Understanding Normal Billing
- Persia Xenopoulou (Deactivated)
- p_demou (Deactivated)
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What is Normal Billing?
Normal Billing is the mechanism used to bill customers before or after they start using Services they have bought or are subscribed to. Normal Billing is handled by the execution of Normal Billing Runs that create Financial Transactions which are used to debit or credit the customer's Accounts Receivable and which are then grouped and presented to the customers through Bills. In such a model, Subscription Services of customers that have unsettled debts are deactivated after a certain period, by a dedicated disconnection process. Other than Subscription Services, a Normal Billing Run also bills Physical Goods, Expenses and One Time Services, that are either added to a Subscription or a Job.
A Normal Billing Model can bill Subscription Services in two ways
- Pre-bill: Services are billed before they are used
- Post-bill: Services are billed after they are used
A prepaid Biling Model for Subscriptions, where customer pay in advance for services they would like to buy or subscribe to, is also supported. For more information on the Prepaid Billing Model for Subscriptions view Prepaid Billing.
Normal Billing Glossary
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Billing Term | Billing Term is the agreement/contract between the customer and the company. It provides information with regards to billing, contract dates and billing periods. The Billing Term determines whether a Subscription will be handled by Normal or Prepaid Billing. |
| Billing Term Schemes | Billing Term Schemes are used to control the creation or modification of Billing Terms. They provide information on the options available when creating Subscriptions and Jobs, such as the products that can be added or the Price Plans that will be used for their billing. The Schemes also control Billing Engine processes by providing the billing rules and policies that should be applied during Billing Runs. |
| Bill | A Bill is a statement of the amount of money owed for goods supplied and services rendered, issued against a customer financial account. A Bill is comprised of the Financial Transactions (Invoices and Credit Notes) which were created by the System for the account over the period of time it covers. |
Normal Billing | Normal billing is the process used for business billing models where customers are billed either before or after they start using services they are subscribed to or that have been delivered to them. Normal Billing is executed by Normal Billing Runs, the CRM.COM process responsible for identifying and billing Normal Billing Entities. |
| Normal Subscription | A Subscription following a Normal Billing Term Scheme and thus billed by a Normal Billing Run |
Pre-billed Services | Services which are billed in advance, before being used. |
Post-billed Services | Services which are billed after they have been used. |
Billable Entities | A set of entities which can be billed through the billing engine, i.e. Jobs and Subscriptions. |
| Concurrent Usage Based Pricing | Concurrent usage-based pricing is used to bill the customer by applying Price Plan rates based on the number of concurrent usage of the Services or the Physical Goods sold and a rate percentage, which is agreed between the customer and the company providing those services. Total = 80% * 100 * 15 |
| Billable Period Start Date | Determines the start date of the billable period of each Subscription Service. For example, if a Service is effective from the 1st of June but the Billable Start Date is the 1st of August, then the Billing Engine will only start considering the Service from the 1st of August. |
| Billing Effective Date | The date from which a service starts being billed. |
| Anniversary Billing | A method of billing where customers are billed for a period of time which starts on a billing cycle day they have chosen. For example, if a customer is activated for the first time on the 15th of the month, then their Billing Cycle Date can be set to "15" and the billing will always cover the period starting from the 15th of the month till the 15th of the next. |
| Period Billing | A method of billing where customers are billed for a period of time which starts on a billing cycle day which is specified by the billing company. For example, if a customer is activated for the first time on the 20th of the month, but the Billing Cycle Date is set to the 1st of the month, then the billing will always cover the period starting from the 1st of the next month till the 1st of the following month, while the first Bill of the customer will also include the 10 daysfromthe month of the activation. |
| Billing Cycle Day | Specifies up to which day of the month a subscription should be billed. For Period Billing, the day is set automatically, based on system configuration, however, for Anniversary Billing, it can be set either manually based on the agreement made with the subscriber, or automatically based on predefined rules. |
| UDR | Subscription Usage Detail Record. UDRs are used to hold raw information describing the use of Usage Subscription Services. For more information view Usage Detail Records. |
Flexible Bundle Products | Products that have a variable selection of constituent Products as components. |
| Termed Service | A Subscription Service that is provided to customers and is charged recurrently. |
| Usage Service | A Subscription Service that is provided to customers and is charged based on its usage (See UDRs). |
| One Time Service | A Service that is provided to customers as a One Time Service and is charged based on hours spent to complete it. |
| Expense | A Service that is provided to customers as a One Time Service and is charged with a fixed amount. |
| Physical Good |
|
| Price Plans | A set of rates which define the amount an Accounts Receivable should be billed, based on the Services or Physical Goods that were sold. |
| Additive Discounts | Discounts that are taken into consideration by the Billing Engine and applied on goods and services during the billing process. |
| Buy in Advance | Requests from customers to pay an amount of money in advance, which is taken into consideration during the billing process. |
| Billing Frequency | The period of time for which customers agree to be billed for on a recurring basis for their Subscription. |
| Rated Billing Items | Information generated by the billing engine that represents a set of Services and Physical Goods that were provided to customers along with the applicable rates and information on how those rates were calculated. Rated Billing Items are created by the rating process of the billing engine, either during billing or by manual user intervention. |
Normal Billing Key Processes and Concepts
| Processes / Concept | Description |
|---|---|
| Normal Billing Run - Step Process | A Billing Run is divided into several processes, each responsible for a different task. When executing a Normal Billing Run the user can control the progression of the Run and the number of steps it executes up to. This enables the user to view results and make corrections before the final Bill is created and exported.
