Entering New Customers

To enter a new customer in WBAR, click on Customers, Add, in the main menu. A box will appear asking you to type in the account number of the account you want to add. WBAR uses a 2 + 4 digit account number where the first two digits represent the book or route and the next four digits represent the account number assigned within that book. For example, 01-1050 would be book 01 and account number 1050. You may use the same four digit account number in each book or route. In this way, there are 99 possible books and 9999 possible accounts within each book.
 
When adding accounts, it is always a good idea to leave some distance between the account numbers you use. This will allow you to place accounts in between existing number without having to move accounts to make room. In WBAR, the account numbers are used as the primary key for locating accounts. The account number also determines the order that meter readings are read in unless you use the walking order field to override the natural order. (See Walking Order).
 
WBAR allows you to create additional accounts under the same account number provided that only one of the account may carry an active status at a time. An active status is an account with either an A or F in the status field indicating that the account is being actively billed or is set to be Final. If you attempt to add an account using the same number as an active account, this warning box will appear.
 
                                                         
 
 If you want to create a second account with the same number, you must first go to the account that is already active and change the account status field to something other than A or F. Go to View/Edit Customers and locate the account which is already active. Change the status field and then return to add the new account.

You may create a blank account with only the account number and status completed to use as a placeholder account. You may return later to fill in the remainder of the customer data when it is known.

When creating a new account, you should set the On date field and the service codes which will be used to bill the account. The service codes point to the rate table that will be used to bill the account for that particular service. You build rate tables in the Billing menu. You can set the rate codes before you actually build the tables, but if you forget to create a table, the account will not be billed correctly.

If you want to continue to add new accounts to the customer file, click on Next New, otherwise click on Close to return to the main menu.

WBAR can speed up the process of creating new accounts by filling in some of the information for you. If you enter that default information into the System Registry file, WBAR will automatically fill in the default information each time you create a new account. For example, if most of your customers have billing addresses in the same town, filling in the default city will cause WBAR to fill in the name of the town for each new customer. You can also have default information for rate codes, late fee percentage, and status.