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What is a Normal Billing Run?

Normal billing run is a billing mechanism which is used in cases where customers start using the services that were subscribed to/or delivered to them, and by the end of their billing frequency period they are charged for those services. Normal billing run is usually performed on a monthly basis and is responsible to identify the billable services, rate them, invoice them per subscription or job, assemble each customer’s bill which includes all of those invoices and post them. Normal customers receive a bill which covers all the invoices related with their subscriptions or jobs, which is then sent to them in order to make their due payments.

Normal billing run process is performed in a number of steps (processes) as provided below.

Visit Managing Normal Billing Runs for more information on how to create and execute a Normal Billing Run

Billing Run Execution System Processes

Billing Run process is used to bill billable entities having a billing term which is classified as normal.

This process pre-bills or post-bills services, based on how those services were classified in each billing term scheme and results to a unified accounts receivable bill, including multiple invoices or credit note, where each invoice or credit note represents the total debits and credits of a specific billable entity owned by that accounts receivable.

Normal billing run is performed following a series of intermediate processes:

• Identification
• Rating
• Invoicing
• Assembling
• Posting
• Formatting

Normal billing runs can be performed up to a specific step and resume their execution starting from the step that they have reached. The progress of each normal billing run is determined by its life cycle state. The supported life cycle states are the following:

• Draft: The billing run was not executed yet
• Identification & Rating: The billing run was executed up to the Rating step
• Invoicing: The billing run was executed up to Invoicing step
• Assembling & Posting: The billing run was executed up to Posting step
• Formatting: The billing run was executed up to Formatting step
• Completed: All billing run steps were executed successfully
• Failed: The billing run was not executed and no bills were created
• Completed with errors: the billing run was executed, with minor errors and bills were created

Normal billing runs can be performed once or on a recurring basis. If a normal billing run is recurring, then at the end of the execution a new normal billing run is created and scheduled to be executed on the date that was specified.

Normal billing runs are multi-threaded and are performed using the number of threads which were specified considering also the maximum number of threads that can be used by batch processes, as specified in General Settings. Visit Setting up General Settings for more information on how to configure a global setting for the number of threads.

Identification Step

This step identifies all the unrated billable (chargeable or creditable) information which is ready to be billed and should be considered during the specific billing run.

The supported billable entities are the following:

• Subscriptions
• Subscription Usage Detail Records 
• Subscription Services considering Subscription Service Life Cycle State History Periods
• Jobs 
• Job services
• Job physical goods
• Job activities
  • Activity services

The process follows business rules which are defined specifically for each type of unrated billable information. The process is considering the generic billing run attributes and applies the following logic:

• Identify billable entities having billing term schemes classified as normal filtered by the following billing run parameters:
• Billing term schemes included in normal billing run billing term schemes conditions
• Billing frequencies included in normal billing run billing frequencies conditions
• Accounts receivable classifications included in normal billing run accounts receivable classification conditions
• Accounts receivable active payment preference included in normal billing run accounts receivable payment preference conditions
• Accounts receivable presentment preference included in normal billing run accounts receivable presentment preference conditions
• Accounts receivable included in normal billing run accounts receivable filter list
• Subscriptions included in normal billing run subscriptions filter list
• Jobs included in Normal Billing run job filter list
• Accounts receivable in an Active or Suspended state
  
  AVAILABLE FROM CRM.COM R9.0.0 - The following filters have been added from R9.0.0
• Subscriptions having rating state equals to pending, that will be processed by all the billing run steps
• Subscription having rating state equal to completed and at least one rated billing item having a billing directive equal to not billed, that will be processed by the billing run starting from the invoicing step onward (since they are already rated)
• Jobs having rating state equals to pending, that will be processed by all the billing run steps

• For each subscription/job the following billable entities are identified:
• For pre-bill subscription services: The process retrieves all subscription service life cycle state periods which were not already being fully rated, based on the following rules:
• Billing effective date is before or equal to “Bill as of Date”
• Billing directive is equal to “To be billed” or "To be credited"
• For post-bill subscriptions services: The process retrieves all subscription service life cycle state periods which were not already being fully rated, based on the following rules:
• Subscription Service “Billing Effective Date” is before or equal to “Bill as of Date”
• Billing directive is equal to “To be billed” or "To be credited"
• Subscription service period started before the “Billing as of date”
• Subscription Usage Detail Records: The process retrieves all UDRs that have: 
  • Billing Directive set to "To be Billed" or "To be Credited"
  • Life Cycle State equals to Posted
  • If a rated item exists then it has Billing Directive equals to "Cancelled" 

Rating Step

This step is calculating and applying a rate on each service or physical good to be billed, for a specific period of time, by creating rated billing items. The process is considering all the unrated billable information and it either rates them or not, based on the business rules specified on each billing run. 

Rated Billing items can either be invoicing items or crediting items. The system will deduce what rated billing items need to be created by acquiring information from the Subscription Service Life Cycle States periods.

