Invoicing
Contents
Invoicing Overview
Accounts have services, such as mobile or landline phones, or ADSL data access. The services are linked to packages, plans and rate cards that are used to determine the charges to invoice the accounts when the system processes usage data provided by upstream suppliers. The Emersion Billing and Rating Engine takes into account the tariff as supplied from the supplier, the rate card attached to the plan, plus any rate overrides that may be currently active for the relevant account, such as bolt ons and caps, as well as package level discounts and fees.
On the billing day (as defined by the accounts’ settings), the Billing System automatically creates invoices in Adobe® Acrobat® PDF format. The PDF invoices can then be downloaded, emailed, printed, saved and viewed. If your supplier uses the Emersion Billing Platform, you may also be able view invoices received from them.
Invoice .PDFs files are created based on the invoice templates set up. The .PDF templates contain the design of the invoice, including the header page, payment options, account summary, and service details, along with the company logos and other specific branding. Details are inserted into each account’s invoice, including the account’s name and address, invoice number, account number, invoice date, with all current items and charges, as well as the invoice due date. These variables are placed in pre-defined areas of the invoice.
All invoices created for all accounts in the system are listed in the Finance > Accounts Receivable > Invoice List page. You can also view invoices created for a specific account in the Invoices tab of the Customers > Customer List > view Account page. Invoices should be audited to check for any errors or missing charges. Once any adjustments have been made, the invoices should be approved. Once the invoices are approved, the system sends the invoices to customers via the default invoice delivery methods set up in each customer account’s record.
Note: The system does not send invoices to an account until the invoice has been successfully Approved. Rejected invoices are not sent.
Immediate Invoices
In addition to the invoices automatically created by the Billing and Rating engine, the system allows you to create ad-hoc or immediate invoices. Immediate invoices can contain any pending cardlines held against the account, which may include cardlines created by the Billing and Rating engine for charges associated with services, product purchases, and ad hoc charges created manually.
Batch Mediation System (BMS)
The Batch Mediation System (BMS) obtains batched (i.e. non real-time) Service Information Records (SIRs) from supplier(s). The SIRs (e.g. usage data such as Call Detail Records or RADIUS accounting records) are generally retrieved from an FTP location. Verification is performed on the usage information retrieved to ensure the information is complete and corruption free. Sequence checking is performed to detect any missing files or sequence errors. Inbound mediation is then performed, which translations the data into Emersion standardised formats for use within the system for rating and invoicing.
BMS assigns a tariff to the SIR record. BMS locates the service within the system based on the service identifier, which may be the calling party, or charged number identifier within the SIR record. Using this information, all accounts that are to be invoiced for the record are located. As the system supports a multi-tiered account hierarchy, the end customer, the service provider, and the wholesaler may all be invoiced from the single usage record, per the service package, plan and rate information set up at each level.
Quarantine
During the rating, billing and invoicing process, issues may arise for many reasons, such as missing service information, incorrect rating data, or issues with the service usage file received from your upstream service provider. The Billing and Rating engine places these records into Quarantine for manual investigation. Once the issue is resolved, the records can be re-processed through the billing and rating engine to place the associated charges on to the required account’s invoice. You should regularly review Quarantine to resolve billing issues to ensure your account’s invoices are generated correctly.
