Transportation Billing tasks

Overview:Each month several transportation tasks must be performed to complete the lifecycle of a trip in Trip Direct. After a trip is approved by Transportation it must have a bus and driver assigned. Each month drivers come in to USD501 Service Center and select the trips they want to be assigned to for the coming month. They sign their name next to the trips they wish to be the driver (This only applies to USD501 drivers. We do contract out trips to Durham Bus service. We don’t assign drivers and buses for those trips).

The USD501 bus and driver information must be updated into Trip Direct. Once that is done an updated driver ticket is printed and the tickets are placed in the driver’s mail boxes at the Service Center.

After trips are completed there is a cost determined and updated on the driver ticket. These costs plus cost of buses we contract out to from Durham must be updated on a billing spreadsheet for USD501 financial accounting. At the end of each month the accumulative spreadsheet is forwarded to finance for their use. Each school also gets a monthly copy of their own bus transportation cost. These are accumulated costs they have incurred for the school year.

After the costs are entered into the billing document the tickets need to be set aside (Driver tickets) for later updates needed in Trip Direct. At the end of the month all the individual trip cost must be entered into Trip Direct by trip number. Aftereach trip is updated, it can be closed and saved

The final in the trip process is to file all the closed trips in a Transportation filing cabinet by month.

USD 501 receives periodic payments to be applied to cost of trips. These payments are received in the form of a copy sent to transportation office. These payments must be applied to the appropriate billing Excel document

Below is a List of all steps performed in the trip billing lifecycle:

  • Trip ticket distribution to drivers
  • Calculation of trip cost
  • Excel Billing access
  • UpdateExcel Billing Documents
  • Trip Closure process
  • File closed trips
  • Billing applied payments for transportation

Trip ticket distribution to drivers

Once Buses are assigned to drivers by transportation staff, the assignments must be updated into Trip Direct. Each newly assigned ticket need to have the Driver name entered into Trip Direct, along with the bus number for that trip.

  1. Log into Trip Direct
  2. Enter trip number in search window and click GO.
  3. The desired trip will display.
  4. Scroll down ticket information to Transportation Tab.
  5. ***Click on “Select Driver:” Link. List of drivers will display.
  6. Click on the little box next to desired driver’s name and submit.
  7. ***Click on “Select Vehicle” Link. List of vehicles will display.
  8. Click on the little box next to desired vehicle number and submit
  9. Scroll to bottom of ticket and save changes
  10. Print out new driver ticket.
  11. Process after printing the Driver ticket:
  1. Write name of driver on top of ticket
  2. Print the set up time (30 minutes prior to departure time) above,” From Departure time and date” on Driver ticket.
  3. Put driver tickets in their box.

*** Trip Direct will not allow a driver to have two trips where the start time and return times over lap. There are special circumstances where drivers do multiple trips where times overlap and it is OK.

EXAMPLE: Driver takes a Basketball teams from one school to another. The teams will be there for over three hours. They could then go to another location and pick up students and take them to their location.

Trip Direct will not process these two trips for the driver. The driver and possibly the vehicle will have to be manually assigned (written on the ticket) to one of the two trips on the “Driver Ticket”.

Note: We do not need to use all the above steps above for contractor assigned buses. For these

trips do Steps 1 thru 6 ( you could choose Durham as driver not mandatory at this time) then

save the trip.

Calculation of trip cost (When trips have been completed)

  1. Drivers manually updated their tickets
  2. Return them to Transportation office.
  3. Trip cost must be calculated and written on bottom of ticket
  4. Multiply 1.38 (cost per mile ) X Trip Miles.
  5. Multiply $10.75 (Hourly Wage) X number of hours worked on trip
  6. If there is a toll add that to the calculated cost of steps 4 and 5.

Steps 4, 5, and 6 can be done, letting Trip Direct do the calculations. See below.

  1. Display the trip ticket to be updated.
  2. Scroll down on the trip to the “Actual Cost” Tab.
  3. Click on “Add Vehicle Transaction”
  1. If there is more than one vehicle select a vehicle otherwise skip
  2. Put Zero in “Odometer Begin”
  3. Put the trip total miles in “Odometer end”
  4. Click save
  5. Vehicle cost will display. Close window
  6. Amount of vehicle cost will be added to trip ticket
  1. Click on “Add Driver Transaction”
  1. If there is more than one driver select a driver otherwise skip.

b. Review Actual begin and Actual end Time. It needs to be equal to actual driver recorded time on trip ticket. If you need to correct the “Actual Begin” or “Actual End” Time, to reflect the hours of ticket, do so on Driver Ticket Window.

  1. Click “Get Rate Details”
  2. A Driver Transaction cost will display
  3. If hours and cost are correct click “Add Labor Transaction”
  4. Close window
  5. Amount of driver cost will be added to the trip ticket

If there is a toll that was paid you must do a “Purchase Transaction”

  1. Click on “Add Purchase Transaction”
  2. Cost Description put “Toll”
  3. Cost type drop down click “Tolls”.
  4. Cost Amount type in Toll cost.
  5. Quantity put 1
  6. Close window
  7. Amount of Toll cost will be added to the trip ticket.

Excel Billing Access

  1. Access shared drive – “SHRVOL”
  2. Choose “trusted”
  3. Select “service center”
  4. Folder – “2014 -2015 billing”
  5. There are four documents to maintain. They require a password

Billing titlePassword

  1. Topeka Hightopekahigh
  2. Topeka Westtopekawest
  3. Highland Parkhighlandpark
  4. All other schoolsbilling
  1. Find the school you want to update and select the billing excel spread sheet for a high school or for the one for Elementary and middle schools.
  2. To Save time look through the documents and put them in groups of A, B, C, & D above.

Update Excel Billing Document (Use driver ticket information)

  • Enter the date
  • Enter 501 or Durham (type in who provider was)
  • List Trip destination – Trip name plus trip destination
  • Enter trip cost
  • New Balance may show or you may need to drag formula of balance from line above and new balance due will display.

Note: Peggy approves the monthly Durham bill (Peggy usually receives this bill about seven business days into the following month). It will be used to update the school billings along with 501 costs. After all the current group of billings are updated (with both 501 and Durham costs),emailentire updated billing spread sheettoIrene Mayer at Burnett Center ().

Site 1 Administratorat each school (High School ADs, Middle Schools Activity Coordinators, and Elementary school secretaries) must receive an email with their schools individual billing statement to date. From Irene at Burnett.

Trip closure

  • Accumulate all the driver tickets entered into billing for the month.
  • Log into Trip Direct and add the trip cost for each driver ticket then close the trip and save. This is done by Clicking on “Transportation Cost “ link toward the bottom left hand side of the trip ticket in Trip Direct. Put information in appropriate places. If Transportation link is greyed out see note below.

Note: If a driver /bus was never assigned, assign both, then enter the cost by clicking on the transportation cost link .

FileClosed Trips

There are filing cabinets in Transportation office labeled billing. File the closed documents in this drawer by month. Use the Departure Date month on each document to determine which folder to put them in.

Billing Applied Payments for Transportation

USD 501 receives periodic payments to be applied to cost of trips. These payments are received in the form of a copy sent to transportation office. These payments must be applied to the appropriate billing Excel document to reduce the balance of the trip cost. The payment documents, like driver tickets, must be filed in the closed documents drawer by month. Use the Payment month on each document to determine which folder to put them in.