# Billing Management

These settings determine how Maica manages Billing and its function throughout the application. Please refer to the below table for more information on each setting: 

<table><thead><tr><th width="222">Setting</th><th>Description</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><code>Service Time Prioritisation</code></td><td>Maica uses the date/time field(s) selected to determine the Appointment’s time bracket for billing purposes. You can select multiple values and their priority order (if the higher priority field has no value, the next field in descending order will be used).</td></tr><tr><td><code>Time Bracket Inclusivity</code></td><td>Define whether the Start or End of your defined Time Brackets are <code>inclusive</code>. When the Start is inclusive, Appointments starting on the bracket start value are included in that bracket. When End is inclusive, then Appointments ending on the bracket end value are included in that bracket. <br><br>Typically the selected value should align to your selected billing priority date/time value. Eg. If inclusivity was set to “End”, an Appointment ended at 6:00am and your Night bracket ended at 6:00am and Day was set to start at 6:00am. The service would be considered as Night as opposed to Day. The reverse would be true if you selected “Start”.</td></tr><tr><td><code>Enable Rate Comparison</code></td><td>When this setting is enabled, Maica will compare the two Rates retrieved using the configured Service Time Prioritisation and Comparison values and return the one that matches your Rate Preference.</td></tr><tr><td><code>Time Travel Cap (minutes)</code></td><td>If a value is provided in this setting, Maica will limit any time-based billable travel to the minutes specified here. If travel caps are specified at Service Agreement level, this will take priority over this global setting.</td></tr><tr><td><code>Chargeable Travel Cap (kms)</code></td><td>If a value is provided in this setting, Maica will limit any non time-based billable travel to the kms specified here. If travel caps are specified at Service Agreement level, this will take priority over this global setting.</td></tr><tr><td><code>Short Notice Cancellation Period (days)</code></td><td>When Appointments are cancelled, Maica marks any associated Delivery Activities as <code>cancelled</code> for potential billing. This setting determines the period in which a cancellation will be billed, for example setting this to <code>4</code> means any Appointment within 4 days of the scheduled start date will be billed to the Participant.</td></tr><tr><td><code>Service Time Prioritisation for Comparison</code></td><td>Required when you enable Rate Comparison. This value will be used to retrieve a Rate for comparison against the Rate retrieved from the prioritised Service Time.</td></tr><tr><td><code>Rate Preference</code></td><td>When Rate Comparison is enabled, Maica will use the selected value to determine which returned Rate is used for Appointment costing and billing.</td></tr><tr><td><code>Invoice Flow</code></td><td>This determines which Flow is used to generate Invoices and Invoice Line Items. This could either be the native Maica Flow or any developed custom Flow.</td></tr><tr><td><code>Invoice Auto-Creation</code></td><td>This determines how Invoices and Invoice Line Items are generated; options include <code>Manual</code> , <code>Trigger</code> or <code>Schedule</code>. <br><br>If <code>Manual</code> is selected, an authorised user must run the billing process using the <strong>Run Now</strong> button in the <strong>Manual Run</strong> section detailed below.</td></tr><tr><td><code>Schedule Frequency</code></td><td>If <code>Schedule</code> is selected in the <code>Invoice Auto-Creation</code> setting, this determines the frequency at which Invoices and Invoice Line Items are generated.</td></tr><tr><td><code>Schedule Start Date</code></td><td>If <code>Schedule</code> is selected in the <code>Invoice Auto-Creation</code> setting, this determines the start date of the Invoice and Invoice Line Item generation process. </td></tr><tr><td><code>Schedule Anchor Date</code></td><td>When <code>Schedule</code> is selected, this determines the starting point for the recurring schedule. For example, if set to 1 January 2024 with a <strong>Weekly</strong> frequency, billing will run every week from that date.</td></tr><tr><td><code>Schedule Time</code></td><td>If <code>Schedule</code> is selected in the <code>Invoice Auto-Creation</code> setting, this determines the time at which Invoices and Invoice Line Items are generated.</td></tr><tr><td><code>Manual Run</code></td><td><p>The <code>Manual Run</code> section allows you to generate Invoices on demand at any time. Clicking <strong>Run Now</strong> executes the billing Flow selected in the <code>Invoice Flow</code> field.<br></p><p>Manual Run is particularly useful for new Participants, go-live transitions, or historical billing corrections.<br><br>Within Manual Run, you can specify a <strong>Date Range</strong> for which Invoices should be generated:<br></p><ul><li>You may enter both a <strong>Start Date</strong> and an <strong>End Date</strong>, or only one of these fields.</li><li>If no dates are entered, the billing process runs across all available time.</li><li>Validation ensures that the Start Date cannot be after the End Date.<br></li></ul><p>Manual Run respects the <code>Service Delivery Date Mapping</code> setting detailed below, which determines how dates are drawn from Appointment and Delivery Activity records.</p></td></tr><tr><td><code>Service Delivery Date Mapping</code></td><td>This determines the date from the Appointment being used on the Invoice Line Item, for example <code>Schedule Start</code> or <code>Actual Start</code>.</td></tr></tbody></table>