AFS Reporting - How to Generate Required Reports

Modified on Wed, 8 Oct at 4:17 PM

Overview

This guide outlines Alarm Financial Service's (AFS) reporting requirements and provides step-by-step instructions for generating reports from Cornerstone.

Important: Print a PDF of the report to your local desktop (using Uniprint's Print Preview). Save the report and email it as an attachment to AFS. For dealers with multi-company databases, determine if you need to report on all or select companies.

Required Monthly Reports

AFS requires the following reports each month:

RMR Tracking Report
Cash Receipts Report
Invoice History Report
Aging Report

1. RMR Tracking Report

Overview

This report provides much of the information needed for AFS's Attrition and RMR Roll Forward Report excel spreadsheet.

Important: AFS likes to see Cancellation Detail (customer names and reasons for cancellations) on the portion of the report that shows cancelled recurring.

Preparation Requirements

To make monthly reporting easy, your staff must do three things when an account or charge is cancelled:

Enter a Closed Date on the main Customer screen
Enter a Stop Date in the Recurring Charges screen (will pull the Closed Date)
Add a reason code in User Defined Field 17, Cancel Reason (reported on the tracking report)

Generating the Report

Path: Reports > Management Reports > RMR Tracking Report

Steps:

Enter the dates for your query
Determine if you should run for ALL Recurring Charges or Core Only (charges approved for funding basis)
Check Print Details for Sections 1-4

Understanding the Report

Important: This tracking report looks at recurring charges and includes them as "live" based on the system-generated date the recurring charge is first used to generate a recurring invoice. Recurring charges entered with a future Next Bill Date will not be counted as RMR until the recurring invoice is generated.

Report Sections

Beginning Period RMR - Last month's report ending RMR

Section 1: New RMR

New RMR from new customers
New services to existing customers
Re-opened accounts (identified with *)

Section 2: Cancelled RMR

Closed accounts
Stopped RMR for ongoing customers

Section 3: RMR That Starts and Stops in Same Month

Section 4: Incremental Changes in RMR

Increases and decreases to current customers

Section 5: RMR Ongoing

All accounts with no changes

Section 6: Future RMR, Not Yet Invoiced

Section 7: Pending RMR, Not Yet Invoiced

Ending Period RMR - Will be next month's beginning RMR

Managing Recurring Charges Properly

Entering New Charges

The First Used and Svc Start Dates on a recurring charge should be set to the date you first invoiced or will invoice the customer.

Example 1: Payment Taken in Field

If you take payment in the field for the first month of RMR, then create the charge in Cornerstone with a future next date:

Payment taken in field for period 4/1/24 - 4/30/24
RMR added in Cornerstone with next date of 5/1/24
Enter the payment date in First Used and Svc Starting Fields
This charge will appear as NEW on the tracking report for APRIL

Example 2: No Advanced Payment

If you do not take advanced payment prior to entering RMR in Cornerstone:

Next Date, First Used, and Svc Starting Date will all be the same date

Editing Existing Charges

Critical: Follow these steps to avoid incorrect tracking:

DO NOT stop date your recurring charges
Highlight the charge > Click Change
Update the RMR code/amount
Click OK to save

Why This Matters: If you stop date charges and insert a new charge when updating RMR, the RMR Tracking report will see this as 'stopped' recurring and 'new' recurring, which is incorrect.

2. Cash Receipts Report

Generating the Report

Path: Reports > Financial Reports > Cash Receipts

Steps:

Enter the date range you're reporting
Print the report

3. Invoice History Report

Generating the Report

Path: Reports > Financial Reports > Invoice History

Steps:

Enter the date range you're reporting
Print the report

4. Aging Report

Generating the Report

Path: Reports > Financial Reports > Aging

This provides open invoice amounts by age category.

Important: This is a 'point in time' report that changes as invoices/payments are processed. We strongly recommend that someone run and save this report at close of business on the last day of each month.

Key Information

The Aging Report includes the RMR for each account so that the over 90 day accounts' RMR can be tallied.

Reason Codes - User Defined Field 17

AFS likes tracking cancellation reasons using these categories:

Can't afford
Doesn't use system
Unhappy with service
Moved
Deceased
Business Closed (out of business)
No Pay/Sent to collections
Other

For Re-opened Accounts: You can add "Reopened" to the Cancel Reasons list and change the cancel reason for reopened accounts to flag them on the RMR Tracking Report.

Completing the Attrition and RMR Roll Forward Report

Key Report Filters

Recurring Type: Determine if you should run for ALL recurring or Core only
Adjustment Cancel Reasons: Include labels indicating accounts closed due to mistakes (duplicate account, should not have been imported, etc.) - correlates to Row 16, adjustments
Section 5: Uncheck 'Print Details' on Section 5: Continued RMR

Row-by-Row Instructions

Row 12: New RMR

Total of Section 1: Tally all 3 lines
Does not include future RMR (not counted as eligible until billed)

Row 13: RMR Increases

Total of Section 4: Incremental RMR Increases

Row 14: RMR Cancels

Total of Section 2: Tally first TWO lines (enter as negative amount)
Do not count Stopped RMR Adjustments on Closed/Open accounts (those go to Row 16)

Row 15: RMR Decreases

Total of Section 4: Incremental RMR Decreases (enter as negative amount)

Row 16: Adjustment

Total of Section 2: Tally bottom TWO lines
Correlates to adjustment cancel reasons (e.g., RMR deleted due to double entry)

Row 28: Re-signed RMR

Total of Section 1: New RMR/New Accounts (Re-Signed)
RMR from new customer at same premises, or existing customer at new premise, where customer or premise was covered by monitoring agreement during prior six months

Row 25: RMR Over 90

All RMR with balances more than 90 days past due as of end of reporting month
Select All aging buckets for Open accounts
Total column "AN" of the CSV/XLS file

For Multiple Billing Systems: If aging reports come from two or more systems (e.g., Cornerstone and QuickBooks):

Get total RMR past due from both systems
Use the RMR Over 90 Calculation tab to get average RMR over 90
Do not double count RMRs appearing in both aging reports

Aged RMR (No Specific Row)

Generate aging report for ALL recurring (core and non) for ALL aging buckets
This data is not entered in any row

Row 41: Additional AFS Held Contract

When sending additional contracts to AFS, Naomi or Ngoc will advise how much RMR were checked in
Enter the amount in this cell

Need Help?

Still have questions? Contact Cornerstone Holding Co. 847-405-9517 or email us customer.success@alarmbills.com