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CSS Billing Working Group – 3/19/2010, 10-11:30
Invited: Rashard Bryan, Jeff Reed, Chuck King, Cynthia Finney, Chris Gresham (missed), Mark Wiklund, Anna Pope, Rob Smyser
Proposed Agenda-- Getting to Know Each Other; Goal-Setting; Fleshing out the Problems; Imagining some Solutions; Next steps.
Proposed Goals-- a working set of issues listed and solutions suggested that we can stand behind. For early April. That we'd be prepared to adopt if they were approved and prototyped successfully.
-- a bigger picture of desirable end-states for billing environment -- features, workflow, systems, etc.
printed estimate; signature acknowledging acceptance of future charge; collect cost object at the outset
CSS Finance smooths out the JV process when given the best effort product (JV upload spreadsheet) by a TL.
the people involved in billing are efficient and friendly and effective
Time-tracking should exist and be able to feed directly into some effort-aggregator that then computes hours to bill.
The frequency and more importantly the rhythm of issuing bills -- avoid month-end, spread transactions out -- less clumping is better, how about a common schedule?
database driven is ideal, where the tool prebuilds and automates the production of upload files and other parts of the business process.
(white board notes; pdf attached to this page)
Filemaker DB features that we like -- creates finished JV files to email Finance automatically; Common customer list from DataWarehouse, with cost objects; automates much of known process workflows; emailable PDF output
Do monthly billing on the 15th for the 30 days previous; avoid month-end in order to be sure of booking before the end of the month; use JV uploads accumulated for that period.
implies this group can create and adopt changes to Policies and Procedures, vetting them within the group.
Goal is consistent processes across CSS using the tools we have. E.g., we can decide that JV Upload is is the chosen standard and then optimize for that.
A "My Account" view of activity per individual or per DLC, across all the lines of CSS business. ← depend on CRM features of ticketing tool or whatever tool it is that chooses to own this application area. → implies exploring SaaS or other CRM tools again. (Jeff reed was on the CRM study team whose findings went into a report that was filed.)
- implies creating a consolidated list of what each group bills for, when and how. That would be for our own consumption first, but would be the basis for client communication at some time.
LIST OF SERVICE OBJECTIVES WE'D LIKE TO ACHIEVE
IDEAS FOR Specific Ways We Can Get To It – reflect and expand on the list already in the powerpoint deck.
(white board notes; pdf attached to this page)
Mark: Training plans to move off its old and painful process of IP Preqs and JVs after the fact to JV pre-billing. Looking for a replacement for TEM (implementing this October) to have a field for bill-to: cost object.
Anna: wanting to get off of paper in every way to a more efficient process. Can we take credit cards? I get a lot of questions about that.
Chuck: database-driven billing driving process steps to which billing is almost a side-effect; weekly cycle of submit-what-we-have; huge volume of individual files that quentin accomodates as he receives them.
Jeff: his billing generation is very time-consuming; 80 lines of JVs per quarter, built from detailed time estimates filtered through Quickbooks.
Cynthia -- "smart" spreadsheet builds JV upload files from RT-to-Excel exports. It was all Sharon Grant doing it, and she's gone; it will be someone else doing it as soon as they're on board.
Anna -- why can't I do my own JV uploads?
Everyone else -- why would I want to??
All: need a one-to-one correspondence between billable event and the payment for it.
Rashard: hasn't done a billing cycle yet, but the annual contracts are billed quarterly, while the one-off charges are accumulated and done monthly.
(white board notes; pdf attached to this page)
Rob's list -- do we have the right issue areas?
Team-specific