A billing run helps you handle work in bulk instead of one school at a time. You can email one notice to every school or visiting team that matches your filters, or move every matching school to its next accreditation phase. This article explains how to create a new run and update one you already saved. To review a run’s planned actions, refresh it, or let it execute, see Review, Refresh, and Manage a Billing Run.
What This Does and When to Use It
Use a billing run when you want to contact more than one school or visiting team with the same notice, or advance more than one school to its next phase, in one pass. A run can include up to three kinds of work at the same time:
- Send accreditation notices to schools.
- Send team notices to visiting teams.
- Advance accreditation phases for schools that qualify.
Tip
A school set to Do not advance automatically; keep in current phase until manually advanced is not included when the Advance Accreditation Phases job runs. That school stays in its current phase until you advance it yourself.
Saving a run does not send anything. It schedules a preparation step that finds every matching record and lists the actions the run plans to take, so you can review them before anything goes out.
Prerequisites
- You need administrator-level access to Billing. Staff who do not have it either do not see the Billing menu entry, or are refused access when they select it.
- Set a current program if you are limiting the run to specific schools. The school picker only shows schools in your current program.
Create a New Billing Run
- Go to Accreditations › Billing.
- Select Create Billing Run.
- On Select Billing Template, choose a saved billing template, or choose Create a Billing Run from Scratch.
- On Select Actions, turn on one or more jobs: Send Out Accreditation Notices, Send Out Team Notices, and Advance Accreditation Phases. You must choose at least one job.
- On Enter Billing Run Info, fill in Name:, Notification Email:, and, for each job you turned on, its filters, date range, and notice. See Set Restrictions and Filters on a Billing Run's Jobs.
- On Review Billing Run, check the summary of what each job will do, then select Schedule Billing Run.
Result
A success message confirms that the run was scheduled. Rhythm takes you to the run’s own page, where the preparation step begins.
Saving Does Not Send Anything, but Review Carefully
The review step warns you when your account is live because notices tied to the run will be sent once you let it execute. In a sandbox, the warning tells you that notices are redirected and nobody actually receives them.
Starting from a Template or a Copy
When you choose a billing template, the wizard fills in every answer included in the template, including which jobs are on, their filters, and their notices. Any relative dates in the template, such as “60 days before expiration,” become real dates based on today. Only active templates are offered.
You can also start a new run as a copy of an earlier one from that run’s own page. See Review, Refresh, and Manage a Billing Run. A copy keeps the source run’s settings, but it does not keep its history or statistics, and it opens without asking you to confirm first.
What Notification Email Is For
The address you enter in Notification Email: receives preparation, success, and failure reports for the run. It is not the address used for schools or visiting teams. For a new run, this field defaults to your own email address.
When Would You Like to Process This Billing Run?
The wizard asks whether to prepare the run Immediately or In the future, with a date and a preview lead time. This choice does not change when Rhythm picks up the run. Either way, the run becomes ready for the regular preparation check to find within a few minutes of saving. If you want a run to wait, keep it open on its own page and let it execute yourself, or set it up as a recurring billing run instead.
Edit a Saved Billing Run
- Open the run from Accreditations › Billing or from its own page.
- Change its settings the same way you would when creating a run.
- Select Schedule Billing Run to save.
Every Save Sets the Run Back to Scheduled
Saving a change from any status, including a run that already completed or ended in error, sets it back to scheduled and clears any execution time it had. This means that correcting a small mistake in a run that already sent notices puts it back in line to be prepared and sent again. If you only need a fresh copy, clone the run instead of editing the one you already ran.
There is no menu path that opens a run directly for editing. You always reach the wizard from the run’s own page.
Expected Result and What a Run Needs Before It Saves
The wizard will not let you save until you enter a name, a notification address, at least one job, and, for every notice job, the notice to send. If a job limits records to specific programs, schools, phases, or visit types, you must also choose at least one entry when you pick “only include” or “exclude.” The wizard accepts an empty list, but saving is refused.
If Saving Fails
If the run cannot be saved, the message names the reason and keeps your entries so you can correct them and try again. Typical causes are an “only include” or “exclude” filter with nothing chosen, or a date range whose end is before its start. The wizard accepts that date range, but it then selects nothing useful.