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Service Charges (Finance Charges)

Calculate and apply monthly finance charges (interest) to customers carrying an outstanding house-charge balance.

Set the rate per customer

On each house-charge customer's profile (the Info tab), find the A/R & Billing section. There's a field called Monthly Interest %. Set it to your monthly rate — for example, 1.5 charges 1.5% per month on the outstanding balance.

Customers without a rate set are skipped when finance charges are applied.

Apply the charges

Go to Reports → Service Charges (under the Accounts heading in the Reports sidebar). This page lists every customer who has both:

  • a Monthly Interest % set on their profile, and
  • a past-due balance — unpaid house-charge invoices old enough to be past due (typically invoices dated more than a month before the balance cutoff)

…with the calculated finance charge alongside each. The columns are:

  • Customer # — the account number, linked to the customer's page.
  • Company and Contact — who the account belongs to.
  • Past Due Balance — the outstanding balance the charge is calculated on. The column total appears in the footer.
  • Monthly % — the customer's Monthly Interest % from their profile.
  • Service Charge — the calculated charge, in an editable box. You can change any amount before applying, or set it to 0 (or blank) to skip that customer this month. The running total of all charges shows at the bottom right as you edit.

There's a filter box under each column header to narrow the list, and a download icon (Download CSV) at the top right to export it as Service Charges.csv.

When the amounts look right, click Apply and confirm the "Post service charges?" prompt — VMX creates an invoice entry on each customer's account for the calculated amount, then shows the Service Charges Applied - Summary page (see below).

Before your first run: what gets charged

Service charges are never automatic — nothing is billed until someone opens this page and clicks Apply. Three things to understand before that first click:

  • The first run charges every currently past-due invoice, not just last month's. If interest rates were set on customer profiles months ago but charges were never applied, the first Apply computes a month's interest on all of it, across every rated account, at once. Review the list carefully — you can edit any amount, or blank it to 0 to skip a customer this round.
  • Charges repeat monthly on whatever stays unpaid. Each subsequent run charges another month's interest on invoices that are still past due. Prior service charges themselves are excluded from the calculation, so interest never compounds on interest.
  • Which month-end a run targets depends on the day you run it. Early in the month (roughly the first five days), the run is dated as of the previous month-end — the normal month-end workflow. From about the 6th onward, it targets the current month-end instead. Apply your charges at the start of the month, as part of the statement run.

Only one apply is allowed per month-end date — a second attempt shows "Service charges already applied as of [date]" and changes nothing. That guard is used up even by a run where you blanked every amount to zero, so don't click Apply "just to see": use the on-screen list and the Download CSV export to review, and only apply when you mean it.

Service Charges Applied - Summary

The Service Charges Applied - Summary page appears immediately after you click Apply on the Service Charges report. It's the record of the batch you just posted:

  • Batch Information shows Applied (the date and time the batch was posted), Service Charge Date (the date the charges are dated on customer accounts), As Of Date (the balance cutoff used to calculate the charges), Total Customers, and Total Amount.
  • The table lists each charged customer: Customer # (linked to the account), Company, Contact, Service Charge (the amount posted), and Invoice Details — which invoices the charge was calculated from, with the balance and rate for each (for example Invoice #12345 ($100.00 @ 1.5%), or Balance Forward when the charge isn't tied to a specific invoice).

Click Print Summary to print the page for your records. This summary is only shown right after applying — there's no report menu entry to reopen a past batch's summary later, so print or save it while it's on screen. (The individual charges themselves stay visible on each customer's account and on statements.)

If every customer's charge was zero or blank when you clicked Apply, the summary shows: "No service charges were applied." All customers had zero or blank service charge amounts — nothing was posted to any account.

"Service charges already applied as of …" error

Service charges can only be applied once per period. If you click Apply on the Service Charges report a second time for the same balance cutoff date, nothing is posted and the report shows the error: "Service charges already applied as of [date]" — with a View summary link to the batch that was already posted, and the note that it "did not make any changes to any customer." Follow the View summary link if you need to reopen that batch's Service Charges Applied - Summary page.

On statements

The applied finance charge shows as a separate Service Charge line item on the customer's next statement, distinct from regular invoices.

Bulk-setting rates

There's no self-serve tool for setting Monthly Interest % across many customers at once (the Customer Import tool in Admin → Toolbox doesn't include this field). If you need rates set or changed in bulk, contact help@vmxllc.com.