Moving water billing off spreadsheets or QuickBooks
Spreadsheets and QuickBooks can hold a water district’s numbers, but they weren’t built to read meters or run a billing cycle. Here’s what changes when you switch, and how we move your records over.
We import your records for you.
Where spreadsheets and QuickBooks fall short
QuickBooks is good at the general books, whether you run a special district, an association or a small town’s water system. Water billing needs a few things it was never designed for.
| The job | In a spreadsheet or QuickBooks | In WUBS |
|---|---|---|
| Meter readings | Copied in from paper reading sheets, or kept in a separate file. | Entered in the field app and checked as they’re typed. Unusually high or low use, or a reading lower than the last one, is flagged before it’s saved. |
| Tiered rates | Formulas copied from bill to bill, and edited by hand when rates change. | Multiple usage tiers and multiple fixed charges, with past, current and future rate schedules. Set up a rate change ahead of time. Earlier rates are kept, so re-billing a past period uses the rates in effect at the time. |
| Applying payments | Wherever the person entering it decides. | Oldest charges first. The ledger shows which bills each payment paid, how much went to each, and any credit left over. |
| Aging | Rebuilt by hand when the board asks. | Current, 31–60, 61–90 and over 90 days on every account, any day. |
| Interest and late fees | Worked out by hand, or not charged at all. | Interest, a fixed late fee, or both, added automatically when a customer pays late, per your board’s policies, with the math shown on the bill. |
| Past-due and disconnection notices | Written and dated one by one. | Reminders, disconnection and door notices, set up to follow your state’s rules. How notices work. |
Getting your records in
Send your records the way you keep them: spreadsheets, QuickBooks reports, or an export from the program you use now. We import your customers, meters, balances and rate schedules, then check everything with you before you go live. Nothing changes for your customers until you’ve checked the numbers.
Switching from another billing program
If your district already uses water billing software, the switch works the same way. Most billing programs can export their records to a spreadsheet or CSV file. Send us what yours exports:
- Customers and accounts, with service and mailing addresses
- Meters, with their reading history
- Billing history: charges, payments, adjustments, fees and interest
- A recent aging report, showing each account’s balance and what’s past due
- A few recent bills, so we can check that WUBS bills them the same way
We import your records, match every account’s balance against your aging report, and recalculate the sample bills in WUBS. If your program can’t export a file, send its reports and we’ll work from those.
Bring over as much history as you can. When past readings, charges, payments and adjustments come with you, customers can see their usage and billing history in WUBS, and your office can answer questions about an old bill without going back to the old program.
How the switch works
- Send us your records. In whatever format you have them.
- We set up and import. Customers, meters, opening balances and rate schedules, plus your fees, tax rates and billing settings.
- Check the numbers together. Compare balances and sample bills with your old records before anything goes to customers.
- Train your staff. Remote training for everyone who will use it, with optional on-site training. Built-in guides cover every role.
- Run in parallel, if you like. WUBS can run alongside your current billing software, so there’s no gap in billing and you can confirm WUBS’s bills match before you switch over.
- Bill from WUBS. When the numbers match and you’re ready, your bills go out from WUBS.
QuickBooks stays for your general books
Your water accounts receivable runs through WUBS: bills, payments, balances, adjustments, aging and collections. QuickBooks keeps the district’s general ledger and everything else, such as expenses, payroll and bank reconciliation, and each month it gets the Journal Entry Summary from WUBS.
Once a month, the Journal Entry Summary gives you one balanced double-entry journal, on an accrual or cash basis: billed revenue, collections, adjustments, write-offs and returned checks, with an accounts-receivable reconciliation. Export it as a CSV in QuickBooks Online’s journal-entry import format, using your own account names, and import it.
It’s an export, not a live connection. QuickBooks Online Advanced and Accountant can import the file directly; other editions may need an import tool or manual entry.
A short checklist before you switch
Gather what you can. Gaps are normal, and we’ll work through them with you.
- Customer list with service and mailing addresses
- Each account’s balance, and what’s past due
- Meter numbers and the last reading for each
- Your rate schedule, fees and tax rates, with the dates they took effect
- Your billing calendar: when you read, bill and expect payment
- How you handle late payment today: interest, late fees, notices
- Who does what: office staff, meter readers, board members
- Your QuickBooks account names, for the monthly journal entry
Switching questions
Do we have to stop using QuickBooks?
No. Keep QuickBooks for your general books. Your water accounts receivable runs through WUBS, and each month its Journal Entry Summary gives you one journal entry to import into QuickBooks or post to your general ledger.
Does WUBS sync with QuickBooks?
Not live. The Journal Entry Summary is a monthly export: a CSV file you import. You decide when it’s posted, and WUBS warns you if you export a month that was already exported.
What if our records are messy?
Send what you have. We import it and check it with you, and we go through anything that doesn’t add up before your first bill goes out.
We already use water billing software. Can we still switch?
Yes. Send us your current program’s exports, usually spreadsheets or CSV files, including reading and billing history and a recent aging report. We import them, match each account’s balance with you, and you can run both programs side by side until WUBS’s bills match.
How long does switching take?
Expect to be up and running within one or two billing cycles, and WUBS can run in parallel with your current billing software until you’ve confirmed its bills match.
Related
Tell us how you bill today
We’ll show you what your records would look like in WUBS and what the switch would involve.