CUBIC 21 Utility Billing Software Release

The CUBIC v21.0 Release is loaded with new features, improvements, and refinements.  These changes have come from the Annual Survey, technology advances, and requests submitted throughout the year.  Our goal in updating CUBIC is to keep the product technically state-of-the-art, more efficient, and more pleasing to use. Below are highlights of the major changes and new features found in CUBIC v21.0.

1. Internet Inquiry.  The Internet Inquiry module has been completely redesigned.  The details are below:

• Internet Inquiry will no longer use the customer’s book, account, and PIN to access the customer’s account. Customers will now need to register an account on your company’s new internet inquiry site.  The customer will now be the only person who has access to their login credentials.
• Your Internet Inquiry Customer Online Services is now hosted on cubicutilitybilling.com instead of drfrey.biz.  Your Internet Inquiry Customer Online Services site has also been redesigned to use a responsive design so the site will display well whether it is being accessed from a desktop computer, laptop computer, tablet, or smartphone.  The URL for web pages that aren’t dynamically generated for your organization will no longer use your CUBIC Identification Number as part of the URL.  That portion of the URL is now replaced with an organization specific ID which is a variation of your organization’s name and the state in which it is located.
• From your organization’s Internet Inquiry Customer Online Services login page, a customer will be able to login with their Username and Password, or they will be able to request a username email reminder if they have forgotten their Username, or they will be able to request a password reset email if they have forgotten their password, or they will be able to register for an account if they have not already registered.  If the customer has forgotten their username, they can click on the “Forgot your username?” link which will then prompt them to enter their book number and account number which are required to locate the correct registered account for the customer and once the registered account is located the customer will need to provide the correct answers to their security questions before a username reminder email can be sent to the customer’s email account.  An email account must be setup on their customer record in CUBIC for a customer to be able to receive the username reminder email.  If the customer has forgotten their password, they can click on the “Forgot your password?” link which will then prompt them to enter their username which is required to locate the correct registered account and once the registered account is located the customer will need to provide the correct answers to their security questions before a temporary password can be generated for the customer and a password reset email can be sent to the customer’s email account.  An email account must be setup on their customer record in CUBIC for a customer to be able to receive the password reset email.  Once the customer receives the password reset email, the customer can return to the customer login page and use their username and temporary password to login to Internet Inquiry Customer Online Services.  The customer will be required to immediately setup a new password when the customer logs in with the temporary password.  If the customer does not have a registered account, they can click on the “Register here” link to begin the registration process. The customer must have their Book Number, Account Number, the first service address line as it appears on their bill, and the email account that is on their customer record in CUBIC which will provide the uniquely identifiable information for the customer that is necessary to begin the registration process.  A customer must be setup to be included in the internet inquiry database in CUBIC and must have an email account on their customer record and must have been included in the latest database generation and transfer in order for the customer to be able to register an account on Internet Inquiry Customer Online Services.  To complete the registration, the customer will need to enter a username, password, and setup their security questions/answers.
• Once a customer logs into Internet Inquiry Customer Online Services with a registered account, they will be presented with their Customer Dashboard.  The Customer Dashboard consists of an Account Information Bar below the page banner and contains the customer’s book and account and a logout button.  The customer’s name and service address are displayed below the Account Information Bar and the customer’s Account Summary is displayed below the customer’s service address.  The Account Summary will show the account status as of the date the Internet Inquiry Database was generated.  Customers with a Seasonal status will have Seasonal displayed in red on the account status line.  Customers with a Final Billed status will have Final Billed displayed in red on the account status line.  Customers with any other status besides Active will have Non-Active displayed in red on the account status line.  Below the account status line in the Account Summary is the Amount Due section which will either show a title of Amount Due or if the customer is on Level Billing or Budget Billing a title of Budget Amount Due.  The amount that is shown will be the customer’s Budget Balance if the customer is on Budget Billing, otherwise it will be the customer’s current account balance at the time the database was generated.  