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pictures cannot be recovered once deleted. You can return to

the picture section of a customer’s record by clicking

“add/view pictures” button at the bottom of the main

customer info page

View or Edit Customer Information: Anytime you want

to look at your customer’s information you should just click

the customer button at the top of the screen. You then see a

list of your customers. If you click on any customers name

you can then see all of their information. If you don’t want to

change anything just click the “Leave customer detail menu”

and you will be returned to your customer list. If you make

any changes you simply click the “Update” button at the

bottom of the page to save your work. You can then click the

“Leave customer detail menu” if you want to leave this

customer. It is important to note that if you are looking at a

customer’s information, you can click the billing, statement or

phone notes tabs and EZ Pool Biller will keep you working

with the same customer until you click the “Leave customer

detail menu”.

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Chapter 3

The Billing Button

When you click on this button you are able to manage your

customer’s billing entries by posting payments and charging

for anything.

Anytime you want to look at your customers billing

information you should just click the billing button at the top

of the screen. You then see a list of your customers. If you

click on any customers name you can then see all of their

billing information. If you don’t want to change anything

just click the “Leave customer detail menu” and you will be

returned to your customer list. It is important to note that if

you are looking at a customer’s information, you can click the

billing, statement or phone notes tabs and EZ Pool Biller will

keep you working with the same customer until you click the

“Leave customer detail menu”.

We will now walk you through everything that appears on the

billing button’s screen and what it does for you. If you click

on one of your customers you will be taken to a screen where

you will see the customers billing history and be able to add

billing items. Adding items means you are going to charge

for something or post a payment.

As we mentioned in Chapter 2 you are automatically taken to

the billing button section after adding a new customer. Note

if you clicked on a customer’s name that had never had any

billing details added the screen would look exactly the same

as when you just entered a new customer’s information and

were automatically taken to the billing section.

So to begin you can click on a customer’s name you are taken

to a new screen with the customer’s entire billing history.

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The first thing you see below the tabs is a button that says

“Leave Customer Detail Menu”. You would click this if you

did not wish to make any changes for this customer’s billing.

Now continuing down the screen you see the words “Billing

View Settings” and below that 4 selections. Items Entered By: Invoice items: Payments splits: Deleted Items: These 4 selections have to do with what displays. They are

completely optional. If you want to keep it easy you can just

ignore them. The “Set” button just activates which, if any of

these options you selected. For now uncheck all of the boxes

and click “Set” (A little further down we will explain what

each of these settings are for). This will affect how many

columns you see below. Now continuing down you see the

name of the customer you are working with. You also see a

number to the right of the customer name. This is the

customer’s account number which was created by EZ Pool

Biller. Below the name you see the 7 column titles (Date,

Description, Recurring, Credit, Charge, Balance, Remove).

These columns will begin to look like columns as you bill

your customers, post payments, etc. We will now show you

how to add (i.e., bill or post a payment) an item. An item can

be something you bill for each month or something you just

want to bill for one time. So now click the “Add item”

button and you are taken to a new screen.

Below the “Leave Customer Detail Menu” you can see we

have five choices.

“Charge” – This selection is for creating charges. You will

use this for all charges that you want to be reflected on the

customer’s statement.

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“Create Invoice” – This selection is in case you want to

create an invoice (which has a unique invoice number).

“Create Estimate” – This selection allows you to create

and estimate (which has a unique estimate number).

“Credit” – This selection is for when you are posting a

payment or a credit.

“Note” – This selection is to add a note to the billing history

and will appear on the customer’s statement.

Select the “Charge” button and click “Ok”. You are now on

a new page and should see 5 columns starting with the date

column that we will fill out.

1. Date: EZ Pool Biller automatically puts

today’s date for you. You can change this if you like

to a future date but you cannot change it to a date in

the past.

2. Charge Type: If you click on the drop down

box below the words “charge Type” you see five

options. The options in this drop down box can be

modified in the Admin section of EZ Pool Biller.

Return to chapter 1 to read the instructions about how

to do this.

3. Manual Statement Description: You can

put whatever you like here to describe the charge (this

will appear on the customer’s statement). If the

customer has a past balance we suggest writing “Past

balance”. If it just a basic item just put a basic

description such as C1200 cartridge or Pump basket.

