Billing Upgrade Release Notes

Billing System Upgrade

The main purpose of the Billing System Upgrade is to work toward a more streamlined billing process. PTT is moving in the direction of viewing all billing data from TBS vs. having legacy manually generated spreadsheets. In addition, PTT is empowering our clients with the ability to manage many of the tasks in the post-billing process. This includes processes such as payment processing, email billing and creating tax and revenue reports. In addition, PTT has added additional embedded quality assurance checks and reports within each of these steps to help ensure process accuracy.

New Billing Control Panel

PTT has been working hard to migrate billing reports and billing summary data to TBS for easier access of information. The new Billing Control Panel has been developed to perform pre and post billing tasks in TBS. This page can be access from the Main Menu select Tasks and then Billing Control Panel - New. This link can only be accessed by users with access to the "Billing" module. Note: some of the functionality should be used only by PTT personnel and approved clients. Only the Billing Spreadsheet & Billing Reports tabs should be access by the client unless otherwise directed. For more information on these new tools, please see the Billing Control Panel help documentation.

New Invoice Viewer

TBS will begin using a new bill processing application. Once this gets implemented, billing information will begin using a new Invoice Viewer which is accessed using the Bill Options tab – Invoice Viewer v2 grid. This new viewer will support several features including:

Combined Local/LD CDRs
Customized filtering and views
Invoice Details including drill-down data
Location Summary
PDF invoice

Notes: Billing history prior to this billing application will continue to utilize the legacy invoice viewer. Also – the new invoice viewer will allow for a customer’s account number to be changed and still view their historical billing information. This will apply only to billing data recorded in the new billing system.

VoIP Product Setup

When billing with the new billing system, VoIP lines setup in the Local tab of TBS no longer need the “Bundled” Service Type selected. Only a Line Type = “VoIP” is necessary for proper taxing and rating.

Email Billing Enhancement

Email billing verbiage can now be managed through an Email Templates admin tool within the TBS system. The new billing system supports both Plain Text and HTML versions. The HTML versions can now be marked up using stylesheets, tables, images, and other types of web page style formatting if desired. Please be sure to get help from the PTT team to set these up properly.

13189: New Invoice Viewer: Change message for nonexistent pdfs based on date

If the PDF version of the invoice in the new invoice viewer does not reside on the server, the message that is displayed is as follows:

The client can request to setup an archive system specifying the number of days available in the TBS system (i.e., 180 days or 3 mos). Precision Telecom will help the client setup this feature. If the # of days between the current date and the billing date is > than the number, then the message displayed is that the invoice has been archived.

Else, within 7 days of the billing date, a message telling them that their invoice should be available within 1-2 business days appears.

If the customer does not have an archive system and the invoice is not available, the message that displays is that the invoice cannot be found.

13198: New Invoice Viewer: Check/Uncheck all filter option

Long distance and local CDR viewing has been combined into one CDR viewer. Greater flexibility in viewing the calls by type is accomplished using the filter lists in the CDR viewer.

13205: New Invoice Viewer: Added a BillingCycleID selector to top of Invoice Viewer to allow them to jump between Cycles

In the new invoice viewer, you can quickly switch between billing cycles in the invoice viewer by using the drop down menu at the top of the screen.

10735: New Invoice Viewer: Add Credit Invoice

Full Invoice, Partial Invoice, and CDR-based Credits are enabled for all customers.

Users must have AllowAccess permissions for the AccountCredit module.

CDR Credits are processed on the Call Records tab, other credits are processed on the Credit Invoice tab.

13959: Credit Limit for Full Invoice Credits

Now, Full, Partial, and CDR credits are all limited to the outstanding amount that has not been credited to an invoice. For example, an invoice with a total billing of $50 that has had $10 in CDR Credits already applied will cap full credits and partial credits to $40 and allow you to credit CDR’s until the total is above $40. Individual CDR’s cannot be credited twice.

There’s one hitch in this. Partial credits right now create a Fixed Charge without any sort of link to the invoice to which the charge applies. So you could keep applying as many partial credits as you want. And if you applied a $20 partial credit a subsequent full credit would still be $50.

13873: Review and Update Bill Setup Invoice Report options

With the new Billing system comes a new invoice layout for clients using the PTT invoice. Please be sure to review the Invoice Reports help documentation to learn more about the report option changes and enhancements.

14065: Unbilled CDR Viewer

The Unbilled CDR viewer has been updated to pull unbilled CDRs from the new billing system. The viewer will be very similar to the Billed CDR Viewer with similar features and export ability. This viewer can be accessed from the Customer Links & Actions menu as well as the Unbilled CDRs link on the Long Distance screen.

