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User Billing Category

Every user record carries a Billing Category that decides which set of fees applies to that person's requests. When you generate charges on a photoduplication or copy request, Aeon looks up the rates for the requester's billing category in the Billing Defaults table — so the same item can cost one researcher full price and cost another nothing, purely based on the category on their record.

Most users sit in the standard category and you never touch it. You change a user's billing category for the exceptions: a researcher your institution doesn't charge (typically an Exempt category), a sponsored or grant-funded account, or any group you've set up with its own rates.

When you'll use this
  • A researcher should be exempt from copy fees — set their category to your exempt category so charges calculate to zero.
  • A user belongs to a group with special pricing (faculty, internal departments, a paying account tier) that you've defined in Billing Defaults.
  • A user's category was set wrong at registration and their charges are coming out at the wrong rate.
Where the categories come from

The choices in the Billing Category list aren't fixed — they're the distinct categories defined in your Billing Defaults configuration. Whatever categories you've set up there (commonly Default and Exempt, plus any custom tiers) are exactly what appears in the dropdown. If a category you expect isn't in the list, it hasn't been added under Customizations → Billing Defaults yet. See Billing Defaults Configuration.

Setting a user's billing category​

The billing category lives on the user record itself, alongside the rest of the user's information — not on any individual request.

  1. Open the user record. Search for the user (for example, jdoe) and open their detail view, or open them straight from a request.
  2. Find the Billing Category field on the user form. It's grouped with the user's other billing-related fields. (Exactly where it sits on the form depends on your form layout, since the user form is configurable — see Form Designer: User Form.)
  3. Open the Billing Category dropdown and choose the category you want — for example, your exempt category.
  4. Click Save in the toolbar.

The change is recorded in the user's change history, the same as any other edit to the record.

Clearing the category

The dropdown includes a (None) option at the top. In practice most institutions keep every user assigned to a real category so charge calculation always has rates to look up, and reach for (None) only when they deliberately want no category on the record.

How the category affects charges​

The billing category by itself doesn't add or remove money — it tells Aeon which fee schedule to use when charges are calculated for that user's requests.

  • When charges are generated on a request, Aeon matches the requester's billing category against the rows in Billing Defaults for the relevant format, service level, and shipping option, and applies those base fees, unit fees, and tax rates.
  • A user in an Exempt category (one configured with zero fees) produces zero-dollar charges, even on requests for items that would normally bill.
  • Changing a user's category affects charges calculated after the change. It does not retroactively recalculate charges that were already added to existing requests.
New-user default

When a new user is created, Aeon assigns the billing category from the WebDefaultBillingCategory customization key unless a category is supplied explicitly. So most users start in your configured default without anyone setting it by hand. You only override it for the exceptions above.

Permissions
  • Setting a user's billing category is part of editing the user record. You need the Edit level (or higher) of the Users permission. If your role is view-only for users, the Billing Category field — like every other field on the form — is read-only and Save is disabled.
  • To see a user's invoices and balances (the Billing tab on the user record), you separately need the View level of the Billing permission. That tab shows outstanding invoices; it is not where the billing category is set — the category is a field on the user form.
Editor review — remove this callout (and the HTML comment below it) before publishing

A couple of points an SME should confirm on this page:

  • "(None)" behavior: the user form offers a (None) choice for Billing Category. In the current code the (None) option carries the literal sentinel value __none__, and the save path sends that string straight through (no conversion to empty/null was found), so picking (None) appears to persist BillingCategory = "__none__" rather than clearing the field. Confirm the intended product behavior — should (None) clear the category, and what does charge calculation do when a user has no (or an unmatched) category?
  • Screenshots: the inventory marks this page as not needing a screenshot. If desired, add one shot of the Billing Category dropdown open on the user form showing the available categories.

The full generation metadata — sources, files read, and verifications, i.e. the detail a tool like Claude would need to regenerate this page — is in the HTML comment directly below this callout. When this page has been reviewed and approved, delete both this callout and that comment; a page with no Editor-review callout is one that's done.