Invoice Production

Invoice Production is responsible for producing invoice charges. This includes:

Generating charges - Items such as monthly line rental, and usage The consumption of services, for example a subscriber using call minutes..
Applying credits - For example if the subscription A billing entity that incurs a charge. Examples include a network attached device whose usage you want to measure and charge for, or a monthly software subscription has been overcharged and is due money back.
Applying discounts - Discounts (if configured) are applied to services and/or usage.

Invoice Production can produce two types of invoices depending on what needs to be billed:

Subscription invoice – an invoice containing all subscription related charges including but not restricted to usage (calls, data, messaging) services, account In the Cloud Monetisation Platform, a billing entity that can be used to manage payments on one or more subscriptions or payments for services. An account can hold details such as payments or invoices. level services, termination fees, and discounts.

An agreement In the Cloud Monetisation Platform, the entity that holds the instructions for generating the bills for one or more subscriptions. including the addresses and how often the bill is generated. controls when and how subscription Invoices are produced.
Non-Subscription invoice – an invoice containing one or more charges related to a subscription, for example sales ledger adjustments and account level charges.

An account controls when and how non-subscription Invoices are produced.

Subscription invoicing and/or non-subscription invoicing are typically scheduled to run together on each bill cycle. It is possible to run them independently.

The following types of invoices are produced:

FIRST: Produced shortly after subscription connection and includes only non-usage advance charges.
NORMAL: The cyclical subscription invoice that contains both usage and non-usage charges.
FINAL: Produced when the subscription has terminated and may result in a credit back to the subscription when charges have been paid in advance.

Invoice Production involves:

Selecting Subscriptions for Invoicing

Subscriptions are selected for invoicing if they are either due to be billed or have requested an off-cycle bill.

When Invoice Production is initialised, CMP Converged Monetisation Platform. The MDS Global product that supports customer care and billing for digital service providers. identifies customers with an agreement specifying they are due to be billed, based on the Next Expected Invoice Date. A view of the usage data for these customers is taken and stored. Invoice Production creates bills for customers based on this view. Any usage data recorded after the data snapshot but before Invoice Production generates the specific customer In the context of the Cloud Monetisation Platform, an individual or organisation who has signed an agreement to take goods and services from a service provider. A customer receives a bill associated with one or more subscriptions, and can be a single end user or a large company with many subscriptions assigned to one agreement. invoice, will be picked up and used when that customer is next invoiced.

The data snapshot is built using specific selection criteria;

For Subscription invoicing
- If the Next Expected Invoice Date on the agreement is equal to the date of billing, subscriptions associated to that agreement will be billed.
- If a subscription has been connected or disconnected, the agreement is checked to see if a First Invoice or Final Invoice should be created, irrespective of the agreement’s Next Expected Invoice Date.
For Non-Subscription invoicing
- A check is made against all non-subscription charges to identify if the Bill Immediately flag is set to identify the start date for the charge.
- If no agreement number is specified, the account associated with the charge is used to retrieve information on when and how to bill.

Subscriptions are excluded from invoicing if:

They are not connected
Already have had their final invoice produced
Have been explicitly excluded from invoicing, pending review
Are in a pre-activated state.

Subscription Invoicing

After Invoice Production identifies the invoices to produce, and stores a view of usage data, Subscription invoicing begins. Subscription invoicing is responsible for billing all subscription-level charges and credits.

All charges are applied against a service code. This code is used to:

Show what the charge relates to
Drive how the charge is categorised for accounting purposes
Drive how the charge is displayed on the bill through the concept of a service group In the Customer Manager Platform hierarchy, the highest level of the structure. The group level can be used to group corporates. Groups can hold financial information..

A recurring service can be configured to charge in advance or in arrears and to prorate when applied or expired. Invoice Production handles any required pro rata calculations for fractions of a monthly charge. CMP collates charges for usage and events against services. It maps each usage classification to a unit type service, which groups charges on the bill.

CMP creates invoice lines based on the chosen consolidation level where charges or credits exist.

An Invoice Header record is created for each agreement in the supplied range. The Invoice Header includes, but is not limited to, the Invoice Number, Invoice Date, and Account Number. Invoice Detail records are created under the associated Invoice Header for each charge applied to the invoice.

