Cable TV / Broadband Operator

For a local cable operator, an internet provider, or one book for both. The billed thing is the connection (a set-top box or an internet line), not the subscriber: a house with a box and a line owes on each separately. Dues are raised per cycle and collected at the door, over the phone, or keyed in at the office.

Set up before your first collection

The owner does these, in this order. The map comes first, because it decides whose round every subscriber is on.

1. Pick what you run Settings > Cable. On the Features card switch on what you use today: Collector Rounds if collectors walk the streets, Multiple Providers if you resell more than one network. On the Collection card set Overdue After (days) and decide on Close Short Payment.
2. Choose your map levels Settings > Cable > Location Levels: the levels you actually use (district, city, area, route, street).
3. Draw the map Network > Locations: every area, route and street your book is walked by.
4. Add your networks and plans. With Multiple Providers on, add each upstream MSO / ISP under Network > Providers first. Then Network > Plans: base plans and add-on packs per service, with the amount you charge and, with providers, what each costs you.
5. Add the boxes and routers you stock under Setup > Equipment & Items. With Device Serial Register on, register their serials under Network > Devices.
6. Enter your subscribers with Setup > Directory > New Subscriber (Office > Directory on a phone): the party (name, phone, route and street), then each connection (service, box number, plan, add-ons, start date).
7. Create a login for each person with their switches and their areas (see Who signs in).
8. Collect one cycle as a test and print the recharge receipt. Check the connection's paid-till date moved forward.

How the work flows

Each step says who usually does it and what prints.

The whole journey on one page:

flowchart TD
    N[New Subscriber] --> N1[Party form
name · phone · area/route/street]
    N1 --> N2[Connection form
service · box no · plan · add-ons · start date]
    N2 --> C[(The connection)]
    C --> G[Cycle generation
paid-till behind today raises a recharge]
    G --> R[(Cycle now pending)]
    R --> P[Pending list
one row per unpaid cycle · discount · waive]
    subgraph Collect["Collecting"]
        S1[Start Collection
date and collector] --> S2{Device}
        S2 -->|phone| S3[Round: one door at a time
search box at the bottom]
        S2 -->|keyboard| S4[Entry grid: type name · Enter down the column]
        F[Find & Collect
dial box-number suffix] --> S5[Collect sheet]
        S3 & S4 & S5 --> S6[Tick the cycles · amount · mode]
    end
    P --> Collect
    S6 --> CP[(Receipt recorded)]
    CP --> C2[paidTill moves forward]
    P -->|N cycles behind| D[Disconnect defaulters
skips never-disconnect boxes]
    D --> L[(Change logged on the connection)]

Who signs in

Give every person their own login. An operator has no seat picker: a round is defined by the areas somebody walks, not by a job title. So a login is two things together — the switches on the Cable / Broadband group, and the areas it covers. Everyone opens on the Desk, which shows the owner’s figures or the counter’s work depending on those switches.

1. Open the user form Settings > Users > Add User.
2. Set the login: email or user name, password, and Role Type. An office login that receives collectors' cash must be a Manager: Collect For Other Users and Receive Collections are offered only to a manager, and only with Collector Rounds on.
3. Tick the switches on the Cable / Broadband group, as in the cards below.
4. Give the areas with Add territory: the areas, routes or streets this person works. Leave it empty for the whole book, then save.

These are typical shapes, not built-in seats: what a person may do is exactly the switches you tick, and what they see is their areas. The side menu follows the switches, so a collector opens the app on Pending, Collections and the connections list rather than on the whole book.

The full switch list is in What each person may do, and how areas narrow every list is in Which subscribers a person can see.

Where it is in the app

Every login opens on the Desk. Each menu shows only what this login is granted and this business has switched on; a menu left empty does not appear, so a collector sees fewer menus than the owner.

On a computer: the menu bar

Across the top: the Desk, then one menu per area, then Setup (the Directory, Equipment & Items and the shared masters), Voucher (stock vouchers and payroll) and Tools (Settings, utilities, Help, Logout). Collect sits in a New submenu at the top of the first menu.

On a phone or tablet: the side menu and the bottom bar

The side menu lists the Desk, Subscribers, Money, Network, Complaints, Office (Reports, Directory, Accounts) and Bulk Tools. The bottom bar is the same for everyone; a screen on the bar is not repeated in the side menu.