A Pay Now button is located under the amount due which when pressed will take the customer to your ACI Payments portal.  Below the Amount Due section of the Account Summary is the Last Bill Amount Due section which will show the due date of the most recent bill and the amount that was due for that bill.  If your company has the E-Billing module, a View Bill button will be displayed under the last bill amount due which will let the customer view the bill in PDF format.  Below the Amount Due section of the Account Summary is the Last Payment Received section which will show the date and amount of the customer’s most recent payment. If the Show Contact Us Button on Internet Inquiry Site option is selected on the Internet Inquiry Preferences screen in System Controls in CUBIC, a Contact Us button will be displayed to the right of the customer’s name and service address on larger devices or below the Account Summary section on smaller devices.  When the customer presses the Contact Us button, the customer will be taken to the URL that is assigned on the Internet Inquiry Preferences screen in System Controls in CUBIC.
• A row of tabs is displayed below the Account Summary section with the History tab initially displayed.  The History tab displays a table of up to two years of the customer’s transaction history.  History transactions that will always be included in the Internet Inquiry Database during its generation are:  Adj/Balance Transfers, Adjustments, Apply Deposits, Balance Transfers, Bills, NSF Checks, Payments, Penalties, and Reversals.  All other history transaction types are optional and can be selected to be included in the Internet Inquiry Database from the Internet Inquiry Preferences screen in System Controls in CUBIC.  If your company has the E-Billing module and the Only Allow Customers To View Their Current Bill option is not selected on the Internet Inquiry Preferences screen in System Controls in CUBIC, a View Bill button will be available for all regular Bill transactions that have a bill available to view in PDF format. Also, if your company has the E-Billing module and the Allow Customers To View Receipts option is selected on the Internet Inquiry Preferences screen in System Controls in CUBIC, a View Receipt button will be available for all Payment, Deposit, and Pay Assist Receipt transactions that have a receipt available to view in PDF format.  A table showing a summary of the Total Billed and Total Paid for the two years of transaction history is also shown below the history transaction table if the customer has history transactions.
• A Services tab will be available on the Customer Dashboard for the customer to select if the customer has any metered services that have a Meter Number assigned to them or the customer has any installment services that have an Agreement Number assigned to them that are not paid off. If the customer has multiple services available, the customer can select which service they want to view by choosing an available service from the “Select a service” field.  When a metered service is selected, the customer will see the type of service, the service description, the service’s meter number, a table of the last two years of usage history, a graph of the last two years of usage history, and a table showing a summary of Total Usage and Average Usage of the last two years of usage history.  When an installment service is selected, the customer will see the type of service, the service description, the service’s agreement number, the total amount of the installment, the amount paid against the installment, the amount remaining on the installment, a graph of the installment activity, and a comment line indicating how many of the periods of the installment have been billed and how many periods are remaining.
• The customer can select the Account tab from the Customer Dashboard to view their account information.  The customer will be able to see their Username, Email Address, and Billing Address on the Account tab.  If your company has the E-Billing module, the customer will also be able to see their current Bill Delivery Method (paper, email, or paper and email), and if the Allow Customers To Submit Bill Delivery Method Requests option is selected on the Internet Inquiry Preferences screen in System Controls, buttons will be available to submit a request email for the other delivery methods that have been made available on the Internet Inquiry Preferences screen in System Controls.  If the customer presses one of the bill delivery method request buttons, an email will be sent to the email account assigned to receive the bill delivery request emails on the Internet Inquiry Preferences screen in System Controls. Once a CUBIC user receives that bill delivery request email, the CUBIC user will need to edit the customer in CUBIC and update their E-Bill Receiving Options to the requested delivery method. The customer will also be able to see their security questions and also have the option to view the answers to their security questions on the Account tab.  The Account tab also has options for the customer to change their Username, Password, and Security Questions.  If a CUBIC user views the Account tab from the Access Internet Inquiry option in Customer Maintenance, the CUBIC user will not see the customer’s Username or security questions/answers and will not have the ability to change the Username, Password, or Security Questions and will not have the ability to request a different bill delivery method.  The customer’s Username will show as asterisks for the CUBIC user if the customer has a registered account and if the customer has not registered an account, nothing will show for the Username for the CUBIC user.

