Overview

Several normal subscriptions can be billed in a group at the same time through Normal Billing.  A bill is an itemised account of the cost of physical goods supplied, termed, usage and one-time services rendered and Subscription or Job expenses.  Bills consist of the invoices and credit notes created by the system for an account during the period the bill covers, and are created by a billing run. Billing can take place before or after customers start using their subscription services.  

Setting Up Normal Billing Runs

Before executing normal billing runs, perform the necessary configurations in the Normal Bill Settings tab

Using Normal Billing Runs

Normal billing run fields

The table describes the sections of the normal billing run Data Entry page and explains how the fields in the page are used.

 Mandatory   Configurable values

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Creating and executing a normal billing run

Under Billing > Perform Normal Billing Run, specify the criteria that match the run you are interested in, or use NEW from the Actions menu to create a new run. Provide the mandatory information and SAVE the run. 

Normal billing runs can be executed in progressive steps, allowing the user to review results and make amendments before bills are created. A run's progress is reflected in its life cycle state.

1. Select Actions > Execute Up To (select step)
2. Execute immediately or schedule the run.

Identification and rating step

Identification locates unrated billable items that are ready to be charged or credited. The following entities are considered:

• Subscription Usage Detail Records that should be charged or credited and have a 'Posted' life cycle state
• Pre-bill and post-bill subscription termed services that:
  • should be charged or credited (depending on the value of the billing directive)
  • are not yet rated 
  • have a billing Effective Date up to and including the Bill as of Date.
• Subscription expenses that should be billed or credited (according to their billing directive).

Rating

Rating is the process of creating rated billing items for physical goods and services using the rate from the price plan and information from the following entities:

• Usage services 
  Usage Detail Records (UDRs) with a 'Pending' (not yet processed) rating state are considered for billing.  The UDR billing directive specifies whether a debit or credit rated billing item should be created. The period to be billed is indicated by the 'Started on' and 'Ended on' dates. 
  
• Termed services
  The source of information for rating termed services is their life cycle states.  Each life cycle state represents one period.  The 'Started on' and 'Ended on' dates indicate the period.  Life cycle states in a 'Pending' rating state are considered for billing.   The billing directive of each life cycle state specifies whether a debit or credit rated billing item should be created. 
• Expenses 
  The billing directive for the life cycle state of the expense specifies whether a debit or credit rated billing item should be created.
• Installed items (for Jobs)
  The billing directive for the life cycle state of the installed items specifies whether a debit or credit rated billing item should be created.
• Buy in Advance requests 
  Considered to decide whether a rated billing item should be created for a period longer than the defined billing frequency of the subscription.
• Additive Discounts
  Additional discounts that should be applied on the job or the subscription are taken into consideration after discounts that may have been applied through the price plans.

Penalties arising due to the premature cancellation of subscriptions or services are created during the rating step.

Once the step is completed, the billing run life cycle state is updated to 'Identification and Rating'.

Figure 1

Invoicing step

The invoicing step generates invoices using rated billing items and other unprocessed items.  The creation of invoices is subject to the normal billing run settings defined in the billing definition.   During the invoicing step, figures are rounded and adjustment transactions are created.  The life cycle state of invoiced or credited rated service periods is updated to 'Billed'.

Once the step is completed, the billing run life cycle state is updated to 'Invoicing'.

Assembling and posting step

The Assembling step takes the invoices and credit notes generated by the invoicing step and uses them to calculate the Total Billed Amount and to create the bill.  Billing takes into consideration:

• Partially settled or unsettled bills
• Debit and credit transactions not included in a bill, which were posted between the current and previous bill, as such: 

Total Amount To Be Paid = Total from the previous bill + Debits between bills - Credits between bills

Once the transaction and due date of a bill are set, no further processing is required.  The life cycle state of the bill progresses to 'Posted'. 

Once the step is completed, the billing run life cycle state is updated to 'Assembling and Posting'.

Formatting step 

Creates an XML document including all the information used or generated by the billing run. 

Once the step is completed, the billing run life cycle state is updated to 'Formatted'.

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Downloading billing run results file

The XML document, including all the bills created by the run, includes the following information for each bill:

• Total Amount Due
• All financial transactions created 
• Rated service periods (for termed services)

• Usage Detail Records (UDRs) (for usage services)
  Rated service periods and UDRs are formatted as defined in the billing definition formatting settings.
  

The file also includes:

• Number of bills created
• Total number of accounts receivable billed
• Total number of services billed
• Total number of invoices and credit notes
• Total debited amount and total debited amount per service
• Total credited amount and total credited amount per service
  
  

The XML document can be sent to a print-house to print the bills.  The bills can then be forwarded to the customers. 

To extract the XML file:

1. Click on Actions menu > Download Billing Results File
2. Click on Download and save the file.
   For a sample Bill XML file click here.

Viewing generated bills

Bills generated by each billing run can be accessed from the bills Summary page (Actions > View Generated Bills).

For more information, access the Data Entry page by clicking on a bill.

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Other normal billing flows

Using prepayment

Normal billing supports the model of prepayment, where billable subscription actions can only occur if account owners have enough funds to cover their expense.  Prepayment is not handled by the normal billing run.  The account owner must pay for an event in advance and the system must validate that there are sufficient funds to bill the event at the time of execution. If the funds are not sufficient, the action (e.g., a subscription or service activation) is rejected. 

The process of validating a billable action and applying real-time billing is triggered when one of the following subscription actions is performed: 

• Become effective subscriber 
• Amend billing terms (if the action changes the subscription's scheme to Normal)
• Activate subscription
• Start subscription service
• Swap service
• End subscription resting
• End short term deactivation
• Add usage service
• Short term activation
• Add effective Services
• Add expense
• Amend bundle services
• Change subscription distribution
• Amend services and installed items.

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Glossary