The recommended practice is to make the child accounts’ billing dates the same as their parent accounts’ billing dates. Aria allows you to create child accounts whose billing dates are different from their parent account’s billing dates. If a child account’s billing date is different from the parent account’s billing date:
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Parent-Child Account Best Practices
Parent-Child Account Best Practices
Overview
You can create parent‐child account relationships to group accounts together based on your business needs.
Examples:
- You have customers who want to add child accounts for individuals who will use services billed to the parent account or to the child accounts.
- You are a reseller that wants to add your clients as child accounts that will use services billed to the parent account or to the child accounts.
- You are a company that wants to add your departments as child accounts that will use services billed to the parent account or to the child accounts.
There are three different responsibility levels associated with child accounts as described in the table below:
| Responsibility Level | Description | Usage Accrued by Child Account Recorded Under... | Services Billed According To Whose Plan... | Invoices Paid By... |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Level 1 |
Self pay |
Child account |
Child account |
Child account |
|
Level 2 |
Parent pay |
Child account |
Child account |
Parent account |
|
Level 3 |
Parent pay |
Parent account |
Parent account |
Parent account |
Best Practices
Parent and Child Billing Dates
- Aria will generate an invoice on the child account’s billing date.
- Aria will not collect a payment for the child account’s balance until the parent account’s billing date.
Statement Presentation
Determine the pieces of child account information that you want to include in the parents’ statements and contact Aria Systems Customer Support to specify your statement template requirements:
- All child invoice line items, or
- Only the balance transfer amounts.
Account Statuses
Decide what should happen to a child’s account status when the parent’s account status changes. When a parent’s account status is updated, the child’s account can be updated to the same status assigned to the parent. Please contact Aria Systems Customer Support to set up your parent-child account status options.
Service Credits
Be sure to apply service credits to the correct account:
- For credits that apply to a child account’s services, apply the service credit to the child account.
- For credits that apply to a parent account’s services, apply the service credit to the parent account.
Cash Credits
- For responsibility level 1 (self pay), cash credits should always be applied to the child account.
- For responsibility levels 2 and 3 (parent pay), cash credits should always be applied to the parent account.
Refunds
If you need to refund a payment for a child invoice that was paid by a parent account holder, you can issue the refund to the parent account and you can choose to also reverse one or more of the child invoice line items to which the refund applies.
Example: If a child account was charged in error you can issue a refund to the parent account holder, then
reverse one or more child invoice line items.
Parent and Child Account Currencies
If you create a child account with parent pay responsibility, the parent and child accounts must be assigned the same currency. This may reduce potential errors resulting from different currency balances being rolled up together at the parent level.
For additional best practices and preconditions related to account registration in general, please see Account Registration Best Practices.
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