For each period that can be uniquely identified per:

• Service 
• Billing term instance 
• Price plan rate 
• AVAILABLE FROM CRM.COM R9.0.0Auto applied discounts 
• Ad hoc discounts 
• VAT rates

a rated billing item will be created with the following attributes:

• Sign
  • Invoices: Positive
  • Credits: Negative
• State: Not billed

In the cases where the system identifies a Cancellation in the Life Cycle State history, where a Binding period penalty needs to be charged, then for each period that can be uniquely identified per:

• Service 
• Billing term instance 
• Price plan rate 
• Auto applied discounts 
• Ad hoc discounts 
• VAT rates

a rated billing item will be created with the following attributes:

• Sign: Positive 
• State: Not billed
• Penalty type:Cancellation out of binding period penalty
   

Billing Run Life Cycle State will be updated to Identification & Rating

Rating of Flexible Bundle Products

During Rating, the system will decide how Flexible Product Bundles will be rated and eventually billed. According to how the products are defined in the Price Plans then the billing may differ. The following pricing models are available:

• Based on the rates which are set for the flexible product bundle
• Based on the rates which are set for each product which is composing the flexible product bundle
• Based on both the flexible product bundle and the product components

While rating the flexible product bundles the following logic is applied:

• The rate which is applicable for the product component and the specific flexible product bundle is retrieved and used
• If such rate doesn't exists then
• The rate which is applicable for the product component (as a standalone) is retrieved and used

During Invoicing step, an invoice item is created for each rated product. Note that this process is applicable only for flexible product bundles as Fixed product bundles are billed normally as a single service.

Invoicing Step

Invoicing step is responsible for the generation of invoices or credit notes, based on the amount denoted by the rated service periods, which were generated in the previous step, or already existed but not processed. 

The system will perform the following steps per accounts receivable.

• All the rated billing items that have not yet been billed will be summed up. 
• If the total amount of the items is below the minimum debit amount, as specified in the Normal Billing Run Definitions then the debit will not be created.
• If the total amount of the items is above the minimum debit amount and above or equal to zero then an invoice will be created with the related invoice lines and the rated service period will be updated with the invoice number
• If the total amount of the items is less than 0 then a Credit Financial Transaction will be created with the related lines and the rated service period will be updated with the credit note number
• At this stage the system will check if adjustment transactions should be created based on the rounding options specified on the Normal Billing Run Definitions
  • If the amount should be rounded up then create an invoice adjustment financial transaction
  • If the amount should be rounded down then create an credit adjustment financial transaction
• Finally the life cycle state of all rated service periods that were invoiced or credited will be updated to “Billed”

Billing Run Life Cycle State will be updated to Invoicing

Assembling Step

Assembling step is responsible for the generation and assembling of the actual /wiki/spaces/V4Manual/pages/9830749, considering all the information that was generated in the previous steps. Each bill is related with a customer account and includes all the financial transactions generated for that account.

• The creation of the bill is made up by accumulating  
  • All related invoices
  • All related Credit Notes
    and calculating the Total Bill amount
• Billing will also take into consideration
  • Partially Settled or Unsettled bills
  • Debit transactions which were posted between the current bill and the previous bill (and not included in any bills)
  • Credit transactions which were posted between the current bill and the previous bill (and not included in any bills)
    The Total amount to be paid will be calculated using the following formula
    Total billed amount + Total due amount from previous bills + Total debit amount posted between bills - Total credit amount posted between bills
• The billing classification will be set based on the following logic
  • If the bill amount is less than the maximum credit amount specified in normal billing run definitions exceptional bill thresholds then
    Billing classification equals to “Maximum credit amount reached”
  • Else if the bill amount is more than the maximum credit limit fixed amount, or the accounts receivable credit limit * credit limit multiplier, as specified in normal billing run definitions exceptional bill thresholds then
    Billing classification equals to “Maximum credit limit amount reached”
  • Else
    Billing classification equals to “Normal”
• The bill state will be set to “Draft”

Posting Step

Posting process is responsible for posting all financial transactions included in each bill, by setting their transaction date and due date and changing their state to posted.

• Financial transactions transaction date will be set equal to the specified transaction date
• Financial Transaction due date, on all invoices, will be set equal to the calculated due date (Due Date will be set as defined in the Normal Billing Run , but if the date is invalid then the due date as set in the account receivable Setting and updating Credit Terms for Account Receivable
• All Financial Transactions will be posted
• Sets Bill life cycle to “Posted”

Billing Run Life Cycle State will be updated to Assembling & Posting

Formatting Step

Formatting process is used to format the billing run results, in a standard format, which is both human and machine readable. The process is generating an XML file, which includes all the information that was considered or generated by the billing run process. The following steps are applied:

• All bills generated by billing run are exported in an XML file, which is stored on a specific path.
• The file name includes the billing run number and the date that was performed
• Export file includes all information related with each bill such as the amount to be paid, related financial transactions, related rated periods etc.
• Export file includes the following additional information which is not directly included in the bill

• Rated Service Periods: Rated service periods are included based on the rated service periods formatting settings defined on normal billing run definitions

• Subscription service usage detail records: UDRs are included based on the usage detail records formatting settings defined on normal billing run definitions

• Export file includes a summary of the following:
• Bills that were created
• The total amount of accounts receivable that were billed
• The total number of services billed per service
• The total number of invoices
• The total number of credit notes
• The total amount of debited amount
• The total amount of credited amount
• The total amount of debited amount per service
• The total amount of credited amount per service

Billing Run Life Cycle State will be updated to Formatted