Billing Tips for Large Organizations¶
Billing Tips for Large Organizations
Many larger organizations, like hospitals, medical centers, hospices, and government agencies, must submit payments through a centralized accounts payable department or a reseller. While this is helpful for organizations to manage a large number of payments for many different vendors, this can also require more complex and lengthy payment processing.
Unfortunately, this can sometimes lead to delays in the submission of payments for Volgistics service fees and potentially lead to the expiration of Volgistics accounts. However, there are some steps that you can take to help avoid these kinds of issues from occurring. Below are some tips that may be helpful for streamlining Volgistics billing.
Sole Source Letters¶
The Volgistics software is only available directly through Volgistics, Inc. We don't have any reseller or referral programs in place, and our rates are the same for all. If you need one, we'll be happy to provide a sole source letter so you can purchase directly from us instead of a reseller or managed services company.
Billing Contact Information¶
Volgistics regularly sends out billing reminders to accounts that are approaching their expiration date. These notices are sent to the account's billing contact 90, 60, 30, 15, 10, 5, and 1 day(s) prior to the account expiring. These are also sent to System Operators with the Administrator user level 10, 5, and 1 day(s) prior to the expiration date. Billing reminders can help you make sure that you have plenty of time to extend your account's service so your account does not expire. For this reason, it is important that you have set up an appropriate individual as your account's billing contact and that their information is kept up to date. You can update your billing contact email address through the online Store.
While there may be an individual in your organization's accounts payable department that will ultimately be handling payment for your Volgistics service fee, it may be wise to set one of your account's Administrators as the billing contact instead. This is also suggested if your organization is required to use a reseller for software. Unlike many other vendors, Volgistics does not generate or send invoices to customers. Instead, customers will need to access the Volgistics Store and create invoices themselves. Your staff in the accounts payable office or at the reseller may not be very familiar with this model of invoicing or Volgistics in general. An Administrator in your account will have easier access to the Store and will be more familiar with Volgistics and your service level. They will likely be able to create an invoice more quickly and can simply pass this along to the appropriate individual to handle processing and payment. If you're not familiar with the invoice creation process, see Create an Invoice.
Two-Factor Authentication and Billing Contacts
If the account has two-factor authentication enabled, the system will send a single-use code to the billing contact email address on file when the accounting access code is used to access the Volgistics Store. Please keep this in mind when deciding what email address to use as the billing contact.
No Purchase Orders¶
Due to the additional costs associated with processing and collecting payments authorized by purchase orders, Volgistics is not able to accept purchase orders as a form of payment. Volgistics service fees can only be paid by credit card or check. There's more information in the Payment Options help topic.
While Volgistics does not accept purchase orders as payment, you can use a purchase order internally to initiate the payment process. For example, you could create an Order-Invoice in the Volgistics Store for the service level and duration of service you'd like, create a purchase order based on that invoice, and then add a purchase order number to your Order-Invoice in the Volgistics Store. Once the purchase order has been approved, you can mail your check to Volgistics or make a credit card payment through the Store.
Because Volgistics is unable to accept purchase orders, payments may take longer than you are used to. For this reason, we recommend making sure that you give yourself plenty of time for your accounts payable department to process and approve your internal purchase order and make the necessary payment.
Invoices and Service Levels¶
Your account's service level controls how many volunteer records you can track, how many users can access your account, and which optional modules are available. In contrast, the Order-Invoice is simply a document created as part of the Pre-payment method to pay the service fee. By design, the invoice can have different levels selected than the account's current service level. This is necessary to allow accounts to plan for future changes.
Aside from the initial invoice to convert a trial account to a paid account, paying an invoice with a service level different than the service level currently in place for the account will not change the actual service level of the account. This allows organizations to control when service level changes take effect. To change the service level, an Administrator for the account, or someone with the Accounting Access Code, will need to follow the steps in Change Account's Service Level
No Contracts¶
All Volgistics users agree to our standard Terms of Service to use the system. We do not enter into agreements with individual organizations so payment should not be delayed to seek an updated or signed contract or service agreement.
USD Only¶
All payments to Volgistics must be made in United States dollars (USD). If your organization is not in the United States, make sure checks are made out in USD to avoid delays and to ensure the payment covers the full period of time you expect.
Multiple Volgistics Accounts¶
If your organization has multiple Volgistics accounts for different locations or departments, we recommend making sure that you clarify to your accounts payable department that your submitted invoice is for your specific Volgistics account. This will help ensure that your accounts payable department does not reject the invoice or see it as a duplicate if another location or department has submitted a Volgistics invoice as well.
It is also a good idea to have your accounts payable department include your Volgistics account number and/or your invoice number with any payments they submit for your specific location or department. Including this identifying information helps to ensure that the Volgistics Accounting Team can apply the payment to the correct Volgistics account. If your organization has multiple accounts and a payment is submitted with just your organization's name, it may not be possible to determine which account the payment should be posted for and may not be applied until more information is received.
Expired Accounts¶
If your account does reach its expiration date before payment can be submitted, don't worry! Your account won't be canceled or deleted immediately. Instead, your account will be placed on a hold status for up to 30 days. While on hold, you will still be able to access your account but on a more limited basis. You will still be able to perform some tasks in your account and view your volunteer records, but some features will not be available to you during this period. For example, you will not be able to add new volunteer records to your database or run most kinds of reports while your account is on hold. However, any volunteer-facing aspects of Volgistics (such as application forms, VicNet, and VicTouch) will still function normally during the hold period.
Payment Delivery¶
If you need to submit payment by sending a check, it is also important to take into account the time it will take for these to be delivered. If your account does expire and you need to send payment quickly, you could use a courier service or next day delivery with the post office to expedite delivery. If you do decide to use one of these methods, we recommend sending these payments to the Volgistics physical address instead of the remittance address. You can find both of these addresses below.
Physical Address¶
Volgistics Inc.
400 76th St. SW, Suite 9
Byron Center, Michigan 49315
Remittance Address¶
Volgistics Inc.
P.O. Box 406
Wayland, Michigan 49348-0406
Once payment is received and applied, your service will be extended.