View Understanding Normal Billing Run Execution Steps for a full description of the Normal Billing Run processes. |
| Single Billable Entity Billing | A Normal Billing Run is responsible for billing all Normal Subscriptions and Jobs executed in a batch mode. The user also has the option to bill an individual account Subscription or Job. The Bill can be previewed before executing the actual billing.
If the User chooses to bill an account instead of a Subscription or Job then all Subscriptions and Jobs related to the Accounts Receivable will be billed at once. |
| Rated Billing Items created for Normal Billing | Rated Billing Items is information generated by the Billing Engine during the Rating Step of the Normal Billing Run, before the Financial Transaction is created. View Rated Billing Items for a full thorough description of the processes available for handling Rated Billing Items. Both Normal and Prepaid Billing Runs use Rated Billing Items.
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Billing of Usage Services
| Billing of Usage Services, such as PPV movies, ordered by subscribers using the 'Add Service Usage' action results in the direct billing of the services. Through settings available in Configuring Billing Term Subscription Definitions the user can control the billing of the Services, by defining either a Maximum unbilled amount threshold or a Maximum number of unbilled Services. Each threshold, when crossed results in the billing of the unbilled Services In previous releases, a setting available in Configuring Billing Term Subscription Definitions allowed the user to define whether the billing of the UDR was be executed directly or at the next Billing Run applicable both for Normal and Prepaid Subscriptions. View Understanding Prepaid Billing to see how billing of Usage Services is handled for prepaid Subscriptions. |
| Multi Currency Billing AVAILABLE FROM CRM.COM R10.0.0 | Multiple Currencies can exist in the System but only one is defined as the default. The default Currency determines the currency of all pricing information in CRM.COM Price Plans, Reward Offers, Vouchers, Additive Discounts, Usage Service Catalogs. |
Normal Billing Access & Viewing Controls
Business Network Characteristics define the level of access for each entry. i.e. Whether it will be available for selection, viewing or editing.
| Entity | Network Characteristics | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Normal Billing Run | Normal Billing Runs have no access restrictions. They can be viewed and selected by all Users. |
Normal Billing Related Modules
| Entity | Interaction of Normal Billing with Entity |
|---|---|
| Subscriptions | Normal Billing is used to bill Normal Billing Term Subscriptions. |
| Accounts Receivable | An Accounts Receivable is billed by a Normal Billing Run. |
| Jobs | Jobs are billed by a Normal Billing Run. |
| Bills | Billsare created by the execution of the Normal Billing Run Process, during the Assembling and Posting Step. |
| Financial Transactions | Financial Transactions are created by the execution of the Normal Billing Run Process during the Invoicing Step. |
| Rated Billing Items | Rated Billing Items are created by the Normal Billing Rating Step. |
| Additive Discounts | Additive Discounts present in the System are taken into consideration by the Normal Billing Run, before creating Rated Billing Items. |
| Price Plans | Normal Billing obtains the price rates from the Price Plan defined on the Billing Term of the Subscription or Job. |
| Buy in Advance | Buy in Advance requests are taken into consideration by the Billing Engine in order to bill the customers for the requested period of time. |
Normal Billing - Business Examples
The following section provides business examples of how the CRM.COM Normal Billing module is used.