15368: Change Decimal Places to 4 on Invoice Viewer

A bug was fixed on the new invoice viewer. The new CDR viewer now shows 4 decimals.

16862: Subaccount CDRs Viewable on Corp Invoice Viewer

Subaccount CDRs are now viewable through the Invoice Viewer on the Corporate Account.

16218: Invoice Viewer shows both Called Minutes and Billed Minutes

The Invoice Viewer v2 shows both Call Minutes (actual duration) and Billed Minutes (minutes that were billed).

17529: Charges: Invoice Description Override

TBS now supports the ability to override certain invoice charge descriptions. These include PICC, 8xx and Toll Free Storage Fee Minimum Billing. These overrides can be set at the Base level using the Base Info Admin tool. If no override is setup, the system will default these to the current setup. These descriptions will be used on the invoice, the invoice viewer and any online reporting.

11029: Billing Email Address on Billing Email

For email billing, the email address used will now be filled using the realtime Customer Billing Address from live TBS vs. the one taken at the time of the billing data snapshot.

14299: Billing Emails Filled from Base Information

Billing emails now have the ability to utilize Base information as placeholders within the Email billing template. For instance, items such as Company Name, Customer Service phone number, CS email, etc. can now be pulled dynamically when generating the ebill message. This will prevent clients from having multiple ebill templates if all other wording is the same.

18181: Billing Info Tab – Updates to the PTT Invoices V2 Grid

Wireless, VoIP, Bundled, Dedicated and Fixed Charges columns, if applicable, will now appear in the PTT Invoices v2 grid on the Billing Info tab. The Total Usage and Total Charges columns have been removed.

The sum of the charges to the left of Balance Forward = Total Current

Total Current + Balance Forward = Total Due

18204: Updates to the Dedicated Screen

A second monthly charge, Monthly Charge 2, has been added to the Dedicated screen to enable the monthly charges to be split between port and loop.

18525: Billing Control Panel – Status of Process Information Updated

The process steps on the Billing Control Panel and Recurring Payments now display some progress/status updates for each process. Information shown will include:

Percentage complete
Time elapsed
Time remaining
Started or Finished/Date/Time/User who initiated the step

18570: View Email Log Link Added to the Comments Screen

A View Email Log link was added to the Comments tab to allow users to see the Public Email Log Report entries for the account. This link only appears on accounts that have an entry in the report. Entries to the log will begin with the new Email Billing layout/process.

18772: Month and Year Added to Billing Email Subject Line

[Month] [Year] [CompanyName] Bill for account [Account Number] is now the subject line for billing emails.

19854: Corporate Account Balance Totals

Corporate accounts now pull data in the V2 invoices grid on the Billing Info tab from the ROLLUP_CorpLevel table. When a corporate customer views their invoice, only the Download Invoice tab will now show – no rollup detail will be shown

20116: Corporate Master Account Enhancements

Several enhancements have been made to support Corporate account billing for clients on the new Billing System.

Previously, the Billing Info tab would not show both the rollup summary information from sub accounts along with any billing that occurred at the corporate level.

Two grids are now available for Corporate Master accounts. The Corporate invoices grid will show the Corporate rollup invoice and summary information, while the standard PTT invoices grid will show the PDF and any billing that occurred as the corporate level.

20117: Corp Account Invoice Viewer

Corporate invoices can now be viewed in the invoice viewer.

20120: Corporate Printer file creation

Please note, in support of the Corporate Master Account enhancements, there will now be two invoices for a corporate master account in the printer files. One for the Corporate Master rollup and one for any billing that occurred at the corporate level (not rolled up from subs).

20122: Email billing for Corporate Master accounts

To support the new Corporate Master invoice, clients that utilize the new Billing System will now have the feature of Corporate Email billing.

The process has been updated to send the corporate customer two emails, one reflecting the corporate master account rollup, and one reflecting the corporate sub account with the same account number as the master. Both emails use the Billing Email on the Corporate Master account.

15056: Handling Credits on Corporate Accounts

For clients on the new Billing System, crediting invoices for Corporate Sub accounts is now available.

Full and partial invoice credits can now be applied from the Corporate Master Invoice Viewer, the standard Invoice Viewer for the Corporate Master and from the Sub Account Invoice viewer.

The process takes into account the CorpAccountPays flag and places the transaction on the appropriate account.

23678: Status Actions with Disconnect Flow down

In the new Billing System, inconsistencies between the customer status/disconnect date and the product statuses/disconnect must be addressed. TBS will be setup to “flow down” disconnect statuses and dates from the customer level if a disconnect action and date are set at the customer level. This will ensure that active products do not trigger a bill on a disconnected customer.