2. Generate Internet Inquiry Database.  Generate Internet Inquiry Database has two new options:  “Require All Customers to Reset Their Internet Inquiry Password” and “Remove All Registered Accounts From Internet Inquiry”.  If either of these new options is selected, the CUBIC user will need to type “YES” to verify that they want to continue to generate with the selected option.  When the “Require All Customers to Reset Their Internet Inquiry Password” option is selected, once the database is generated and transferred, all CUBIC Internet Inquiry registered accounts will be updated to require a password reset the next time the customer logs into the CUBIC Internet Inquiry site.  Note that a customer will need to have an email account defined in CUBIC for a customer to be able to perform a password reset. When the “Remove All Registered Accounts From Internet Inquiry” is selected, once the database is generated and transferred, all CUBIC Internet Inquiry registered accounts will be removed and all customers will need to reregister on the CUBIC Internet Inquiry site. Note that customers must have an email account setup in CUBIC to be included in the generated internet inquiry database.  An email account is now required in order for the customer to be able to register their account on the internet inquiry site.  An owner email must be setup on the customer if the owner is set to receive the bill, otherwise, a customer email must be setup on the customer.

3. Internet Inquiry Remove Registered Account.  There is a new Remove Registered Account menu item on the Internet Inquiry menu that is on the General menu.  The Remove Registered Account will allow the CUBIC user to select a single customer to have their registered account removed from the CUBIC Internet Inquiry site. The CUBIC user must verify the customer is the correct customer to have their registered account removed by typing “YES” to continue processing the registered account removal.  Once the CUBIC user has verified the customer is correct, the customer’s CUBIC Internet Inquiry registered account will be removed. The customer would then need to re-register on the CUBIC Internet Inquiry site.

4. Internet Inquiry Require Password Reset.  There is a new Require Password Reset menu item on the Internet Inquiry menu that is on the General menu.  The Require Password Reset will allow the CUBIC user to select a single customer to require a password reset be done for their CUBIC Internet Inquiry registered account.  The CUBIC user must verify the customer is the correct customer to require the password reset by typing “YES” to continue processing the password reset.  Once the CUBIC user has verified the customer is correct, the customer’s CUBIC Internet Inquiry registered account will be updated to require a password reset the next time the customer logs into the CUBIC Internet Inquiry site.  Note that a customer will need to have an email account defined in CUBIC for a customer to be able to perform a password reset.

5. Internet Inquiry – System Control.  There have been numerous enhancements in System Controls for Internet Inquiry, they are as follows.

• The Transaction History Types area has been broken into two sections.  One section is for the Required History Types which will show all required types as checked and will not be able to be edited and the other section is for the Optional History Types that the user has full control over whether or not to have them show on the internet inquiry site.
• An option has been added to Only Allow Customers To View Their Current Bill which is only available if the system has the E-Billing module.  When the Only Allow Customers To View Their Current Bill option is selected, the customer will only be able to view a PDF of their current bill on the internet inquiry site.  When it is not selected, the customer will be able to view PDFs of all of their regular bills that are in their history grid on the internet inquiry site.
• An option has been added to Allow Customers To View Receipts which is only available if the system has the E-Billing module.  When the Allow Customers To View Receipts option is selected, the customer will be able to view a PDF of all the receipts for payment transactions in their history grid that have a receipt in the CUBIC receipts history file.
• An option has been added to Allow Customers To Submit Bill Delivery Method Requests which is only available if the system has the E-Billing module.  When the Allow Customers To Submit Bill Delivery Method Requests option is selected, the user will have the ability to select which type of bill delivery methods they want their customers to be able to choose from when submitting a request from the internet inquiry site.  The bill delivery method options are Paper, Email, and Paper and Email.  The customer will only see the options on the internet inquiry site that the CUBIC user allows for submission.  Also, the customer will only see the options available for submissions that are not the option that the customer is already assigned. Also when the Allow Customers To Submit Bill Delivery Method Requests option is selected, the user will need to specify an Email Receiving Requests.  This email account will receive the bill delivery method request emails that the customers submit.
• An option has been added for the number of days prior to the due date for any Speedpay Autopay Plans (recurring payments) to post – this allows CUBIC to have customer’s recurring payments that they setup be paid up to 9 days before the current bill’s due date.  Speedpay is not functional currently and is scheduled to be added in the future.

