E-Rate is a federal program that provides funding to help schools, libraries, and consortia obtain affordable broadband. E-Rate is administered by the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) under the direction of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). USAC is responsible for processing applications, confirming eligibility, establishing funding/discount amounts, and reimbursing service providers for discounted products and services.
The IDI platform has been enhanced to support configuration of approved E-Rate funding for products and services on an account, auto-generation of E-Rate credits on applicable invoices for those accounts, and the ability to create USAC reimbursement files. This helps service providers improve efficiency, accuracy, and visibility when servicing E-Rate eligible accounts.
Briefly, USAC assigns a unique Funding Request Number (FRN) when an application request for E-Rate funding has been approved. In the IDI platform, E-Rate configuration and management is done in the Product Catalog web module. There, authorized users can configure FRNs, view E-Rate utilization, manually log utilization when needed, and create an FCC reimbursement form 474 for submission to USAC.
Note:
Submitting this file is a manual process done outside the IDI platform.
Support for E-Rate in the IDI platform provides the ability to:
Configure E-Rate funding in the Product Catalog web module. This includes the ability to associate products and services to a Funding Request Number (FRN).
Apply E-Rate funding during billing:
Automatically generate E-Rate credits based on FRN configuration.
Automatically track and log E-Rate utilization.
View E-Rate Utilization.
Generate the USAC reimbursement (474) file for finalized bill periods.
Use Customer Care to view E-Rate information on an account and on invoices.
Manually log utilization for an FRN if product/service associations were not configured prior to billing, or when any manual corrections are needed.
Configure workflow automation when E-Rate utilization is manually logged (via the E-Rate Utilization Manually Created trigger).
Account for E-Rate funding in Invoice XML and General Ledger reports.
Quick Tours:
How Billing Works
The IDI billing solution logs E-Rate utilization for FRNs configured in the Product Catalog and applies E-Rate credits as a volume discount using the E-Rate discount product (See E-Rate Discount Product section below). Utilization refers to consuming the E-Rate discount on eligible monthly recurring charges (MRCs) or on an eligible NRC charge, such as an installation charge. Utilization logged for an FRN subtracts from the total allotted E-Rate funding amount until that amount is completely consumed.
Note:
Typically, accounts that are eligible for E-Rate funding are tax exempt; however, if there are any taxes applied to charges with E-Rate funding, the E-Rate funding/discount amount is calculated after tax (so it discounts the charge + tax).
By default, Billing uses the last day of the bill period as the date for FRN selection and the date for logging E-Rate utilization. Billing determines if an FRN can be used by evaluating the products and services being billed to the products and services associated to FRNs that are active on the last day of the bill period. If an FRN can be used, amount to use is calculated and applied to the invoice as a discount.
Note:
Bill Cycle configuration lets you push this date forward by an offset number of days to allow for flexibility for FRN selection for in-advance charging.
Example: FRN with a date range of 7/1/22 through 6/30/23
For Bill Period 5/14/23 to 6/14/23:
The FRN will be included/evaluated because 6/13/23 (last day of the bill period) falls within the FRN dates.
Utilization will have a date of 6/13/23
For Bill Period 6/14/23 to 7/14/23, the FRN will not be included because 7/13/23 (last day of the bill period) is not within the FRN date range.
Note:
This behavior applies regardless of the proration type of the individual product charges (in advance versus arrears).
General Ledger Considerations for E-Rate
E-Rate details are logged in a dedicated General Ledger table: GLJournalEntryFeaturelessBillingProgram. General Ledger reports have been updated to include information from this table.