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Amdocs Unix Billing

Billing Calculation Statement Preparation

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Billing Calculation
> The Billing Calculation Component provides a method of preparing a customer bill.
> This component will receive "external files" consisting of data identifying the run group, output file attributes, retailers, account ids and associated account data and account entries.

> These files will then be processed to generate the account billing.
> Output files will be created for Statement Preparation, Collections, EFT Payments, Credit Card Payments and Account Entries for discounts for re-rating or discounting.

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Billing Calculation
> Bill Cycle Group - group of account IDs scheduled for the same billing cycle.
> Billing Dataset - the set of files that contain the data needed to assemble and calculate bills for a set of accounts in the bill cycle group, including, but not limited to, billing address, retailers, prior bill information, total bill discount and fee definitions, account entries, and activities. The format of the billing dataset input files must adhere to the syntax requirements imposed by Oracles SQL*Loader utility.

> Bill Run Group - A bill run group is a group of cycle groups, scheduled to run together on the same day.

Job Flow

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Billing Calculation
SQL Loader is a tool that populates database tables using input from ASCII files. It uses a control file and data files.
Input File Retailer File Bill Account File Database Table BILL_RETAILER BILL_ACCOUNT

Bill Address File

Bill Account Entry File Bill Account Pmt Method Prior Bill Info File Bill Account Discount File Bill Account Fee File Bill Account Hierarchy File Loyalty Point Detail File

BILL_ADDRESS
BILL_ACCOUNT_ENTRY BILL_ACCOUNT_PMT_METHOD PRIOR_BILL_INFO BILL_ACCOUNT_DISCOUNT BILL_ACCOUNT_FEE BILL_ACCOUNT_HIERARCHY LOYALTY_POINT_DETAIL

Pass Through File

BILLING_PASS_THRU_DATA

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Billing Calculation Workloader

> This is essentially the core of the billing process that reads the data in the Billing database and begins processing information to create the bills.
> This job sends messages to the Billing Calculation queues so that they can be processed. Each message contains a collection of account related data that is necessary for the component to bill accounts. > Work loader takes the root account list and sends a predetermined number of accounts to a queue in each message.

> This job is complete when the work loader returns a status indicating success to the scheduler. Success in this case means that all of the accounts listed in the root accounts list have been sent to the Billing Calculation and Statement Preparation components to be processed.

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Billing Calculation Billing Errors

> This script is responsible for reprocessing any accounts that were not successfully processed during the normal execution of the billing workloader job.
> The first step that this job performs is to check and see if the number of root accounts from the input file is compared to the number of bill containers created during normal processing. If the values are different, the script iterates the root account file and selects the corresponding records from BILL_CONTAINER. > The second step that this job performs involves re-running the workloader script using the _reprocess root account file as input. Workloader runs as it normally would.

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Billing Calcuation Output Files

> EFT file - identifies what EFT charges are to be drafted.
> Payment Card file - contains all accounts and amounts that will be paid by credit card, along with the basic credit card data. > Collections file - contains records all accounts with a payment amount that is past due. > Posting file - is a comma-delimited file containing one row per account/account entry combination. > Billing Errors file contains all of the accounts that had problems being processed; no Bill Containers were created for these accounts. This file can serves as a source to the off cycle bill requests. > Refunds file contains the accounts that which are due a refund.

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Statement Preparation
> The Statement Preparation component is responsible for creating and preparing a customers statement for transmission to DST Output.

> Account information is supplied to Statement Preparation in the form of a bill/report container, which holds an account or an account hierarchy and the supporting customer and account information needed to generate a statement for the account. > When supplied with a bill container, Statement Preparation will create a statement that includes a predetermined set of required properties and an additional set of properties that are determined to be included on a statement-by-statement basis. > The additional statement properties are configured using a statement template.

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Bill Container Contents

Bill/Report Container

Payment Payment Methods Methods

Payments Payments

Accounts Accounts
Retailer Retailer Information Information

Account Account Entries Entries

Prior PriorBill Bill Data Data

Loyalty Loyalty Points Points Details Details

Customer Customer Information Information

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Statement Template
> A statement template consists of a set of properties and a flag that indicates whether or not the property is to be included or excluded from the statement.
> For example, the statement template will indicate whether or not to consolidate bill line items, suppress offsetting account entries in the customers statement, or included statement totals for taxes, payments or fees.

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Statement Output
> Once a statement has been created for an account or an account hierarchy, Statement Preparation will output the statement in a format that is suitable for transmission to DST Output.
> Statement Preparation will generate an XML file for each statement as well as supporting files for descriptions, remittance centers, retailers, and additional customer information. > Statement Preparation is not responsible for delivering a physical statement to the customer. > The statement may be delivered to the customer in either a printed or electronic form and may include additional messages or inserts that are added by DST Output.

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