6. Customer Maintenance.  There have been numerous enhancements made to Customer Maintenance, they are as follows:

• A new Archived service status has been added to Services.  This new status is similar to the Inactive status, but must have a zero balance before it can be changed to this new status. Services with the status cannot be billed nor have payments posted to them.  The following reports and programs have the new archived status checkbox: Route List, Meter List, Usage Report, Rate Study, Net Meter List, Payment Assistance List, Top Usages/Charges Report and the Remove Exempt option in Customer Maintenance.
• For users who print the “New Statement” format bill, there is a new View Bill/Adjustment button at the bottom of the Bill/Pay History screen. When this button is pressed, it will display a “PDF” version of the bill or adjustment that is selected in the History grid.
• The Pending Transactions grid has been changed to now include pending Installments.  The installment can be viewed by double clicking on the grid item.
• The customer ID Change and Customer Copy screen has been changed to show more of the Customer Name and now the Service Address.
• Throughout the system, where the user clicks on a “Customers” button and a Pop-up menu is displayed with “View Customer” and “Customer Maintenance” items, there is now an “Edit Customer” menu item.  This menu item will only be enabled for users who have “Update” access to Customer Maintenance.
• The Internet PIN field has been removed from the Billing Information tab.  The Internet Inquiry no longer uses PINs.  A Speedpay Account field has been added to the Billing Information tab. The Speedpay Account is the customer’s unique identifier that Speedpay will use if a customer creates a profile with Speedpay.  A CUBIC user may need to know the customer’s Speedpay Account if they need to access the customer’s profile on the Speedpay Client Portal.

7. Customer Reports.  Many of the Customer Reports now have the “Return to this Options Screen After the Report Finishes Processing” option added to them.  These reports are the following: Customer ACH List, Customer Budget Billing List, Customer Change Report, Customer Deposits Report, Customer E-Bill List, Customer History Report, Customer Level Billing List, Customer List, Customer Meter List, Customer Net Meter List, Customer Notes Report, Customer Payment Assistance List, Customer Service List and Customer Usage Report.

8. Customer Budget Billing List.  The Budget Balance Range has been changed to Balance Range and there are now options for Budget Balance and Customer Balance. When the Customer Balance option is selected, the Customer Balance will print on the report and when Budget Balance is selected, the Budget Balance will print on the report.

9. Customer Exemption List.  A new Customer Exemption List has been added to the system. This new report gives the ability to print a listing of customers and all their exemptions.  This report replaces the Tax Exempt List and Penalty Exempt List programs as this new report has the ability to generate the same information.  For users with the database option, there is also the ability to send this report to Excel.

10. Customer Statement.  There is now the ability to do the Customer Search on the From and To Customer range fields.  There is also an option to return to the options screen once the report finishes processing.

11. Send E-Customer Statements.  There is now the ability to do the Customer Search on the From and To Customer range fields.

12. Bill/Pay History.  When viewing Bill History, the screen now shows the Budget Amount that was printed on the bill.  This amount shows under the New Balance fields.  To accommodate this change, the Reference field was moved to the top portion of the screen.  If there was no Budget Amount on the bill, the field will be disabled.

13. Rates Maintenance.  There have been a couple of changes to Rates Maintenance, they are as follows:

• The grids in Rates Maintenance and Rates Search have a new “Metered Charge/Usage Factor” column.  This column lists the metered service Charge/Usage Factor.
• There is now a “Customers with this Rate” button on the bottom left corner of all of the rate code screens.  When this button is pressed, the program will generate a listing of all the customers in the system that have the rate code.  The “Customers with this Rate” screen contains a grid of all the Customers broken out by each service.  The grid contains the customers Book, Account, Billing Name, Service Address, Service Sequence, Service Balance, Service Status, Units, Meter Size, Multiplier, Meter Number and Handheld Transponder Number.  There are options at the bottom to View or Edit the selected Customer, Service Status check boxes with a Refresh Customers button, Total Count and Total Balance fields.  There is also the ability to print the contents of the grid.

14. Rate Study.  Service Status options have been added to the Rate Study.  Previously the program used the Customer Status check boxes to determine which services to use, now it will use the new Service Status option check boxes.

15. Adjustments.  Two new options have been added to Security to determine if a user has the ability to enter and/or update adjustments.  The new check boxes are “Allow Adjustment Entry” and “Allow Adjustment Update”.  If the Allow Adjustment Entry checkbox is unchecked, the user will only have the ability to view Adjustments entered in the system.  The Add, Edit, Delete, Change Dates and Recalculate buttons are disabled.  If the Allow Adjustment Update checkbox is unchecked, the Adjustments radio button on the Bill Print screen becomes disabled.

16. Bill Print to File.  The file layout has been modified to include a new “Customer Number” field.  This is the hidden customer number field that is stored in the customer.  This is used exclusively for DataMail so they can generate bill PDF’s for our Internet Inquiry site.

