New Bills Processing Page

Use this option to generate a billing record for either a selected employee, all employees under a group of COBRA benefits, or all employees/benefits in your database.

Menu Path: Benefits > Entry & Processing > COBRA Information > New Bills Processing

Prerequisites

To process a billing for a COBRA benefit, the following conditions must be met:

A COBRA benefit record must exist for the employee/benefit or employee/benefit/dependent combination being billed.
The benefit record must have a status code of Active.
The benefit record's due date must match or precede the due date entered in the New Bills Processing window.
The COBRA Cost field in the Benefit Codes table must contain an amount.

Understanding COBRA Billings

Charges for COBRA benefits are based on the entry in the COBRA Cost field of the benefit's table record. This flat amount is charged each time a billing is created in the New Bills Processing page.

After you generate a billing, the system defaults the following data to fields in the Billing and Payment columns in the COBRA Information Page:

Current Amount Due	Amount in the COBRA Cost field of the assigned Benefit Codes table record determines the current amount due. You cannot enter or change this amount when generating a billing. You can only change it by changing the table record.
Due Date	Next Due Date from the New Bills Processing screen becomes the current amount's due date.
Delinquent Balance	Existing current amount due is added to the Delinquent Balance field if payment is not posted by the time you generate current billing.
Date Delinquent	If the previous current amount due is unpaid as of this billing, the Due Date from the New Bills Processing screen defaults to the Date Delinquent field. However, if there was already a balance from one or more previous billings, the date shown is the one from the original delinquency.
Total Billed	All charges billed to date, including the current amount due.

After you generate a billing, you can verify the results by running the COBRA Status Report.

Example: A COBRA benefit has a $22 current amount due, 07/01/2018 due date, $44 delinquent balance, and 05/01/2018 delinquent date. The next time the New Bills Processing option is run, enter 07/01/2018 as the due date and 08/01/2018 as the next due date. When you process the billing, the current amount due becomes $22; delinquent balance, $66; and due date, 08/01/2018. In addition, the Total Billed field increases by $22. The 05/01/2018 delinquent date remains in effect until the full balance is paid.

Generating a billing for COBRA benefit

Select Benefits > Entry & Processing > COBRA Information > New Bills Processing to display the New Bills Processing page.
In the Selection Criteria section, enter criteria in the Employee Number, Benefit, and Dependent SSN fields to identify the benefits to bill.
To select all active employee/benefit records that match the due date (next step), leave these fields blank. For details, refer to the Fields section below.

Complete the following fields:

Due Date	Selects records with due dates that match or precede the date you enter.
Next Due Date	Specifies when the bills become due. The date you enter defaults to the Due Date field in the COBRA Information window.

Click OK.
In the confirmation dialog, click Yes to process the billings.
Click OK to return to the Employee field.
To view the results of your changes, run the COBRA Status report. For details, refer to COBRA Status Report.

Fields

Fields	Description
Employee Number	Employee ID numbers. You can enter an individual ID or use query symbols to identify multiple employees. To select multiple employees, separate IDs with the pipe symbol; for example, 112233\|123456\|135791. To select a range of ID numbers, use a colon between the lowest and highest numbers, for example, 100000:120000. To access all employees, leave the field blank.
Benefit	Codes identifying benefits, as defined in the Benefit Codes table. To select multiple codes, separate the codes with the pipe symbol, for example, 1270\|2630\|4590. To select codes that share the same first characters, use the asterisk symbol. For example, 35* selects all codes that begin with 35. To access all benefits, leave this field blank.
Dependent SSN	Social Security numbers of either employees or dependents. Be sure to include the dashes in the proper places. This field is only available for users with the proper security. To enter individual numbers, insert the pipe symbol between each number; for example 432109876\|234567890\|321456789. In most cases, you can leave this field blank and select records by employee ID, benefit code, and due date.
Due Date	Date when billings for the employees/benefits selected should be issued. Initially, the system defaults today's date, but you may change this if needed. The system selects the records to bill based on this date. If an employee/benefit has a Due Date in the COBRA Information page that matches or precedes the date you enter, then a billing will be generated. This date also defaults to the Delinquency Date fields of the records selected, except for records that already have a delinquent amount. A benefit record without a Due Date in the COBRA Information page (not recommended) is billed automatically.
Next Due Date	Date when the next billing is to be generated. This date defaults to the Due Date fields in the COBRA Information pages for the employees/benefits selected. If you leave this field blank, employees will not have a Due Date in their COBRA Information pages. As a result, they will be billed every time you generate a billing for this benefit.