Fee structures define the rates at which accounts in billing groups will be billed, how the billable balance will be calculated, and on what frequency they will be billed.

You may create as many fee structures as needed for your firm. You have the ability to assign multiple fee structures to a single account. Also, Atlas includes a "No Fee" fee structure that is typically assigned to your own accounts or accounts you do not bill. To prevent errors, Atlas will automatically check to ensure fee structures have the same collection type (e.g., arrears, advance) and frequency (e.g., monthly, quarterly). 

Navigate to Settings → Billing Settings → "View" Fee Structures

Click the Create button in the upper right corner of the fee structures view.

You'll be presented with a menu of options: Name, Collection Type, Structure, Valuation Type, Billing Frequency, and Fee Schedule.

Choose the name of each fee structure (i.e., Standard Fee). These names will be displayed to the client in their invoice statements, so they should be both descriptive and reflective of how you communicate pricing plans to your clients.

Designate whether to bill in arrears, advance, or advance with proration. Invoicing in advance means the date on the billing statement is for services that will be rendered in the upcoming period. Invoicing in arrears means the date on the invoice corresponds to services that have been rendered in the prior period. 

*Please note that for a single account, all fee structure assignments must have the same collection type or it will provide an error when running billing.

The most common option, advance with proration, means your client fees are calculated in advance where any accounts opened within the prior period automatically prorated for those initial days based on the account opening date. 

For example: If an account is funded on the 15th of the month and assigned to a fee structure using advance with proration on a monthly frequency, the first invoice would include roughly 45 days - 30 of the upcoming month plus 15 to account for the prior 15 days of management. If the same account had an arrears collection type it would be charged for 15 days, while with an advance-only collection type it would be charged for 30 days.

Flat Rate will charge a consistent percentage to assigned accounts regardless of account value.

Flat Fee will charge a consistent dollar amount to assigned accounts or groups regardless of account value. You can choose to assign flat fees to the individual account or to a billing group. Please keep in mind that you will input the annual amount.

Flat Account Fee is a flat dollar amount that's applied to each account. For example, a flat account fee of $100 applied to a group with 5 accounts will be charged $500 per year.

Flat Group Fee is a flat dollar amount that's applied to the group. For example, a flat group fee of $100 applied to a group with 5 accounts will be charged $100 per year.

A common use case for a per account flat fee would be including your technology costs in your client fees. For example, you could set up a fee so that each account is charged $60 annual flat fee in addition to other calculated fees to cover the cost of technology.

Note: For clients who started using flat fees before the November 2018 major billing update: the previous version of our billing calculator used strictly flat fees on a group basis. All existing flat fee structures were migrated to our new version as group flat fees to maintain this original set up. Feel free to change or maintain that set up as needed.

Drop Through means the same rate will be applied to the total account balance, the rate which will vary based on the account balance. For example, if you set a drop through rate of 1% for accounts with a value of $0 - $1MM and .75% for accounts with a value over $1MM to an account with $2.5MM, all $2.5MM will be charged at .75%.

Tiered means different rates will be charged to assets as they cross your defined threshold. Some advisors refer to this as a blended structure. For example, if you set a tiered rate of 1% for accounts with a value of $0 - $1MM and .75% for accounts with a value over $1MM to an account with $2.5MM, $1MM will be charged at 1% and $1.5MM will be charged at .75%.

Favor means no fees are collected on any accounts associated with this fee structure. By default your Atlas dashboard comes with a "No Fee" fee structure with this option selected. Feel free to adjust the name, collection type, valuation method, and billing frequency of this preset structure.

Determine how Bridge will calculate the balance of the account. You can select ending period balance (the value of the account as of the last day of the period), the average daily balance (ADB) over the billing period, or ending period balance w/ adjustment for flows. 

Many advisors who want to account for changes in accounts due to cash and asset flows in and out of client accounts choose to use ADBs to average out the account value over the billing period.

Determine the amount of time that constitutes a standard single billing period - Monthly or Quarterly. 

Note: For quarterly billing you can choose quarter start dates that deviate from the standard dates (e.g. a quarter that runs from February through April). Some advisors refer to this as rolling quarters.

Define the percentage or dollar amount to be charged. Atlas automatically updates the schedule entry options in this field based on the structure type. 

For example, the schedule of a flat percentage fee is a single percentage applied to all assets of the account. The schedule for a tiered structure is a set of percentages progressively applied to the account balance. 

Note: For tiered fee structures, each new tier must begin one cent more than the cut off of the previous tier. If the first tier is $0 - $1,000,000.00, the next tier must begin at $1,000,000.01.