Normal Billing Run Definition for Monthly Invoicing Runs
Business Requirement
Company ZX has the following requirements regarding the billing of its subscribers:
- A Billing Run should be executed on the 20th day of each month, charging the following month
- The Transaction Date set on transactions should be the 21st day of the month
- The Due Date is set to be the 10th of the next month
- Subscribers are always billed from the last day they were billed + one period. i.e. In the July Billing Run, Monthly subscribers are billed from 1 August till 1 September, while biannual subscribers are billed from the 1 August till the 1 February
- Subscribers' bills amounting to less than €5 should not be created at all
- Bills with credit amount €50 and higher should be marked for investigation
- All information should be included in the Bill and displayed for each service
CRM.COM Solution
Billing Run Definition
A Billing Run Definition must be set up in the system with the following configurations:
| Requirement | Solution |
|---|---|
Billing Run executed once a month on the 20th charging the following month
|
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Transaction Date set on transactions is the 21st |
|
Due Date is set to the 10th of the next month | This is set in the Normal Billing Run |
Subscribers are always billed from the last day they were billed + one period. i.e. In July Billing Run, Monthly subscribers are billed from the 1st of August till the 1st of September, while biannual subscribers would be billed from the 1st of August till the 1st of February |
|
If a subscriber's total bill amount is less than €5 then the bill should not be created at all |
|
Bills with credit amount €50 and higher should be marked for investigation |
|
| The amounts should be rounded up to 2 decimal places |
|
| All information should be included in the bill and displayed per service |
|
Normal Billing Run
Once a Definition is available then:
- Create a Normal Billing Run, using the Criteria and/or Filters to define the Subscriptions that should be taken into consideration:
- Set up the recurring Billing Run
- Execute the Billing Run up to the Formatting Step
Once the Billing Run is completed a new Normal Billing Run job will be created in the Scheduler, scheduled for the next month.
More Information on Billing Run Definitions and Normal Billing Runs is available at: Configuring Normal Billing Run Definitions and Configuring & Executing Normal Billing Run
Normal Billing of Flexible Products at Product Bundle Level
Business Requirement
Company ZX offers services as a flexible bundle, where subscribers can chooses4 services from a pool of 2 mandatory services and 4 optional ones. The billing of any subscriber combination is fixed at €49.99.
CRM.COM Solution
In the following Product bundle set up:
- Gold Flex Bundle
- Gold
- Silver
- Movies 1
- Cartoons 1
- Sports 1
When setting a Price Plan:
- Price Plan rates for Gold Flex Bundle are set at €49.99
- Product components rates are not specified or set at €0.00
When billing a Subscription with the Gold Flex Bundle including all other Services
- An Invoice will be created having:
- Only one item for Gold Flex Bundle
The rate is calculated based on the Gold Flex Bundle rate because there are no rates for the product components.
More Information on billing bundle services can be found at: Understanding Normal Billing Run Execution Steps.
Normal Billing at Product Bundle Components Level - Billing items added via Flexible Product Bundles and items added normally
Business Requirement
Company ZX offers Services as a flexible bundle, where subscribers can choose 2 services to be added to their bundle. Services provided via a bundle are cheaper than if added individually.
CRM.COM Solution
Considering the following Product bundle set up:
- Gold Flex Bundle
- Gold
- Movies 1e
When setting a Price Plan
- Price Plan rates for Gold Flex Bundle is set to €0.00
- Price Plan rates for
- Gold is set to €4.00
- Movies 1 is set to €6.00
- Gold as part of the Gold Flex Bundle 1 is set to €2.00
- Movies 1 as part of the Gold Flex Bundle 1 is set to €3.00
When billing the Subscription Services created using the Flexible Product Bundle Service
- An Invoice will be created having:
- 1 item for Gold set to €2.00
- 1 item for Movies set to €3.00
When billing the Subscription Services created normally (without using the Flexible Product Bundle)
- An Invoice will be created having:
- 1 item for Gold set to €4.00
- 1 item for Movies set to €6.00
More Information on billing bundle services can be found at: Understanding Normal Billing Run Execution Steps.
Billing at Product Bundle Level and Product Bundle Components Level
Business Requirement
Company ZX offers Services as a flexible bundle, where subscribers can choose multiple Services to be added to their bundle. A fixed rate is provided for the Bundle Service at €19.99 and each additional Service is billed separately at a different rate
CRM.COM Solution
Considering the following Product bundle set up
- Gold Flex Bundle
- Gold
- Silver
- Movies 1
- Cartoons 1
- Sports 1
When setting a Price Plan
- Price Plan rates for Gold Flex Bundle are set: €19.99
- Price Plan rates for
- Gold: €5.00
- Silver: €5.00
- Movies 1: €2.00
- Cartoons 1: €2.00
- Sports 1: €2.00
are set
When billing a Subscription with the Gold Flex Bundle including all other Services:
- An Invoice will be created having:
- 1 item for Gold Flex Bundle: €19.99
- 1 item for Gold: €5.00
- 1 item for Silver: €5.00
- 1 item for Movies 1: €2.00
- 1 item for Cartoons 1: €2.00
- 1 item for Sports 1: €2.00
The rate is calculated based on the rates specified for each product in addition to the rate of the Bundle.
More Information on billing bundle services can be found at: Understanding Normal Billing Run Execution Steps.
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