Keeping on Top of Your Business - Reporting Guide

Overview

Cornerstone provides the tools and means to manage your customers on a day-to-day basis and the analytics to evaluate and track performance on a monthly or other periodic basis.

Day-to-Day Activities

Account Management

• Creating accounts - Installing alarms and entering billing, contact, and zone information so subscribers are both monitored and billed
• Canceling accounts- Recording the reason for cancellation and processing on a timely basis so the account is closed, billing is stopped, and monitoring is cancelled at the central station
  • Important: Do not zero out the billed amount

Payment Processing

• Posting payments - For funds received by the dealer
• Bank reconciliation - Make sure bank deposits match what is posted in Cornerstone by running the Cash Receipts Report filtered for *Local Postings

Receivables Management

• Collection activities - Managing receivables with collection calls and mailings
• Made easier with the Billing Plus interactive aging module

Data Quality Review

Review reports to ensure consistency, accuracy, and completeness of data entry:

• Accounts Created Report
• Recurring Audit Reports - Filtered for No RMR and Pending RMR to track accounts yet to go online/have RMR entered for billing

Accounting Activities

• Recording deposits - Based on the frequency of Cornerstone deposits to the Dealer account
• Cash Receipts CFN Reports - Provide the needed detail
• Support Note - Status RECEIPTS is available if you receive more than 1 payment a month

Pre-Invoice Generation Reports

Prior to invoice generation on the set schedule, several reports need to be reviewed and exceptions handled:

1. Review Accounts with No or Pending Recurring

Ensure accounts that are online are set up for billing.

Tools:

• Recurring Research Tool
• Recurring Audit Reports

2. Pre-Billing Audit Report

Identify any accounts whose billing next dates need to be shifted to the cycle that will be generated.

3. Recurring Billing Proof Report

View accounts slotted for recurring invoices and the pretax amount of recurring.

Issues to Address:

• $0 RMR
• Missing or incomplete autopay information
• Expired cards

4. Customer Email Audit Report

Look for:

• Invalid emails
• RMR autopay's with no email addresses
• RMR set to receive emails but has no email address

Monthly Reports

Timing Recommendation

Monthly activities for oversight and tracking should be done at the same time each month to ensure that reports that are "point in time" snapshots are captured consistently.

We recommend: Generate reports at the end of the last day of the month or first thing on the first day of the month before any edits are made to the accounts.

This ensures that the reports generated by the Dealer match those Month End Reports generated by Cornerstone in the process of settling up receipts, interim payments, and billing fees.

Required Monthly Reports

1. Monthly Revenue Projection Report (Point in Time Report)
2. RMR Tracking Report
3. Accounts Closed Report
4. Aging Report including Accounts with $0 Due for Collateral Calculation (Point in Time Report)
5. Sales Tax Report (if you are in a taxable location)
6. Billing Detail Report

Month End Recap from Cornerstone

Cornerstone emails, a few days after the end of the month, the Month End Recap that highlights:

• All cash receipts processed by Cornerstone
• Interim payments through the month
• Billing fees summary
• Remaining amount owed to the Dealer (initiated on the 2nd for deposit on the 3rd)

This Settlement report also provides key accounting snapshots at month end useful for tracking over time.

Database Backup: Cornerstone saves a copy of the database at month end in case a dealer needs to access it for generating reports. Keep in mind, while this database is static, the Aging Report's days past due amounts will change as the days pass.

Detailed Monthly Report Descriptions

1. Monthly Revenue Projection Report

Provides an overview of recurring billing based on RMR for the next billing period and projected out 12 months.

• Can be generated as a total or for individual service codes
• Note: Point in Time Report that will change as new recurring charges are added

Important: If the beginning month is not a future month, there is a recurring charge with a "Past Next Bill Date." Review the Recurring Billing Audit report to identify and edit.

2. Recurring Monthly Revenue (RMR) Tracking Report

Gives you all the data needed to track your recurring business from month to month in one report.