(If you are adding a standard item leave this empty)

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4. Amount ($): This is the amount you are

billing. So type in the price of the item you are

billing for. (If you are adding a standard item leave

this empty)

5. Standard Statement Description: You can

use this to add a charge for a standard item (Adding

standard items is done in the admin section). To add

a standard item you will select it from the dropdown

box. Always leave the “manual statement

description” field and the amount field empty when

adding a standard item. The description and dollar

amount in the standard item you chose will be added.

Now click the “Done” button just below and you will be

returned to the ledger screen for this customer.

It is very important to note that if you enter any information

such as a payment or bill, that you will want to click the “OK”

or “Done” button so what you entered is saved. If you leave

this screen by clicking “Leave Customer Detail Menu” what

you entered will not be saved.

Now just repeat the process to bill any other items.

Any recurring charges you have set in the Customer Info

section will show in this section. (as discussed earlier in the

“customer button” they will automatically be inserted at 12:01

am of the last day of your statement cycle)

You will notice the “remove” column on the right has a trash

can. This is how you delete an item. Simply click the trash

can and this item will be deleted. The item can be still

recovered as described at the end of this section.

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Now that we’ve learned to charge for items, let’s learn how to

post payments.

Once again, click on the billing button and you see your list of

customers. Click on a customer’s name and then select “Add

item”.

As you see we are back to our five choices. This time please

select “Credit” and click the “OK” button.

This time you’ll notice the screen is slightly different. There

are four columns.

1. Date: Like before it is automatically filled in

with today’s date. You can change this if you like to a future

date but you cannot change it to a date in the past.

2. Credit Type: Click on the drop down list box

and select how they are paying you. The options in

this drop down list box can be modified in the Admin

section of EZ Pool Biller. Return to chapter 1 to

read the instructions about how to do this. Please

note if you choose the wrong selection in the drop

down box it is no big deal. The only consequence is

that your reports will not be quite accurate.

Billing Credit Split: (Note: to see this feature you must

have the “Billing Credit Split” in the “Admin” section

set to “ON”). If you have this feature on you will notice that

in column 2 under the drop down box where you selected

“check” there is a another column title called “Credit

Towards”. This is an optional feature and you can ignore it if

you like. If you decide to use it, it is easy to do so. Its

purpose is to help generate better reports. Here is how you

use this feature. If for example your customer paid you with

one check $165.00 – say $75.00 for the monthly service and

$90.00 for a C1200 cartridge you would enter the information

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as follows. In the “Credit towards” section you would first

select in row 1 the “service” choice in the drop down list box

and then to the right of this in the amount column you would

enter $75.00. Then you would go to the row below this and

choose “part” from the drop down box and then enter $90.00

in the amount column to the right. By doing this EZ Pool

Biller can separate what money was paid for and generates

more meaningful reports for you.

VERY IMPORTANT – You must enter the total amount

they paid at the end of row 1 as described in item 4 below.

3. Statement Description: You can type

whatever you like here, but we recommend you just type the

actual check number here. For credit cards we recommend

the last 4 digits. You should never enter complete credit card

numbers into the program.

4. Amount: Now type the amount of their check

in this field.

Keep in mind that EZ Pool Biller can let customers login and

post their own payments. That means you don’t ever have to

post payments!

Now click the “Done” button.

Now let’s learn how to create a specific invoice. Remember

invoices are when you just want to bill for a specific item once

and create a bill for a customer for just that one item. If you

create an invoice it will appear on the customer’s monthly

statement as well.

Once again, click on the billing button and you see your list of

customers. Click on a customer’s name and then select “Add

item”. As you see we are back to our five choices. This

time please select “create invoice” and click the “OK” button.

A new screen appears with 4 columns.

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1. Date - Automatically filled out for you.

2. Charge type – You can choose a category to

help generate meaningful reports or you can simply

ignore this field. (The options in this drop down list

box can be modified in the Admin section. Return to

chapter 1 to read the instructions about how to do

this.)

3. Statement Description – Just type a brief

description of what the invoice is for.