17. Billing Journal.  There is now an option to include totals for each Customer Type on the report.  There is a new Customer Type Grand Totals checkbox on the report options screen to turn the printing of these new totals on or off.  There is also the ability to set preferences for it and to set the value in the Report Scheduler.

18. E-Billing.  A new option has been added to E-Billing to produce an E-Reminder e-mail.  To set up E-Reminders, there is a new E-Reminder Information tab on the E-Billing Information screen in System Controls. This is where the information gets setup for the e-mail that will be sent to the customer.  The options on the screen are basically the same as the E-Bill but have an additional option to “Exclude ACH Customers from Reminders”. When this option is selected, any users who are on ACH will not get a “Reminder” e-mail.  The option to send the E-Reminder is on the “Send E-Bill Notifications” screen.  At the bottom of the screen are Notification Type options for “E-Bill” and “E-Reminder”. The rest of the process is the same as E-Billing but it will send the “E-Reminder” e-mail instead of the “E-Bill” e-mail.  There is also the ability to set preferences for this option.

19. Delinquent Notices.  There is now the ability to suppress the Due/Shut-Off date that prints on the Dot-Matrix, Laser, Postcard and Statement Delinquent Notices.  There is a “Suppress the Due/Shut-off Date on Delinquent/Shut-off Notice” checkbox in System Controls on the Preferences tab.

20. Pay Types.  There have been a couple of changes to Pay Types, they are as follows:

• There is now the ability to “Exclude the Pay Type from Payment/Deposit Entry”.  When the new checkbox to exclude the Pay Type is checked, the Pay Type will not be available in the Pay Types drop-down for Payment or Deposit transactions.
• There is now the ability to flag a Pay Type as ACH Applicable. When the new ACH Applicable checkbox is checked, in the Create ACH File program, only Pay Types that are ACH Applicable will list in the Pay Types drop-down.

21. Create ACH File.  When previewing the creation of the ACH file, a View Customer button has been added to the bottom of the screen.  When this button is selected, it will view the customer that is selected in the preview grid.

22. Batch Receipts/Simple Batch Posting Update.  There is now the ability to force the user to enter a Posting Date for Batch Receipts Update and Simple Batch Postings Update rather than having it default to the current date.  This is accomplished via the new “Require Posting Date to be Manually Entered in Batch Receipts Posting and Simple Batch Posting” checkbox in System Controls on the Cash Receipts tab.

23. Receipt Posting.  The Receipt Posting screens, in Receipt and Batch Receipts, have been changed to now show Budget Balance amount for customers on Budget Billing.  This amount now displays below the Reference field. This field is only enabled if the customer is setup for Budget Billing.  To make room for this new information, the Date, Batch ID and Agency fields have been moved to a new frame below the customer information.  The Terminal ID has also been added to this area. This new frame has also been added to all of the other posting type screens.

24. Simple Batch Payments.  The Simple Batch Payments screens have been changed to now show the Budget Balance amount for customers on Budget Billing.  This amount now displays below the Reference field. This field is only enabled if the customer is setup for Budget Billing.  To make room for this new information, the Batch ID and Agency fields have been moved to a new frame below the customer information.  The Terminal ID has also been added to this area.

25. Write-off.  When adding a Write-off in Receipts or Batch Receipts, a New Balance column has been added to the grid.  This will show the new balance for the service when the Write-off amount is changed.

26. Payment Adjuster. The Terminal ID has been added to the Payment Adjuster entry screen.

27. Bulk Apply Deposits.  A Move In date range has been added to the options screen for the Bulk Apply Deposits.

28. Payment Assistance List.  There is now a Link for the Payment Assistance List on the Customers Task Pane in the Links area below the Service List.

29. Purges.  There have been a couple of changes to Purges in the system (Posting, Bill/Pay, Invoice, Usage, Installments and Notes), they are as follows:

• There are now Customer Status check boxes that can be used to determine which customers will be purged.
• When performing the Purge and not printing the listing of purged records, a processing screen will now be displayed showing which customer it is processing.

We at FREY Municipal Software would like to thank everyone who responded to the CUBIC survey and the beta testing of the product.  The ideas and suggestions that we receive from our users are the driving force behind the changes that are implemented into CUBIC_.