Once all charges have been calculated for a subscription and invoice details have been created, the values in the fields Last Invoice Date and Next Expected Invoice Date for the Agreement and the Billed Up To setting for Services are updated.

Invoice Production continues to create invoices, updating and adding records until all subscription related charges that were due to be billed are processed.

The Billing module then moves on to non-subscription invoicing.

Multi-thread subscription invoicing ensures Invoice Production runs efficiently, splitting subscription related charges into threads.

Non-Subscription Invoicing

Non-subscription invoicing involves billing all non-subscription related charges such as Sales Ledger Adjustments. CMP creates invoice lines based on services for any identified non-agreement driven charges.

As soon as a non-subscription related charge is raised, a pending invoice header record and pending invoice detail record are created for that specific charge.

At the time of billing, records are taken from the pending invoice header and pending invoice detail files and moved to an actual invoice header and invoice detail lines. Once moved, the records are removed from the pending invoice header and detail files.

A non-subscription charge can either produce its own invoice or be added to an existing invoice:

Where a non-subscription charge(s) is to be added to an existing invoice, a new invoice detail record is created under an existing invoice header.
Where a non-subscription invoice is to be created for the non-subscription charge(s) a new invoice header record and invoice detail record(s) are created.

To identify how a non-subscription charge should be invoiced, CMP checks the related agreement number and how the Bill Immediately flag has been set. Further checks are carried out if required:

Agreement Number Identified?	Bill Immediately?	Result
Yes	Yes	An invoice is produced during the next bill run irrespective of the Next Expected Invoice Date on the Agreement, providing non-subscription invoicing is running. However, the Agreement is checked to identify how non-subscription charge(s) that are to be billed immediately, are consolidated: If an invoice has already been created at the required consolidation level, the non-subscription charge is added to that existing invoice header as a new invoice detail record. If no invoice header exists at the required level, a new invoice header and invoice detail record are created. If any non-subscription charges are subsequently identified at the same required level, they are added to the existing invoice header as a new invoice detail record.
Yes	No	The agreement is checked to identify how non-subscription charges are to be consolidated and the Next Expected Invoice date is checked for when to bill. If the Next Expected Invoice date is the current day the non-subscription charge will be billed. If the Next Expected Invoice date is not the current date the non-subscription charge will remain in the pending invoice header and detail files until the required bill date. The agreement is checked to identify how non-subscription charge(s) that are to be billed are consolidated: If an invoice has already been created at the required consolidation level, the non-subscription charge is added to that existing invoice header as a new invoice detail record. If no invoice header exists at the required level, a new invoice header and invoice detail record are created. If any non-Subscription charges are subsequently identified at the same required level, they are added to the existing invoice header as a new invoice detail record.
No	Yes	A new invoice is produced during the next bill run. As no agreement number has been identified, the CMP Account where the non-subscription charge has been raised is checked to identify whether the non-subscription charges should be consolidated: If the Consolidate Non-Subscription Invoice flag is set to Yes, all non-subscription charges billed in the same billing run are added to the same invoice header, resulting in one invoice being produced. If the Consolidate Non-Subscription Invoice flag is set to No, an invoice header (and an invoice detail record) are created for each non-subscription charge (each non-subscription charge produces its own invoice).
No	No	As the Non-Subscription Charge is set to not Bill Immediately and no agreement number has been specified, the CMP account where the non-subscription charge has been raised is checked to identify the Non-subscription Next Expected Invoice date and whether the non-subscription charges should be consolidated. If the Next Expected Invoice date is the current day the non-subscription charge will be billed. If the Next Expected Invoice date is not the current date the non-subscription charge will remain in the pending invoice header and detail files until the required bill date. If the Consolidate Non-Subscription Invoice flag is set to Yes, all non-subscription charges billed in the same billing run are added to the same invoice header, resulting in one invoice being produced. If the Consolidate Non-Subscription Invoice flag is set to No, an invoice header (and an invoice detail record) are created for each non-subscription charge (each non-subscription charge produces its own invoice).