StarCaster™ Documentation
Support > Documentation > E-Invoices
E-Invoices
With StarCaster™ v7.00, you may now generate electronic invoices (e-invoices) for agencies to be uploaded into SpotData. Actually, it takes your current invoices and creates a file that's compatible with SpotData (along with a summary file so you know what got exported). You then upload this e-file to SpotData.
Registering with SpotData
The first thing to do is get signed up with SpotData. They will issue you an ID consisting of (usually) your call letters of your first installed station. This ID becomes part of the export file name. You'll enter this ID in StarCaster's configuration section discussed later.
Agency IDB Numbers
Each agency needs an IDB number in order for StarCaster to recognize that it needs to generate an e-invoice. These values are assigned by SpotData. Since we have no way of knowing how you entered your agencies, you'll need to get this list of IDB numbers from SpotData and assign them to your agencies. This is done from the Agency Database editor (Main Menu:Util/Config/Database).
Additionally, you can specify whether or not the agency wants a paper invoice. This won't change whether or not StarCaster will print an invoice; but rather, it will add a line just below the invoice header, but above the ad content, signifying this setting.
Account Export Program
The first thing you'll need to do is enter your Authorization Code. This is done from the Configure option.
Configuring
The following screen shows the configuration options, followed by an explanation of each.
The Target path (or folder) is simply where you want to put your
export file.
The ID is what SpotData should have issued you. This identifies your
station group to SpotData. Additionally, the resulting filename will contain
this ID. For example, if your ID was set to KLIN, and you were
generating an export file with the "date run" set to July 25, 2008,
the file name would be EKLIN20080725. [On a pure DOS machine (which
doesn't support long file names), the filename would be 20080725.]
If Show adj. as comments is set to Yes, both Regular and
Non-broadcast adjustments (ACCA) will appear at the bottom of the generated
invoice as comments. It's recommended this be set to Yes.
If PACKAGE clarification is set to Yes, ads that have a Weekly
package rate will have a line describing what the Weekly package is.
BONUS ads will appear with a rate of N/C. Include a BONUS
description to have a line describing why the rate is N/C. The same goes
with SPECIAL-rate ads and MAKE-GOODs.
For each of your stations, you need to enter the following information:
Media type: Select the appropriate media type for your StarCaster ('R - Spot Radio' for radio stations).
Band: AM or FM
Name: This is a 30-character one-line name for your station.
Address: This is the remittance address of where agencies will send your payment.
Header: This will appear just above all ad content. You can have up to 5 lines.
Footer: This will appear at the bottom of the invoice, and will probably have some type of 'We warrant that...' line.
Creating the Export File
The following screen shows the electronic invoice generation options:
Select Stations to set which stations for which you want to generate
an export file. Most likely, this will be all your stations.
The Month/year determines which monthly invoices to process. Note that
if an unposted invoice file exists, it WILL be included in the export (you
will be asked to confirm, however).
The Date run is just the date you're running the export. It defaults
to today. It only affects the resulting filename.
Select Run and jump through any confirmation hoops. When finished
you'll have the option of viewing the summary file. The summary file of the
last generated export file is always
\STARCAST\TEMP\EINVOICE.TXT.
The summary file looks something like this. Use the up/down/left/right arrows to scroll through the report. Print it if necessary.
Uploading to SpotData
All that's left to do is upload the resulting export file to SpotData. In the above example screen, the file to upload is W:\SC7\EKLIN20080726. Your SpotData representative should supply you information on this.
Example
The following shows a sample StarCaster invoice and the resulting SpotData
invoice. This should give you an excellent idea of how things are translated.
You'll note that the header/footer on the printed StarCaster invoice are
different from SpotData's. That's because StarCaster allows you to configure
special SpotData-only headers/footers (see Configuring above).
StarCaster Invoice #10228 (as printed from StarCaster)
SpotData Invoice #10228 (as created by SpotData)