Aria6 Release 6.26

10/22/2014

Previously, there was no parameter for displaying child account plan units in a parent-child statement. On a standard template, you could use the ItemBaseUnits replacement string to return the total recurring units of the recurring services in the plan. However, there was not an equivalent parameter for a parent-child statement to present the plan units for a child account. Now, the number of plan units can be displayed using the replacement string insertGeneric88Text on a parent-child statement to be sent to both direct customers and partners. 

When you search for and view an account, the left navigation under the Accounts section expands to display the corresponding child modules.

However, if you then navigated away from the Accounts section to access another module within Aria6, the account that you searched for would be lost when you returned back to the Accounts section. To prevent this from happening, the Accounts section has been modified to remember the last account that you accessed during a single user session. This account remains available until you search for a new account, or until you log out of the application.

Previously, Aria did not support the ability to make immediate plan changes and charge/credit pro-ration on the next billing day. If you wanted to immediately assign and apply pro-ration, the invoice had to be statemented immediately.

A new Proration Invoice Timing field has been implemented in the Billing & Invoicing tab on the Create New Plan screen. This new field includes the following two options:

• Anniversary – The prorated charges are kept as open charges and are included in the anniversary invoice.
• Immediately – The prorated charges are billed immediately (existing behavior).

For open charges, the discounts, credits, surcharges, and taxes are applied at the time of the anniversary invoice generation only.

Credits that are in excess to the proration charge, and are created at the time of proration, are locked until the anniversary. Locked credits are unlocked at the time of the anniversary invoice generation. When the Net Negative Proration Action field is set to produce Cash Credit, then the credits are created as such and will not be locked for open charges. The locked credit amount displays in the Credit screen under a new Amount Reserved for Anniversary column.

To increase your workflow, a new Open Charges screen displays the open charges on the account, as shown below. This screen can be accessed by navigating to Accounts > Statements & Invoices > Open Charges.

This feature establishes a revenue recognition system that is based on combinations of invoice date, payment date, and order fulfill date (i.e. triggering dates). With this new functionality, you can set up Revenue Recognition profiles at the client level, which can be assigned to accounts.

Invoice lines are grouped into the following three categories:

• Plan-based – Revenues from plan-based services are recognized when the invoice is produced or when the invoice is fully paid.
• Order-based – Revenues from order-based services are recognized on the invoice date, full payment date, order fulfill date, or full payment date and fulfill date.
• General services – General services are always recognized on the invoice date.

Revenues are temporarily split over the length of the invoice charge line's start and end date. Revenues, up to the triggering dates, are lumped into the month where the triggering dates fall. Revenues thereafter are spread out over the remaining length of time, if any. Any invoice voids after the invoice date. If their original charge lines have already been recognized, write-offs, voided write-offs, reversals, and voided reversals are recognized when they happen. Otherwise, they will be recognized when their original charge lines are recognized, when the proper triggering date arrives.

Through this updated functionality, you are now able to:

• Create a new Revenue Recognition profile.
• View and manage a list of your active Revenue Recognition profiles.
• Assign a Revenue Recognition profile to an account.
• Update an order fulfilled date on a new or existing order.

There is a client-level parameter to dictate if the Revenue Recognition profile is to be used. This parameter has to be set by an Aria Customer Support representative.

New Fulfill Date Parameter for Orders

As mentioned above, new functionality in this release includes the ability to update a fulfilled date on a new order. The fulfill date can now be specified while creating, updating, or moving an order from a held (i.e., pending) status to a billed or placed status within the Aria6 UI.

The fulfilled date can only be set while:

• Creating an order that is not in a held status.
• Updating an order which is in a placed or billed status.
• Moving an order from a held status to a billed or placed status.

The fulfilled date also has to be the same as, or later than, the current date or you will receive an error.

A new Client Account ID field has been added to the Account Overview screen, (displayed below), and a new configuration parameter, Check Client Account ID, has been assigned to check that the Client Account ID is a unique value. This parameter can be accessed by navigating to Configuration > Client Settings > Miscellaneous Settings.

If this parameter is set to True, and if the Client Account ID is already assigned to another account, an error will occur. If the parameter is set to False in the same instance, the existing functionality will continue.

New ISO currency code options have been added for the following currencies under Configuration > Billing > Currencies:

• Laos – LAK
• Sint Maarten – ANG

Aria has recently upgraded the Vanitv (Litle) connector to automatically push level 3 data for credit card transactions to Vanitv. This functionality is configurable at the payment processor to client level and when the default setting is Off. If level 3 data is unavailable, Aria will seamlessly degrade to sending only level 2 or level 1 data, as appropriate.

Aria recently introduced surcharge functionality which allows you to charge fees that are based on the service charges of an invoice. To further streamline this new functionality and provide you additional specification, the Aria surcharge feature has now been enhanced with support for:

• Multiple rate schedules per surcharge, based on currency.
• Standard tiered pricing rules.
• Minimum surcharges.

The multiple rate schedules and standard tiered pricing rules function the same as the current feature for plans. For minimum surcharges, if the tiered price is greater than the minimum surcharge, the tiered price is applied.

Previously, when accessing Batch Processes and Activity Loader logs (Configuration > Audit Logs), the system retrieved all the available information by default. A new screen has been added before each of these Audit Logs, allowing you to filter for specific results, streamlining the retrieval process and providing a more efficient workflow.

The new screen requires you to input one search criteria before clicking the Search button to retrieve the Audit Log information (e.g. a date and time for Batch Processes, as shown below).

To search at a more granular level, you may add more search fields to either Audit Log by clicking the Add button. The additional search fields will vary depending on the Audit Log you are searching (e.g. for Batch Processes, the additional search fields include Process Name and Status, as shown below).

The error reporting (i.e., failed authentication) for SFTP report file transfers has been improved.

Previously, when adding a tax using the Aria tax method, you could not add any jurisdiction-specific taxes without receiving an error. Although you could successfully complete all required fields for setting up a tax set, you would receive an error message requesting that you “please fill in all required fields.” Because of this, no jurisdiction tax set information was retained, and the tax set was not saved.

The Aria internal tax set functionality has been corrected to successfully add jurisdiction-specific taxes.

Previously, when an existing active plan was copied and saved, the payment method assignment in the default dunning plan was lost. For example, if you had an existing default dunning plan with no plan assignment, but it was assigned to a payment method (e.g., credit card) and you created a new plan by copying an existing plan, and then proceeded to save the new plan, the default dunning plan’s payment method was unchecked. This caused the dunning process to be detached from all qualifying accounts, meaning those accounts would not enter dunning.

Now, when copying a plan, payment methods from dunning processes with no assigned plans remain set, meaning those accounts will enter dunning as expected.

Previously, when an account was configured as Parent Pay and when there was an “immediate” invoice, the collection attempt was not completed on the parent account during an order creation or plan change. The immediate invoice generation for order creation or plan change may be from either the UI or API.’

A new client parameter, Auto Collect from Parent, is introduced from within Invoice Settings to specify whether to perform a collection attempt on a parent when the child is set for Parent Pay. If this is set to True and when the corresponding Auto Collect on Order Invoicing, Auto Collect on Supplemental Plan Change, and Auto Collect on Master Plan Change parameters are also set to True, then the collection attempt is made on the parent account for the immediate invoices.