4. Amount – Enter the amount to be billed.

Below the 4 columns you have a field where you

can enter a detailed description of the invoice.

Cick” done” when you are finished.

You will now be looking at the billing details page.

Your invoice will be added as a line item at the

bottom of the page. You can print or email the

invoice by clicking on the appropriate icon in the

Invoice / Estimate column. (Note: If you want to

email the invoice you must have the email statements

feature set up in the admin section and you must have

an email address in the customer’s profile).

Now let’s learn how to create an estimate. Once

again, click on the billing button and you see your list

of customers. Click on a customer’s name and then

select “Add item”. As you see we are back to our

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Five choices. This time please select “Create

Estimate” and click the “OK” button.

At this point you will create the estimate exactly the

same as an invoice (explained on the previous page.).

After you create the estimate you can print or email it

using the appropriate icon on the billing details page.

Each estimate will have a unique estimate number

assigned to the estimate. You can also change your

estimate into an invoice at any time after you have

created this. This is done from the billing page. In

the invoice column next to the print and email icon

their will be a convert icon. This will only appear

next to estimates. Clicking the convert icon will

change the estimate into an invoice. This will

change the top of the estimate to say “Invoice”

instead of “Estimate”, it will also now charge the

customer the amount of the estimate and add it to the

customers balance. (when the estimate is created it

does not affect the customers charges/balance. Now

that it is an invoice it will), lastly the estimate number

will still be the same but is now the invoice number.

Understanding the View Settings Features

When in the billing section of the program whenever you

click on a customer’s name and are viewing the billing details

for that customer you have 4 options on what is to display on

the screen. These four options are: Items Entered By: Invoice items: Payments splits: Delete Items:

The “Set” button activates any of the options you selected.

Depending on which settings you choose you will discover

that you have differing number of columns that will appear

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when looking at the items posted in your billing ledger.

When you have selected the “Items Entered By”

option a new column displays to the left of the date column.

In this column three pieces of information are provided. The

date and time of when the entry was created and who entered

the information.

When you have selected the “Invoice items” option

two new columns (Inv # and View Inv) are displayed to the

right of the balance column. The Inv # column allows you

to click on the invoice so you can see details about the

particular invoice. The view invoice column allows you to

view the actual invoice and print it.

When you have selected the “Payment splits” option

any payments that were posted and the “Credit towards”

feature was used are then shown on the screen reflecting how

the “split” of the payment was done.

The feature below is very important as it allows you

to recover deleted items. When you have selected the “Deleted items” option a new

column is displayed to the right of the balance column. With

this column showing you are able recover deleted items. If

you have ever deleted any item in the past it will display with

the row showing in a gray color. This helps you to remember

what you have done in the past. Note: If a row is displaying

in the gray color it is not being calculated in the balance of

what a customer owes. You can click “recover” and the item

will be restored.

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Chapter 4

The Statements Button

Anytime you want to look at your customer’s statements you

should just click the statements button at the top of the screen.

You then see a list of your customers. If you click on any

customers name you can then see their statement. It is

important to note that if you are looking at a customer’s

information, you can click the billing, statement or phone

notes tabs and EZ Pool Biller will keep you working with the

same customer until you click the “Leave customer detail

menu”. You will notice that when you click on a customer’s

name that you see their current statement. On the bottom of

the statement there is a button that says “Detail on”. If you

click this button it will show the entire billing history for this

customer. While you are looking at the customer’s statement

you have the option to click on “Generate PDF statement”.

Click this is if you would like to print their statement at any

given time. You can also click on “Email Statement” which

will then send the customer their statement by email.

Obviously this will only work if the customer has an email

address AND you have a business email set in Company Info

under the Admin tab.

Explanation of Customer Online Login & Bill Pay

When a customer logs in using their account number and

password they will have 2 choices “Statements” or “Logout”.

They are unable to access any other area of the program.

When they choose the Statements tab they will view their

current statement. If the customer would like to see their

entire history they can click the “detail on” button at the

bottom of the page. If you have your PayPal account

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information completed ,in the admin section just above the

statement they will see “Enter payment amount here” with a

blank field to the left of these words. This is for customers to

pay their bill online. If a customer would like to make an

online payment they enter the amount they want to pay in the

blank field. The customer then clicks on “Make payment”.

