Preferred Method of Billing

In Atlas, you can either print hard copies of open invoices, or send an email link to your Online Bill Pay for members/profiles to pay their balance. With the Preferred Method of Billing setting, you can easily send out invoices via the method preferred for each member.

To set a profile's preferred method of billing, open the profile and click on the Details tab:

• If Print is selected, invoices for this profile will be opened in a new window for you to print when using the preferred method.
• If Email is selected, the mass communicator will be opened for this profile for you to send an Online Bill Pay link when using the preferred method.
• If Both is selected, the invoice print window and the mass communicator will both be launched when using the preferred method.
• If Special Handling is selected, this profile will NOT have open invoices included in either the Print or Email options when using the preferred method.

Select the desired method from the dropdown, and click Save at the top of the profile.

Your members can also set this preference themselves, in the Members Only portal update profile page. When they submit a preferred method, you will be notified and can Accept or Reject this change as with any other submission (click here for more information). Note that members do not have the option to select Special Handling.

Sending Via the Preferred Method

Once you have your members' preferences set, you can send open invoices via their preferred method from the Transactions tab of a profile, or from the Invoice Selector. 

In a specific profile's Transactions tab, you'll see an option in the Transaction Actions dropdown when an invoice is selected:

Select this item and click Go. The invoice will either open to be printed, or the Mass Communicator will open to send an email to the profile associated with the invoice (if there is a balance due).

Invoice Selector

The recommended process for sending invoices is to use the Invoice Selector. 

1. Go to Revenue > Select Invoices.

2. Search for the invoices you would like to send. You can search using any of the tabs at the top, if you are sending invoices for collections you will most likely want to use the last tab, Open Invoices, and select the aging period you want to find.

3. In the datagrid, select the invoices you would like to send using your shift and/or control keys. Note that you can sort the grid by clicking on any column header, to look for only certain revenue items, dates, amounts, etc. You can also see and sort by the Preferred Method of Billing as a column in the grid (you may need to scroll to the right to see this column). 

4. Click the "Print/Send Selected Invoices Via Preferred Method" link. Depending on which methods are selected, a print window as well as the Mass Communicator will open, with the following message:

• If any invoices' profiles had a method of Print or Both, a new window will be opened with printable invoices displayed and a "Print Report" link in the upper right corner for you to send the invoices to your printer.
• If any invoices' profiles had a method of Email or Both, a new tab will open in Atlas launching the Mass Communicator, with all of those profiles listed in the "To:" field. To send those profiles their open invoices:
• Click the Message tab, and enter a Subject for the email.
• To use a standard or custom HTML Template, right-click in the Message field, click HTML Templates, and then select "SAMPLE - Dues Renewal Template," "SAMPLE - Past Due Notice Template" or any custom template that includes the Open Invoices Link special field.
• To customize your email message or start from scratch, click the HTML Editor link. Make sure you add the [[OPENINVOICESLINK]] dynamic special field to your email to link to the open invoices. Click Accept HTML once you've finished composing your message.
• Click the Send tab, and click Send at the bottom of the screen.
• If any invoices' profiles had a method of Special Handling, they will NOT be included in either the printed invoices or the email. You will need to use one of the other links to manually print/send their invoices and/or handle separately.