Billing Settings

ALIS Billing settings are managed at the community level. These are typically managed during onboarding, and you will achieve the best results from the beginning if you work with the ALIS team!

Click the Settings link at the top right corner of your ALIS screen, and click Billing. Only users with Administrator roles can access this.

• The Billing Center has its own settings page. To learn more about these settings, read this article: The ALIS Billing Center

• This article describes each page of Billing Settings, which are organized into multiple levels of tabs.

The General tab gives us General Settings, Tax Statement template settings, and Email template settings.

General Settings

Left column:

• Billing Day of the Month is when the invoices automatically generate.
• Billing Day to Appear on Invoice: Most likely this is set to the 1st, and you may decide whether this will be the Month Following the Billing Day or the Month of the Billing Day. In most private pay Assisted Living scenarios, we want to bill forward and set this to the Month Following the Billing Day.
• Starting Invoice Number
• Bulk Payments "Apply To" Default: Custom Apply, Most Recent Invoice, Oldest to Newest, Any Payer's Balance, Do Not Apply. When you are using the Payment Center, this setting determines the default option for each payment, but you can always customize this for the individual payments if needed. For more information about submitting bulk payments, read this article: Payment Center Guide.
• Default Invoice Comment
• Statement Comment
• Payment, Refund, and Credit Receipt Comment

The right column contains many Yes/No options:

• Exclude Incidental Charges from Recurring Billing
• Prorate monthly amounts based on a fixed 365 day year
• Automatically Apply Excess Credits to Invoices
• Automatically Apply Pre-Payments to Invoices
• Display Previous Outstanding Balances on Unpaid Invoices
• Default Create Bulk Payment as a Deposit
• Default Create Single Payment as a Deposit
• Create Invoice Level Discounts
• Trigger "Add Recurring Charge" Impact Review*
• Trigger "Rate Change" Impact Review*
• Trigger "End Service" Impact Review*

*To learn more about Impact Review, read this article: Impact Review Reference Guide

Click the blue Save Changes button below the next section if you update any of these settings!

Payment Preference Notes for Invoices/Statements

You can set notes to appear on invoices statements according to the Payer's payment preference. You can set different notes for each payment type if needed. Click Save Changes if you Update any of these notes!

Payer Types

Manage the available Payer Types within the community. For each Payer Type, there is a separate tab at the top of Billing Settings where you can manage Billing Items and GL account details.

Billing Item Groups

• Set different groups of Billing Items for Tax Statements and Charge Cards.
• The Billing Item Groups refer to simplified revenue groups that show on the Tax Statements and Charge Cards. Organizing the Billing Items into Rent and Care groups is typically sufficient.
• These settings can be copied between Tax Statements and Charge Cards.

Payment Methods

Here you can disable Check, ACH, or Cash payment methods.

Auto-Close Settings

This setting will auto-close a GL period on a specified date. An email for error notifications is required in case an open or pending GL Transaction (any transaction that has not been exported) in the period prevents the auto-close.

Tax Statement template settings

Find these within the General tab, to the right of "Settings"

Here you can set the email template for Tax Statement documents. For more information about Tax Statements including these settings, read this article: Tax Statements

Email template settings

Find these within the General tab to the far right

Here you can edit and preview the email templates for Invoices, Statements, Payment Gateway email messages, Credit Receipts, Payment Receipts, and Refund Receipts. Click the Options button to Preview or Edit the templates.

GL tab

Your GL Integration will largely be set up by your ALIS Onboarding manager. In this tab we will make sure all the correct information is mapping over when your integration is enabled. 

Private tab

The first thing we do in Billing Settings is to set up Billing Items for which we charge revenue! Your ALIS Onboarding manager can help you import the details of your Billing Items if needed.

For each item, you should add the following details:

• Name: This is the name of the item that displays on invoices and statements.
• Item Type: Transaction, Service, or Per diem service.
• Item Category: Care, Incidentals, Rent, Other. Setting these categories will be useful for organizing your Rent Roll. For more information about the ALIS Rent Roll, read this article: Rent Roll Reference Guide
• Bill Service Period: Backward or Forward.
• Price - Set a base rate here if applicable. This can always be edited for individual resident charges.

Other Billing Item details:

• Description
• Exclude from Discounts
• Exclude from Proration
• Amount Deduction
• GL Account #*
• Discount GL Account #*
• Class
• Item
• Dept

*The GL Account numbers are essential if you are using a GL Integration!

In the tabs on the left, we can also set the GL account details for AR, Cash, Discounts, and Payables related to items billed to private payers. 

Insurance, Medicaid, and Other Billing Programs

Any Payer Types you have set in the Payer Types section of the General Settings page will have its own tab with settings for Billing Items and GL account details. These are all the same settings you have for the Private payer type as described in the above section.

Related Articles:

How to add Billing Items in ALIS

Monthly Billing with ALIS