Overview

Billing of normal subscriptions is used to bill customers before (pre-bill) or after (post-bill) they start using services they have bought or are subscribed to. Through the billing run, bills to be sent to customers are created, while the customer's accounts receivable is either debited or credited accordingly.  Other than subscription services (termed and usage services), a normal billing run also bills physical goods, expenses and one time services, that are either added to a Subscription or a Job. 

Setting up Normal Billing Runs

Configuration required before executing normal billing runs is available at Billing Definition at Normal Billing Settings tab

Using Normal Billing Runs

Normal billing run fields

This table contains an explanation of the sections of the normal billing run Data Entry page, a description of the usage of its fields and additional information.

 Mandatory   Configurable values.

Creating and executing a normal billing run

Navigate to normal billing run and specify the criteria that match the billing run you are interested in, or click on NEW from the Actions menu to create a new billing run. Provide the mandatory information as defined in the fields table above and save the billing run. 
Once you create your billing run you must execute it. Normal billing runs can be performed up to a specific step and resume their execution from the step that was reached, giving you the capability to review results and make changes if required before you proceed creating the actual bills. The progress of each normal billing run is determined by its life cycle state.  

1. Select Actions > Execute up to 'step you would like to go'
2. In the Execute Normal Billing Run Modal:
   1. Execute Now: Check the box to execute the Billing Run directly.
   2. Scheduled Date: Click on the calendar to select a date and time to start the execution. Click DONE when completed.
   3. Click SAVE

Identification and rating step

Identification 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 following entities are taken into consideration for normal subscription billing

• Subscription Usage Detail Records that should be billed or credited and have a posted life cycle state
• Subscription Termed Services: Checks for pre-bill and post-bill services that should be billed or credited (based on their billing directive) are not yet fully rated and their billing effective date is before or equal to the bill as of date.
• Subscription Expenses:Checks for expenses that should be billed or credited (based on their billing directive)

Rating calculates and applies the rates on each service or physical good to be billed, for a specific period, by creating debit or credit rated billing items acquiring information from the subscription service life cycle state periods and billing directive. During this step, cancellations that will result in a penalty are identified and created. The rating step will include only the entities whose rating state is set to 'Pending'.  Entities with a 'Completed' rating state will not be taken into consideration as they have already been rated. The entities taken into consideration during billing are:

• Usage Detail Records
• Subscription Service
• Subscription Expenses
• Subscriptions
• Jobs
• Buy in Advance

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

Invoicing step

Invoicing step is responsible for the generation of invoices or credit notes, based on the rated billing items generated by the rating step, or on existing items that are not yet processed. Normal billing run settings defined in the billing definition are observed and invoices will only be created if the rules are met. Rounding options are also taken into consideration and adjustment transactions are created if required. 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 and posting step

Assembling is responsible for the generation and assembling of the actual Bill, considering all the information that was generated in the previous steps. Each Bill is related to a customer account and includes all the Financial Transactions generated for that account.

• The creation of the Bill consists of accumulating all Invoices and Credit Notes created by the Invoicing Step and calculating the Total Bill Amount.
• Billing also takes 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 is 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

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

The life cycle state of the billing run will be updated to 'Assembling and Posting'.

Formatting step is used to format the billing run results in an XML file, which includes all the information that was considered or generated by the Billing Run process. 

The Billing Run Life Cycle State is updated to 'Formatted.'

Downloading billing run results file

Once the billing run is completed the bills created are available from an xml file which can be sent to a print-house in order to print and sent to your customers. The file includes all information related to each bill such as the amount to be paid, Financial Transactions, rated periods, etc along with additional information not directly related to the bill:

• Rated service periods formatting settings defined on Billing Definitions

• Subscription Service usage Detail Records (UDRs) are included based on the usage detail records formatting settings defined on Billing Definitions

Additionally the 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 and total number of credit notes
• The total debited amount and total debited amount per service
• The total credited amount and total credited amount per service
  
  

To extract the xml file:

1. From the Actions menu click on Actions > Download Billing Results File
2. From the click on Download and save the file locally so you can access it later and send to the print-house

Viewing generated bills

Bills generated from each billing run are easily accessible through action available from the Actions menu, Actions > View Generated Bills. The action will transfer you to the bills Summary page where only bills created from the selected billing run are shown. You can then click on each of the bills to access their Data Entry page where more information is available for each one.

Other normal billing flows

Using prepayment

Normal billing supports the model of prepayment where any billable events can only be performed if account owners have enough funds in their accounts to cover the amount that will be billed. In such case, account owners must make a payment in advance in order for the billable event to be performed. Billing in case of prepayment is not handled by the normal billing run but the system will validate and bill at the time that the billable event is executed. The following are considered as billable events in the system.

The process of validating a billable action and applying this real-time billing will be triggered when one of the following actions is performed on normal subscriptions:

• Become effective subscriber 
  
• Amend billing terms but only if the action changes the subscription's scheme into a Normal one
  
• 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

Glossary