At this point they are routed through PayPal where they enter

their credit/debit card details. After payment is completed

the customer is given the option to return to their online

account with you where they can see the payment they just

made reflected in EZ Pool Biller. You will not ever need to

use this field If you do not offer bill pay you can still allow

customers to login and view their statements.

How to print your monthly statements in 1 Click

As you know by now when you click on the statement button

at the top of the screen a list of your customers will be

displayed. Above this there are two options: “Generate PDF

Statement” and “Email Statement”. If you click on

“Generate PDF statement” while you are looking at the

customer list a PDF file will be created and then open up

which will show all of your statements for those customers

who have “Print” or “Both” selected for statements on

the Customer Info page. You then just print this file and

all your bills are ready to mail. The statements are designed

to use a double window envelope so you do not need to

address anything. You can find a link to acquire double

window envelopes on our FAQ page or you can just purchase

the double window envelopes at an office supply store.

You can also click on “Email statement” in which case all

your customers who you set to receive email statements will

be sent their statement by email. After you click “Email

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Statement” a small box will appear showing how many emails

were sent and they will be listed below. Next you will see a

summary of how many emails were not sent and a list of these

email addresses. Additionally EZ Pool Biller will also send

this email summary to your business email address.

Reasons that a statement was not sent include:

You do not have email set up properly in the admin section,

If this is the case no emails will be sent. Go to the admin

section and then the update company information button to fix

this.

The customer has no billing activity in their history. The

program will not send a statement if the customer has never

had any billing activity.

A connection/internet issues may have happened during the

sending of the mail. You can go to the individual customer

and re-send their statement.

Note: You must have a “Business Email” address for this

feature to work. You can add this in the “admin tab” and

choose “Update Company Information”.

If you want to check whether a customer is set to have their

bill printed, emailed, or both you can easily check by clicking

on the “Customer” button and then clicking on the

Customer’s name and look at their statement setting. You

can also print a billing method report from the reports section.

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Chapter 5

The Phone Notes Button

Viewing phone Notes: Anytime you want to look at phone

notes you should just click the “phone notes” button at the top

of the screen. You then see a list of your customers. If you

click on any customers name you can then see any phone

notes entered for this customer. You will also see who entered

the phone note and the time and date it was entered. You can

then click the “Leave customer detail menu” if you want to

leave this customer. You can also click on the Customer,

Billing, or Statements tab.

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Chapter 6

The Reports Button

When you click on the reports button you are taken to a screen

that says “Select a report”.

Income reports:

The default setting is to print an income report. You

can select either “Type” or “Category”. If you select

“Type” the report will be organized by how you

received payment. For example, you may have one

section listing all the checks you received and another

section listing all your online payments received. If

you choose “Category” the income report will break

down your income by category of income such as by

“Service” or “Parts”. If when you enter your

payments you do not do payment splits then an

income report by category will not provide accurate

information. You must enter “To” and “From” dates

for the period you would like to see the income you

received. After you enter the dates you then click on

the “View report’ button and your income report will

display showing all your income and the total

received.

Charge reports: If you select this option a report will be generated for

all the items you billed for over a given date period.

You must enter “To” and “From” dates for the period

you would like to see the charges you billed. After

you enter the dates you then click on the “View

report’ button and your charges report will display

showing all your charges and the total you billed out.

36

Expenses report:

Use this report to get a list and totals of all

your expenses. You may choose any date range.

Changes report:

This is a unique report for which can be used to

recover changed or deleted items if needed. You can

also review changes that employees have made.

Choose a date range and then “View Report”. A list

of all the edits/changes to any fields in the program or

changes to radio button selections (i.e. active or

inactive customer) will be listed. The 1st and 2

nd

column are the account number and customer name in

which information was changed. The 3rd

column has

a description of the type of change. The 4th column

tells you the field in which the change took place. The

5th column has what the new data or selection is. The

6th column has the old data (what was in the field or

selection before the change). Columns7,8 and 9 tell

you the employees account number, the name of the

employee, who made the change and the time and

date of the change. You can use this to fix mistakes,

find old phone numbers etc., or find anything that was

done by an employee. Remember you can choose

the date range so you can go back to look at

information/changes from any time period no matter

how long ago.

