How Bill Cycle Change Requests Work

When customers in a particular bill cycle are billed each instance is recorded in a bill period under the bill cycle. Bill periods are defined by a start and end date which is set by the bill cycle (for example 7th, 14th, 28th).

Note

The end date of one bill period is the start date of the next bill period. The end day is NOT included in the bill period.

When you change the bill cycle for a customer account you need to specify:

• An origination bill period - the last period when the current bill cycle will apply.

• A destination bill period - the first period when the new bill cycle will apply.

  To ensure billing accuracy, it is generally recommended that you choose contiguous origination and destination bill periods. Having too large a gap between the origination and destination bill periods may result in too much time lapsed between bills which may in turn cause problems with usage rating, discounts and so on.

Bill Cycle Restrictions

The IDI platform imposes restrictions to help ensure that you select optimal origination and destination bill periods. Managers may choose to override these restrictions via Manager Override.

The system categorizes origination and destination bill periods as Recommended or Override Required. Bill periods are categorized as Override Required when the selected origination and destination bill periods are not contiguous, or when the period end dates are too close to the date of the bill cycle change request. The time period that constitutes too close is configurable (with Administrator-level authority) and defaults to five days (measured in whole days). For the example, if the Override Required period is set to two days and the destination bill period ends on the 28th, the last day to move a customer into that period without Manager Override is the 25th.

For a selected bill cycle there is only one Recommended origination/destination pair. You are only permitted to select Recommended bill periods unless you have Manager Override authority.

Note

To avoid excessive usage recycling, it is strongly recommended that you DO NOT use Manager Override to move a customer to a new bill cycle without a final bill for the origination bill period. Call records may recycle due to age when moving to a newer cycle.

Final Bill and Usage Relocation

The bill cycle change request may require a final billing of the origination bill period and/or relocation of usage records.

A final bill is needed when the customer's origination bill period end date is closer than the destination bill period end date. In this case all usage that occurred during the origination bill period is billed in the final bill. Thereafter, unbilled usage is directed to the destination bill period.

If the destination bill period end date is closer, the invoice for the origination bill period is skipped and charges are carried over to the invoice for the destination bill period. In this case unbilled usage from the origination bill period that occurred prior to the bill cycle change request must be relocated to the destination bill period. Immediately following the request all unbilled usage will be directed to the destination bill period.

Note

Unbilled usage as viewed from the Usage Summary window may not be accurate until all usage records have been moved to the destination bill period. This typically occurs one or two days after the bill change request.

The IDI platform determines whether and when a final bill and/or usage relocation are required based on the selected origination and destination bill periods as illustrated in the following table. No further action is required on your part.