Copier meter billing mistakes and how to avoid them

Why small billing errors cost so much

A click billing error is rarely large on one invoice. An overcharge of a few pounds on a quarterly bill is easy to correct. The cost is in what follows: the customer queries it, someone spends an hour finding the reading history, a credit note goes out, and the office manager now checks every invoice from you. At renewal, they remember.

Undercharging is quieter and often worse. Nobody complains, so it can run for years. Most meter billing errors fall into a handful of patterns, and each one has a simple check that catches it.

Estimated readings without a true-up

When no reading arrives in time, estimating is reasonable, provided the agreement allows it. The mistake is estimating badly or failing to correct it. A sound approach:

• Estimate from the machine’s own recent average daily use, not a contract figure or a guess.
• Mark the invoice line clearly as estimated.
• Bill the next period from the next actual reading minus the estimated reading, so the two periods together are exactly right.
• Never estimate two periods in a row without contacting the customer and finding out why there is no reading.

Missed and late readings

Readings collected on different days each quarter make every bill slightly wrong. A reading taken three weeks late moves three weeks of pages into the wrong period; usually that evens out, but it confuses customers with fixed budgets and makes volume trends useless.

Pick a cut-off date and stick to it. If readings come from customers, send the request a few days before the cut-off with a link, and follow up once. If readings come from engineers, accept that some machines will not be visited in time. Remote monitoring removes the problem for every machine on the network: a reading for every machine on the same day, every period. See how remote meter reading works.

Meter resets after board swaps and machine swaps

Replacing a main board, controller board or the storage that holds the counters can reset the meter, or leave it at a value that has nothing to do with the old one. If the next reading is simply subtracted from the last, the bill is either negative or absurdly large.

1. Before the board is replaced, the engineer prints or photographs the counter page and records the final readings.
2. After the replacement, the engineer records the new starting readings.
3. The office records this as a meter change on the machine: old final, new start, date and job.
4. The next bill is (old final − last billed) + (current − new start).

A replacement machine is different again. It has a new serial number, so it should be a new machine on the contract with its own starting reading, and the old machine’s final reading closes its billing.

The warning sign

A reading lower than the previous one is never normal. Treat it as a question to answer before billing, not a number to bill from.

Getting the colour and mono split right

Copiers keep many counters, and models differ in what they keep. Common ones include total, black, full colour, single or two colour, large size, copy and print separately, and scans. The contract has two or three rates. Mapping one to the other is where mistakes happen:

• Billing the total counter at the mono rate, so colour pages are undercharged.
• Ignoring a single-colour or two-colour counter, so those pages are never billed.
• Counting large-format pages once when the contract says twice, or the other way round.
• Mapping a new model the same way as the last one, when its counters are arranged differently.

When a machine is installed, set up which counter feeds which rate, then check the first remote or engineer reading against the counter page, counter by counter. Write the mapping into the machine record so it survives staff changes.

Minimum billing and allowances

Minimums and allowances go wrong when they are applied by hand. One period the minimum is charged, the next it is forgotten; the allowance is applied per machine when the agreement pools it across the customer’s fleet. Customers notice inconsistency more than they notice the minimum itself.

• Store the minimum or allowance on the contract, not in someone’s head.
• Show it on the invoice: pages printed, pages included, pages charged.
• Pro-rate it for a part period at the start or end of the agreement, and say how in the contract.
• Be clear whether allowances are per machine or pooled, and whether unused pages roll over.

The wrong machine, the wrong site

Readings recorded against the wrong machine are surprisingly common when two identical models sit on the same site, or when machines are moved between sites without the records being updated. Match readings by serial number, never by location or IP address. When a machine moves, update its site in the records before the next billing run.

Common mistakes at a glance

Checks to run before every billing run

1. List machines with no reading for this period, and decide estimate or chase.
2. List readings lower than the previous one, and resolve each.
3. List readings far above the machine’s normal use, for example more than three times its recent average, and confirm them.
4. List estimates from last period that should now be trued up.
5. Check new machines have a starting reading and finished machines have a final one.
6. Check rate changes and annual reviews due this period have been applied.
7. Check VAT is applied correctly to every line.

Handling a dispute

When a customer queries a bill, the speed and clarity of your answer matters more than the amount. Have the evidence to hand: the dated reading history for the machine, where each reading came from (remote, engineer, customer or estimate) and, where you have one, the counter page.

If you were wrong, issue a credit note and a corrected invoice rather than editing the original. That keeps your accounts and the customer’s accounts in step. Then fix the cause, not just the invoice, so it does not happen next quarter. For more on getting the rates right in the first place, see how to set click charges, and for how SubClik keeps readings with each machine, see machine history.