Product Charges & Plans

How do I get here?
  • Customer ► Products ► All Products tab ► View Product ► Charges & Plans tab
  • Customer ► Products ► Charges & Plans tab
  • Products ► Charges & Plans Inventory
Purpose

Product Charges & Plans are the main billing component to any Product. Clients setup an inventory of all charges, rate plans, free plans and Care Provisioning plans with optional charge amounts that can then be applied to products. Charge & Plan records are added to the Products to determine:

  • Interval/Monthly Recurring Charges - records that have a charge that reoccurs on an ongoing basis according to the Billing Interval (Monthly, Annually, etc.) set on the record.
  • Non-Recurring Charges - one time charges that will not recur after initial billing
  • Rate plans (all usage types) - records that have a Plan Type of "InboundDID", "Local", "LongDistance" or "WirelessX" and a rate plan set. This type of record may or may not have an interval charge tied to it as well.
  • Free minute plans (shared / individual) - records that have a Plan Type of "Free Plan" and a Free Product Plan set. This type of record may or may not have an interval charge tied to it as well.
  • Carrier Designation / Care Provisioning Triggers - records that have a Carrier set along with either Inter and/or Intra provisioning checkboxes selected will allow a provisioning action to be set which will cause an automated provisioning action to trigger. Please see Integrated Product LD Provisioning for more details.
  • Network Resource / External API Integration - records that have Network Resources tied to them that are triggered based on Active and Disconnect dates. These Network Resources interface with external systems and APIs.
Security/Permissions ProductsAdmin module
Taxing Impact Transaction Type & Service Type combination determines Bill Soft taxing
Commission Impact Commission Plan
Data Field Definitions See Below

The Charges & Plans tab will show all General Charges, Rate Plans, Free Plans and Care Provisioning records. The main grid will show all charges and plan regardless of type. Sub tabs are also available to filter the charges and plans and allow viewing of only specific types (i.e., view only rate plans).

Each tab shows the charges and plans split into separate grids for Recurring, Non-Recurring, and Disconnected records. All Product Charges & Plans originate from the Charges & Plans Inventory. This is an inventory of all charges setup in the TBS  system and made available for use by Products.

Product Charges & Plans- Grid View

When added to a Product, Charges & Plans pull in default information from the Master Inventory record. The Charges & Plan Grid(s) display a single column for each field.  Certain fields on assigned record can be overridden. If a value is overridden, it is shown Bold and has a hover over showing the default value.

There are three grid sections that may show:

  1. Active Recurring - This means that the recurring charge or plan has an active date and no disconnect date or a disconnect date that has not yet past.
  2. Active Non-Recurring - This means that the non recurring charge has an active date set and no disconnect date or a disconnect date that has not yet past yet.
  3. Inactive - This means that either the charge has neither an active or a disconnect date or the charge has a disconnect date that has already past. It could also show if an active date is set in the future.

If the Charge/Plan item is tied to an underlying rate plan, hovering over the purple money icon will show the details of that rate plan if available.

To View Existing Charge & Plan information click the view details icon
To Delete an Charge or Plan record click the delete icon.
To Add a New Charge or Plan click the button.

NOTE: When adding new Charges & Plans, depending upon the current tab, the selection of charges and plans may be filtered. For instance, if viewing the Rate Plans sub tab, when clicking "Add New", only those charges and plans that are flagged as rate plan types will be available for selection. Same with the Free plans, Care Provisioning items and for General Charges sub tabs.

If viewing the All Charges & Plans tab, all charges and plans will be viewable as well as all inventory items will be available for selecting unless filtered via the Product Type Group setup.

The Charges & Plans Inventory record contains the following information viewable from the grid and New/Edit screen. Please be sure to see the Charges & Plans Inventory section for all record fields:

Column Description  
ID Unique Identifier for the record - usually 6-20 characters  
Description Description used on the Invoice for the detail  
Service Category Used in conjunction with the Service Category report (found on the Invoicing tab). Categories that will be used to group charges together within TBS reporting and on the invoice.  
Quantity

By default, this is 1. This quantity will be used in conjunction with the charges to apply the amount x quantity on the invoice.

Additionally, if the Plan is tied to a Free Plan, the Quantity will also multiply the amount of free minutes x quantity during rating.

  
Activation Charge Charge amount (if any) that will be applied the first time the detail charge is initiated. This is a one-time initiation charge.  
Activation Discount Percentage discount that may be applied to an Activation Charge if desired  
Billing Interval

Determines the frequency the Detail charge will invoice. Options include:
--Monthly
--Bimonthly
--Quarterly
--SemiAnnually
--Annually
--Biennially

  
Calculation Type

When Calculation Type is set to Standard, the amount for that detail charge is based on the Interval Charge amount.

When Calculation Type is set to Percentage, the amount for that detail charge is calculated during billing as (The sum of all interval charges whose calculation type is Standard) * (The interval charge).

Interval Discount is then based upon the calculated Interval Charge. Activation Charge and Discount are unaffected by the calculation type

  
Interval Charge Charge that will be applied each time the detail record bills according to the Billing Interval  
Interval Discount Percentage discount that may be applied to an Interval Charge if desired  
Active Date Date the Detail charge should begin billing.
Note: This is the date that controls whether the charge will bill or not. This is independent of the Product Active date. This date MUST be equal to or after the Product Active date.		  
Disconnect Date Date the Detail charge should cease billing
Note: This is the date that controls whether the charge will bill or not. This is independent of the Product Disconnect date. This date MUST be before or equal to the Product Disconnect date.		  
Prorate Yes or No flag to determine if the charge should prorate back to the Active date on Initial billing only. If Prorate=No, then the Detail charge will begin billing as of the first bill run date. If Prorate=Yes, then TBS will begin charges back to the Active date set on the Detail record.  
Recurring Yes or No flag to determine if the detail charge will recur as long as there is no Disconnect date that has past  
Plan Type Indicates whether the plan/charge is tied to Rate plans or Free Minute plans.  
Carrier Carrier for the product traffic Carrier values can be maintained via the Carriers Maintenance tool available from Utilities - System Administration - Provisioning - Carriers menu.
Carrier Account Number Account Number corresponding  
Carrier Disconnect Date Date product is disconnected at the carrier