Billing method report: This report will list all your customer’s and how each

customer’s statements will be sent. This is based

on your selection in each customers profile for

37

“statement” which offers you Print, Email, Both

Or None.

Aging reports:

If you select this option and then click the “View

report’ button you will see a report display showing

which customers are current, who owes 30 days, 60

days, and 90 days. This report allows you to easily

see if any of your customers are getting behind in

their payments.

Recurring reports:

If you select this option you get a report that shows

you all the customers you have who are automatically

being billed in the current month and how much

revenue this totals up to.

Active customers report:

If you select this option you get a report which lists all

your customers and their information such as address,

phone number etc. This report can be very useful for

locating a customer when you only have partial

information. For example, if you get a phone

message and you only can understand the last four

digits of their phone number and nothing else try

running this report. Then press the control key on

your keyboard and the letter “f” simultaneously.

The find box will appear. Type in whatever

information you have and you can usually locate the

customer you are looking for.

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Inactive customers report:

This works just like the active customers report

above, but it is for your inactive customers.

Route report:

When you select this report you are taken to a screen

where you have the option to select the day and route

you wish to display. Make your selections and then

click “Ok”. If you like you can choose the order for

the route by numbering each customer in the blank

field on the left side and then click “resequence

customer order”. The route will now be in the order

that you have chosen. You can then print this report

for yourself or to give your service technician.

Note: You have to enter routes when you set your

customers up or no report can be selected. Of

course, you can always go back and set-up the routes

at any time.

39

Chapter 7

The Vendor Button

Add Vendor: This button allows you to add a new vendor.

When you click on this button a screen will appear with all the

fields you need to add a new vendor.

At the top you will see the “active vendor” is checked. If the

vendor becomes inactive, simply uncheck this and click

“update” at the bottom of the page.

You may fill out any information that you like and click

“add”. The only field you must fill in is the vendor name.

Update Vendor: If you wish to update a vendor simply

make any changes you would like to make and click “update

“at the bottom of the page.

Navigation: You may return to the main section of vendors

by clicking the “Leave Vendor Detail Menu” at the top of the

screen. We now see a list of your vendors. You will notice

all the vendors are listed and automatically alphabetized.

40

Chapter 8

The Expenses Button

When you click on this button, you are able to enter and edit

all your expenses.

Below the Edit Expense Box you will see a box with the

following 8 columns. There are 5 INVOICES columns:

DATE, VENDOR, INV #, DESC, INV AMNT and there are

3 PAYMENT columns: DATE, ACCT, PAY DESC. Below

are 5 rows. This allows you to enter up to 5 expenses

quickly. To Add an Expense:

You will fill out all the fields in yellow.

DATE: The default is the current date. Edit it as needed.

VENDOR: Choose the vendor from the drop down list box.

(Add “Vendors” in the “ADMIN” section as described in

chapter 1.)

INV #: Enter the Invoice #

DESC: Enter a description of the expense, such as

“chemicals” or “office supplies”

INV AMNT: Enter the amount of the expense.

You can add the expense by clicking “UPDATE” or you can

continue to add up to 4 more expenses at once.

To complete the Expense, you will want to add the payment

information. You can do this at the time you enter the expense

or add it later.

To enter the payment information, fill out the fields in

Turquoise.

DATE: Enter the date the expense was paid for.

ACCT: Choose the account you paid it with. For

example “Checking Account” or “ABC Bank Credit Card”.

(Add “Accounts” in the “ADMIN” section as described in

41

chapter 1.)

PAY DESC: Enter information such as the check number or

any other description. Then click “UPDATE”.

After you have filled out both the expense and payment

information, the expense will no longer view on this page.

You view your expenses in reports.

If you enter only Expense information without the payment

information, it will display on this page until you have

completed entering the payment information.

Edit an Expense: Choose a date range in the “Edit

Expense” Box. Then click “Edit Expense”. Next, edit any

field that needs to be updated and click “UPDATE”. If you

want to remove the entire expense, check the “REMOVE

EXPENSE” check box to the right of the expense and click

“UPDATE”.

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