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

Report Sections:

• Beginning RMR - Recurring Monthly Revenue at the beginning of the month
• Section 1: New RMR - Added in the month (new customers or additional RMR for existing customers)
• Section 2: RMR Stopped - Charges stopped that month (cancelled accounts or stopped charge in ongoing customers). Include Cancel Reason to identify reasons for attrition
• Section 3: Incremental Changes - Increases and decreases to RMR amounts during the month
• Section 4: Same Month Start/Stop - Recurring charges that start and stop in the same month
• Section 5: Ongoing RMR - Recurring charges with no changes during the month (typically do not print details as it makes the report quite long)
• Ending Period RMR - Will be next month's beginning RMR
• Section 6: Future Next Bill Date RMR - Entered during date range but not yet "invoiced" in Cornerstone
• Section 7: Pending RMR - RMR entered, marked as pending, without a Next Bill Date (available through Quotes module to identify RMR not online yet)

Important for Financing: This consistent tracking is especially important for dealers who have or are considering seeking loans.

Core Recurring Feature: Ability to run the report for All Recurring Charges and/or for services designated as "Core Recurring." This allows dealers to exclude recurring charges that a funding source may not accept (e.g., maintenance agreements, equipment, and payment plans set up as recurring charges).

3. Accounts Closed Report

Provides a record of accounts closed in the specified date range.

Note: There is a section of the RMR Tracking Report that identifies Closed Accounts for "stopped" RMR, but this report should be used to make sure that the accounts have been cancelled at the Central Station.

4. Aging Report

A point in time summary of open balances.

Standard Aging: Run it for ALL age groups ALL accounts (both Open and Closed) to match the month end report's Receivables at Month End. The month end report provides an adjusted receivables amount where we record the autopay payment postings (technically "due" on the last day of the month) and add it to the Aging Report's amount.

RMR Collateral Report: For dealers that are financed, the Aging Report including Accounts with $0 Due provides an RMR Collateral Report that counts the RMR for each account whose balance due is less than 90 days.

• PDF report's last page provides a summary collateral RMR value
• CSV file includes all detail account by account

Note: Point in Time Report that changes with payments and over time.

5. Sales Tax Report

Provides detail on billings and receipts by taxing authority for the specified period.

Configuration:

• Select whether you pay taxes based upon Revenue (Billings) or Receipts (Cash Receipts)
• We recommend generating it with detail and in summary format and save both as a record of what you submit

Adjustments: Adjustments made to invoices and payments (such as discounts and writeoffs) can be tracked through the adjustments tracking or Cash Receipts or Invoice History Reports as needed.

Export: This report can be emailed as a CSV.

6. Billing Detail Report

Provides detail on billings and receipts for a specified period summed by the General Ledger Billing Categories.

Features:

• Define the "buckets" you wish to track (Recurring Charge types, Installation, Service, Equipment, etc.)
• Provides breakdown of Cash Receipts received by Cornerstone vs. the Dealer (* payments)
• Receipts by GL Categories

Periodic Reports

Central Station Audit Report

Match against the Central Station list of accounts that you are being billed to ensure:

• You are billing all the accounts you are monitoring
• You are not being charged for accounts you have closed

Can be filtered by Central Station.

Requesting Data from Central Station

Request the following from your Central Station: Provide a comma delimited text (CSV) file of active accounts with the following headers and data, separated by a comma.

Important: It must be a text file, as an excel spreadsheet will drop any leading zeros in the data.

Required Fields:

• Account - The Central Station ID Number
• Subscriber Name - First and last or last name is ok
• Address - Street Address
• City - City
• State - State
• Zip Code - Zip code

Customer Email Audit Report

Can highlight 3 specific areas for missing/incomplete email addresses. These can be crucial to your invoice cycle:

1. Invalid email addresses
2. RMR on Autopay with no email address
3. RMR Email, but no email address

Need Help?

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