Linking of Virtual Accounts

It is used to keep consistency between bills in cases where data changes occur that trigger the creation of a second Virtual Account, when instead the bills should be part of the initial Virtual Account.

For example, a Meter ID changes for an existing Virtual Account, and the Utility will start sending new bills with the updated Meter ID. When the new bills come in, due to the Meter change and UBM logic for creating Virtual Accounts, a new Virtual Account will be created, even though the Virtual Account with the old Meter ID and the Virtual Account with the new Meter ID are in reality the same one.

Linking the two accounts maintains a relationship between the old Virtual Account and new Virtual Account inside UBM, making it easier to track a Virtual Account as a single entity.

This linking between Virtual Accounts also provides proper historical statistics for the overall Virtual Account even with the Meter ID change.

You can link multiple Virtual Accounts together.

Go to Locations → select a Location → from the Location Details area, select Virtual Accounts.

Each Virtual Account has a Link option present on the right-hand side of the table area.

Let's assume you have two Virtual Accounts that need to be linked.

This is your main account, or Parent account.

After selecting the Link action on the account that needs to be the Parent account, a dialog will appear on screen.

The top grey area of the dialog will display the details of the Virtual Account that you just selected to be the Parent account.

The table will present all available Child accounts. These are the accounts that can be linked to the selected Parent account.

Select the checkbox on all desired accounts that you want to link as children to the Parent account. Then select the Next button.

Once the Next button is selected, you will end up in an optional step where you can choose to update the Parent Virtual Account's attributes with the attributes chosen from one of the selected children Virtual Accounts.

To do this, select the dropdown arrow. The dropdown will display the list of all Virtual Accounts that you selected as children in the previous step. Select one of the accounts.

Once the account is selected, a list with all the attributes available for that account will be displayed.

Compare the attributes with the ones available for the Parent account, displayed on the grey background, and select the ones that you want to be updated in the Parent account.

After selecting the Link button, a confirmation dialog will appear, ensuring that the action is the desired one. Select the Link button from the dialog for the linking to occur.

You can view all Child accounts that are linked to the Parent account by selecting the arrow.

Each Child account will be visually linked to the Parent account through a small line.

Any linked Virtual Accounts can also be unlinked.

Go to Locations → select a Location → select the Virtual Accounts tab.

Expand any linked Virtual Accounts. Once expanded, at the right end of each linked Child Virtual Account, you will see an Unlink action.

Select the Unlink action on the Child Virtual Account that you want to unlink. Once selected, a dialog will appear.

The Child Virtual Account that you started the Unlink action from is selected in the dialog, but all other linked Virtual Accounts are displayed and any of them can be selected in order to be unlinked.

After selecting all the accounts that you want to unlink, select the Next button.

A confirmation dialog will appear on screen. If you want the unlinking to occur, select the Unlink button.