AMI Leasing will roll out a new flexible billing system in the first quarter of 2002 , said Eliot Cohen, vice president of administrative services. “Customers will be able to choose from a variety of formats and a variety of media. It will be quicker and less costly for them to process their invoices, and they will be able to organize their data more easily for cost-accounting purposes. There will be less manual intervention, so invoices will be easier to manage,” said Cohen. AMI Leasing customers will be able to choose to have invoices delivered on standard paper, as electronic spreadsheets, on AMI’s Fleet Access System or using “virtually any other technology customers might want to use for invoicing,” he said. “We can make the invoice serve multiple purposes for customers,” he added. “The foundation for the new billing system is similar to Report Writer, so data can be displayed in many different ways. Data can even be organized so that the invoice can be used as a cost-accounting tool.” In addition, charges can be bundled or unbundled more easily. Customers can choose between weekly and monthly billing of certain charges. Customers of the Truck Division can, for example, receive their fixed-charge bills on a monthly basis and their variable charges on a weekly basis. Receiving variable charges separately and more often will make it easier to compare variable charges from one billing period to another, so customers can more easily track significant changes in fuel, maintenance, and other charges. Flexible billing details will be designed on a customer-by-customer basis. Customers will be contacted to make their billing arrangements. Cohen added that AMI Leasing also has been developing a more flexible payment system. Payment can now be accepted by electronic fund transfer (EFT) or ACHD, which can help customers save money by eliminating the need to cut checks. By the second quarter of 2002, AMI Leasing also expects to be able to accept payment through major credit cards, including MasterCard, Visa, and American Express.