Get more out of CUBIC with these tips & tricks

Our support team is back with more ways to help you get the most out of CUBIC. Watch this video or read through the post to learn more!

CUBIC Tips & Tricks

By Adam Best

Multi-Property Maintenance: In CUBIC 16.0, the system has been changed to no longer use Social Security numbers on the Billing Information tab to connect multi-property accounts. There is a Multi-Property maintenance where Multi-Property ID, name, address, city, state, zip, Social Security number, Driver’s License number, birth date, phone number and email can be entered. The address information entered here will be put on the individual bills and the multi-property bills. The Property Balance Total field will list the entire multi-property accounts total associated with this multi-property. During the CUBIC 16.0 conversion, the Multi-Property file was created from the customers that have Social Security filled in and selected Multi-Property Account. After the Multi-property accounts are setup, you can go into Customer Maintenance and find a Multi-Property tab. Click on Multi-Property Account and fill out the Multi-Property ID. If you do not know the Multi-Property ID, you can click on the magnifying glass to find the account ID.

Multi-Property Bill Print: Printing Multi-Property Bills in CUBIC 16.0 is its own process. All of the Bill Print options are still on the same screen; the option to Only print Multi-Property Bills needs to be selected. This now allows the user to Suppress Printing of Individual Multi-Property bills if the user desires. Multi-property bills print in book and account order. The user also has the option to print or suppress Multi-Property IDs on the bill. When selected, the Multi-Property ID will print on top of the Multi-Property bill instead of the book and account number. Book and account numbers will still print on the bill.

Bulk E-Mail, Multi-Property Only: To e-mail multi-property accounts only, go to File – Bulk Email and select Multi-Property Bulk E-Mail. This will allow one e-mail for all of your multi-property customers. From the Multi-Property Bulk E-Mail screen, the user will be able to select the Multi-Property E-mail addresses and place them in Recipients, CC or BCC.

By Dean Eldridge

Meter Changeout Estimation:An option has been added when processing meter changeouts (both through Work Orders and Billing) to allow for an estimate for the reading on the meter that is being changed out. When entering the new meter reading on the old (the meter being changed out) meter, there is a checkbox next to the reading field labeled “Estimate”. Once the Estimate option has been selected, the user will be prompted whether or not to Prorate the Usage for the changeout. The user would enter how many days the old meter was used in order to determine the ‘estimated’ usage for the prorated portion of the month. This will then generate an estimated reading. This would be useful if the meter being changed out was broken and no actual usage was registered.

Billing Entry Next/Previous:In Interactive Billing, there are now Next and Previous buttons available when editing bills. This will allow for better maneuverability and time savings when editing bills as the user will not have to go through the steps of Edit a Bill, select OK, Select the next Bill to Edit. From the keyboard, the Page Up and Page Down buttons also can be utilized. The Page Downcontrols the Next button while Page Up controls the Previous button.

Customer Remove Exempt Function:A new Remove Exempt function is now available in Customer Maintenance. The Exempt options include: Delinquent Notice Exempt, Auto-Apply Deposit Exempt, Auto-Apply Interest Exempt, Shut-Off Notice Exempt, Customer Penalty Exempt, Customer Tax Exempt, Service Penalty Exempt, Service Tax Exempt, and Purge Exempt. When this option is selected, the account ranges may be selected along with the specific Exempt option to Remove along with Activation/Deactivation Dates. This will display a grid of all accounts meeting the selected criteria. The user can then select which customers to Deactivate from the specified Exemption. This could be useful to remove customers from being penalty exempt after a given time period. For example if customers were marked as Penalty Exempt in May 2019, this could allow the user to remove the Penalty Exempt option for all of those customers in May 2020 by entering a date range that would display those customers with a Penalty Exempt Activation date prior to May 31, 2019.

By Mike Emmerich

Top Usage/Charges Report: You can now click on Customers-Reports-Top Usage/Charges Report to get a listing of the Top Users for a specific metered service (Water, Sewer, Gas, Electric, etc.) for a selected Due Date Range. You are able to define the number of top customers to list on the report up to 999,999 customers. Most customers are looking for the Top 10or 20customers for their Annual Reports. Your Reporting options are: Top Usage, Top Charges, Top Average Usage and Top Average Charges.

Route List: A new Sequence option was added called “Read Sequence”. Before, it only printed by Book and Account order. Now, if you select “Read Sequence”, the Route List will print in order of the service’s handheld Read Sequence that appears in the General Information area of the Handheld Information tab on the Service Information window in Customer Maintenance. A default for the Route List Sequence can be set in System Controls –Control tab located at the bottom left hand corner of the screen.

Penalty Billing: A Print button has been added to the Penalty Preview window that will print the Penalty Preview List, which is a report of all the penalties shown in the grid on the Penalty Preview window. The last line of the report gives a count of the number of customers to be penalized along with a Total Projected Penalty Amount. Some customers wanted to print this information to use as a worksheet as they need to select the option of Penalties Off for some customers that are on a payment plan or have a medical emergency. Note: Due to COVID-19, some utilities have chosen not to penalize customers for the next several months. This new option could be used to give you a report of Penalty Revenue lost if you choose not to penalize your customers.To get this report, without Penalizing your customers, go to Billing – Penalties – Bill. Once you put in your Due Date Range you must click on “Preview” button, to be able to use the new Printbutton at the bottom left of the “Preview Customers that Will have a Penalty Generated” window.

By John Milleck

Customers: In the CUBIC 16.0 Release, you now have the ability to add up to 99 additional addresses for a customer. To add the additional address, in Customer Maintenance on either the Billing Information or the Owner Information tabs, select the button next to the Billing Address1 or Owner Address1 fields. These addresses can be used for customers who are considered “snow birds”. Once the additional addresses are added to the customer, the user has the ability to assign a selected additional address to either the billing or owner address, depending on which additional address button was pressed. During the Assign function, if the current billing or owner address is not in the customer’s additional addresses, the user can select to Add the Current Address automatically. Additional features that have been added to the Customer Copy such as the customer’s additional addresses will be copied if either the Billing Personal Information or Owner Personal Information options are selected. When Synchronize Billing and Owner Information functions are performed, the Additional Addresses functionality has been added.

Customers: When a new customer is added in the 16 Release, a new Date Created field will automatically be populated with the current date. The Date Created field is located on the Service Information tab. This date is able to be overwritten if needed by the user.

Labels: In the CUBIC 16.0 Release, an option has been added in the Customer Labels Options screen to Manually Select Labels to Print. When this option is selected, a screen will appear listing all the labels that will be printed. In the Manually Select Labels to Print screen, the user has the ability to select individually which labels should print along with the Select All and Select None options. This gives the user the opportunity to unselect customers that fall in the selected range of customers so a label will not be printed for them.