Screens

Desk

The operator's morning dashboard: active connections, cycles pending and their value, what each collector has outstanding (a route two collectors share is a separate "Shared routes" row, so nothing is counted twice), and what is due for disconnection.

Connections

Every box and line, searchable by subscriber, box number, plan, area or status. From a row: change plan, add or drop add-ons, mark free, put on hold, disconnect, reconnect, or change the box - each state change is logged with reason and date.

Pending

Everything still owed, one row per unpaid cycle. A subscriber three months behind appears three times on purpose: each cycle can be paid, discounted or waived on its own. Filter by area, collector, provider or overdue bucket; export the whole arrears book; send reminders; and run Disconnect defaulters from here (with Manage Connections).

Collections

Receipts taken, by day, collector and mode. Not handed over shows the money a collector has not yet handed to the office; Sign in marks it received (with Receive Collections). Collector rounds are an optional feature - see Collector Rounds.

History, Plans, Providers, Locations

• History - a connection's full timeline: recharges, payments, plan and state changes.
• Plans - the tariff master per service type: base plans and add-on packs, amount, and provider cost when providers are enabled.
• Providers - upstream MSOs / ISPs when you resell more than one. See Multiple Providers.
• Locations - the area > route > street chain your book is organised by. A subscriber stores only the route (and street); everything above is derived.

Devices

The serial register, when Device Serial Register is on: every box, router and ONU you own, and where each one is — on the shelf, out with a subscriber, faulty, returned or written off. Issue a unit to a connection and recover it when the line is cut, so a recovered box can be told from a lost one.

Serials usually arrive in a batch, so Register from a purchase bill takes the bill once and a whole run of serials pasted in together. Each unit is stamped with the bill that bought it, and a serial already on the register is skipped rather than overwritten. Reading the shelf needs no permission; moving a unit needs Manage Devices.

Bulk Tools

Cut, restore and recharge boxes across a list of box numbers. See Bulk Tools.

Reminders

The reminder template under Settings > Cable is sent over WhatsApp from Pending or a collector's round, using the device's WhatsApp channel setting. See WhatsApp.

The month’s cycle

flowchart TD
    A[Month begins] --> B[Cycles raised for every active connection]
    B --> C[Pending list, by area and collector]
    C --> D[Collectors walk their rounds]
    D --> E{Paid?}
    E -->|yes| F[Paid-till moves forward]
    E -->|no| G[Cycle stays pending]
    G --> H[Reminder on WhatsApp]
    H --> D
    G --> I{Several cycles behind?}
    I -->|yes| J[Disconnect defaulters
skips never-disconnect boxes]
    J --> K[Subscriber pays to reconnect] --> F
    F --> L[Collections handed over to the office]
    L --> M[Next month] --> A

Settings

What each person may do

Twelve switches, on the Cable / Broadband group of a user’s permissions. An operator does not pick a named seat here the way a hospital or a hotel does — a round is defined by the areas somebody walks, not by a job title — so the switches and the area list together are the seat. A switch for an optional feature (portal, providers, devices, bulk tools, the two hand-over switches) appears only when that feature is on.

Three pairs are split because they are two different people: taking the cash and signing it in at the office, re-wiring the local book and re-wiring the network, and re-planning a box versus forgiving a month. The rail follows the switches, so a collector opens the app on the groups they actually use rather than on the whole book.

Which subscribers a person can see

Separate from what they may do. A login is scoped to its own areas, so every list it opens — the desk, the pending list, the collections screen, the reports — is already narrowed to the streets it walks.

Leaving the area list empty means no restriction, not no access — that is what an office login gets. To give somebody nothing, take away their switches rather than emptying their areas.

Because the map decides whose round a subscriber is on, Manage Locations is effectively the power to re-cut everybody’s territory. Hand it out deliberately. See Users, Roles & Permissions.

Reports

Every report sits under one Reports heading, one entry each, so a named report is opened directly rather than found on an index.

Churn & Growth, Plan Margin and the Device Register each carry a chart above the table, drawn from the same figures, so the picture and the numbers cannot disagree. Every one exports to PDF and Excel.

Business Reports (Day Book, Expenses, Income, Profit & Loss) and Loan Reports for set-top-box financing sit in the same group.