Billing Process

A Subscriber comes under billing process when they are associated with some offer. An automatic process picks up the eligible accounts for billing at regular intervals and put them in generic bill engine which is also an automatic process. For each account, bill engine collects bill lines for different charges, discounts, taxes from Charging Module, calculates penalties(if applicable), considers adhoc charges(if applicable) and generates the invoice(s). Along with generation of invoice(s), reports containing summary and detail of invoice(s) are automatically created and sent to the partner's contact email for auditing. There is audit window configuration, within which partner can check individual invoice, correct and regenerate if required. This re-bill generation can be done for all or selective accounts. Once audit window crossed, automatic posting process considers correct invoice(s), calculates due date, updates ledger balance and persists the invoice(s) with due date for future reference. Once posting is done, another automatic process collects the invoice information, generates invoice PDF and sent to subscriber's email id with a link for payment. Subscribers can then make payment against the invoice through self-care portal.
On de-allocation of a subscriber's account from system, bill gets generated immediately through on demand bill generation process and corresponding invoice PDF along with payment link sent to subscriber's email for payment.
Subscriber goes through the following process for bill generation -

Billing Activation/Deactivation

Billing Activation

A pending subscriber becomes eligible for billing on successful association of offer through CRM GUI. Once offering is allocated, subscriber gets activated immediately and is considered for billing. Based on the current date and bill frequency of the subscriber, billing activation date and bill cycles is populated in the system.

Billing Deactivation

On subscriber's request, bill deactivation can be carried out in the system.
Deactivation date gets populated in the system and an invoice is generated immediately. During the deactivation of a subscriber, the system checks whether there is any unsettled bill (with error) present in the system or not. If such record exists, the system doesn't allow deactivation for the subscriber until it gets settled.

Eligibility Process

This is an independent batch process which runs at a configurable time interval to select both advance and postpaid accounts that are eligible for Billing on a particular date. Advance paid accounts are eligible for billing on bill cycle start date, whereas, postpaid accounts on next date to bill cycle end date. After eligibility process, subscriber's bill cycle gets updated accordingly to the next cycle based on bill frequency.

Bill Generation Process

Bill generation process is an independent batch process which has two parts - Billing Core and Charging.
Billing core collects bill lines for each eligible subscriber from Charging Module. Charging module calculates and creates all bill lines for charge items (recurring, deposit, one-time, tax, discount etc) associated with the offer and pass them to the billing core. Billing core calculates total invoice for each subscriber and stores the information against the subscriber's account number and bill cycle number in the system.

Rebill Generation Process

After normal bill generation, partner validates the invoice of the subscriber within a configurable audit window and re-generates the bill if required. Re-bill generation can be done for all or selective accounts through Billing Console interface. If any error occurs during bill generation, re-bill generation process can be carried out for its rectification by regenerating the bill after corrections.

Note:

* Rebill generation can be performed for both erroneous and non erroneous account.

On-demand Bill Generation Process

On-demand bill generation process is triggered when a subscriber is deactivated for billing process.
During deactivation, first final invoice is generated instantly through on demand bill generation process.
For final invoice, it populates all bill lines from Charging module as normal bill generation process as well as any final settlement. Tax and discount is calculated in both cases and invoice is generated with proper invoice number.
This process does not support audit window to validate subscriber’s invoice before posting. However, if there is any error, rectification is done by passing adjustments in the next final invoice.
Once the on-demand process completes successfully, the invoice gets posted with due date.

Bill Posting Process

Sample Invoice

Normal Bill Posting process
This is an independent batch process which picks all eligible advance and post-paid accounts for normal posting i.e. accounts for which the bill has been generated successfully and audit window is completed.
This process undergoes following steps for each eligible accounts -

• Due Date is calculated for each subscriber considering lead days, holidays and weekends which are configurable in the system for individual partner.
• Current cycle invoice amount is inserted into transaction ledger as a debit transaction against the posting timestamp and balance is updated accordingly.
• Bill information is stored in a text file in partner specific directory for future reference.
• All records which are posted successfully are cleared from the system.

Note:

* A negative invoice is considered as credit transaction in ledger.

On-demand Bill Posting Process
After successful generation of on-demand invoice, instant posting is carried out without any audit with due date as current date. Transaction ledger updation, text file generation and record clearing is same as normal bill posting process.

Final Invoice

The final invoice is generated on de-activation of subscriber in billing system. The number of final invoices is configurable in the system with no limits.
The first final bill is generated on the day of de-activation for both advance-paid and post-paid subscribers. Subsequent final invoices will be generated as per the normal bill cycle.
For advance-paid subscribers with prorated recurring charge, balance is calculated and refunded in first final bill. If it is not prorated, no refund is done.
For both advance paid and post paid subscriber deposit charges is refunded in first final bill.

Audit Trail

All activities related to billing and charging performed by different users will be stored in audit trail used by the partner for auditing purpose.