GNomEx generates billing for experiments automatically based on each requested experiment's settings. The charges on each bill are generated from a list of potential charges with pricing that is also maintained in GNomEx and charges are triggered if an experiment meets a set of criteria established for each potential charge in the list. The list of potential billing charges is organized by price sheet (essentially there is one price sheet for each type of experiment that can be ordered through GNomEx) and grouped by categories within those price sheets. Each category represents a single line item on the bill for an experiment type with the category name used to identify the Service associated with that line item. The specific text that will appear under "Description" as an explanation on that line item and the actual price that will be charged is based on the ordering person's response to specific fields in the ordering process. Each category points to the specific fields in the ordering process that pertain to their assigned line item and the potential prices that are listed within that category use as triggering criteria the potential responses to those fields, so that different responses to those fields will trigger different prices and explanations in that line item on the bill.

As an example for how this works, the Microarray Labeling Reaction category from the Agilent Microarray price sheet has been assigned the Application field as its basis.

The experiment being billed used a ChiP-on-chip application.

The Agilent ChiP-on-chip criterion within the Microarray Labeling Reaction category specifies that if the value selected in that field is ChiP-on-chip, then internal groups are charged $80 per unit and external ones are charged $120. (For our example, the group being billed receives internal pricing.)

The applicable charge shows up as a line item on the bill, with the name of the category identified as the Service and the name of the price criterion identified as the Description for that line item. The unit price reflects the correct value as specified by the matching criterion.

It should be noted (as mentioned above) that these price criteria often specify two prices — one for internal and another for external requests. Whether a request qualifies as internal or external depends on whether the group making the request is specified as receiving internal or external pricing on the Billing Accounts tab for that group in the Users & Groups module.

Any changes to this list, including prices or criteria for triggering a particular charge can only be done by users with administrative permissions in GNomEx. Billing generation and automatic billing of university accounts can also only be initiated by a user with administrative permissions.

See the following topics for instructions for performing these tasks:

• Creating a new price sheet
• Creating a new price category
• Modifying an existing price sheet
• Modifying an existing price category
• Modifying an existing charge item
• Preparing and sending out invoices for clients
• Generating general ledger interface data for automatically billing university accounts