9. Amdocs Unix Billing

7/27/2019 9. Amdocs Unix Billing

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2006 - Proprietary and Confidential Information of Amdocs

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Amdocs Unix Billing

Billing Calculation

Statement Preparation


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Billing Calculation

> The Billing Calculation Component provides a method of preparing a

customer bill.

> This component will receive "external files" consisting of data

identifying the run group, output file attributes, retailers, account ids and

associated account data and account entries.

> These files will then be processed to generate the account billing.

> Output files will be created for Statement Preparation, Collections, EFT

Payments, Credit Card Payments and Account Entries for discounts for

re-rating or discounting.


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Billing Calculation

> Bill Cycle Group - group of account IDs scheduled for the same

billing cycle.

> Billing Dataset - the set of files that contain the data needed to

assemble and calculate bills for a set of accounts in the bill cycle

group, including, but not limited to, billing address, retailers,prior bill information, total bill discount and fee definitions,

account entries, and activities. The format of the billing dataset

input files must adhere to the syntax requirements imposed by

Oracles SQL*Loader utility.

> Bill Run Group - A bill run group is a group of cycle groups,scheduled to run together on the same day.


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Job Flow


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Billing Calculation

SQL Loader is a tool that populates database tables using input from

ASCII files. It uses a control file and data files.

Input File Database Table

Retailer File BILL_RETAILER

Bill Account File BILL_ACCOUNT

Bill Address File BILL_ADDRESS

Bill Account Entry File BILL_ACCOUNT_ENTRY

Bill Account Pmt Method BILL_ACCOUNT_PMT_METHOD

Prior Bill Info File PRIOR_BILL_INFO

Bill Account Discount File BILL_ACCOUNT_DISCOUNTBill Account Fee File BILL_ACCOUNT_FEE

Bill Account Hierarchy File BILL_ACCOUNT_HIERARCHY

Loyalty Point Detail File LOYALTY_POINT_DETAIL

Pass Through File BILLING_PASS_THRU_DATA


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Billing Calculation Workloader

> This is essentially the core of the billing process that reads the data in

the Billing database and begins processing information to create the

bills.

> This job sends messages to the Billing Calculation queues so that they

can be processed. Each message contains a collection of account

related data that is necessary for the component to bill accounts.

> Work loader takes the root account list and sends a predetermined

number of accounts to a queue in each message.

> This job is complete when the work loader returns a status

indicating success to the scheduler. Success in this case means

that all of the accounts listed in the root accounts list have been

sent to the Billing Calculation and Statement Preparation

components to be processed.


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Billing Calculation Billing Errors

> This script is responsible for reprocessing any accounts that were not

successfully processed during the normal execution of the billing

workloader job.

> The first step that this job performs is to check and see if the number of

root accounts from the input file is compared to the number of bill

containers created during normal processing. If the values are different,the script iterates the root account file and selects the corresponding

records from BILL_CONTAINER.

> The second step that this job performs involves re-running the

workloader script using the _reprocess root account file as input.

Workloader runs as it normally would.


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Billing Calcuation Output Files

> EFT file - identifies what EFT charges are to be drafted.

> Payment Card file - contains all accounts and amounts that will be paid

by credit card, along with the basic credit card data.

> Collections file - contains records all accounts with a payment amount

that is past due.> Posting file - is a comma-delimited file containing one row per

account/account entry combination.

> Billing Errors file contains all of the accounts that had problems being

processed; no Bill Containers were created for these accounts. This

file can serves as a source to the off cycle bill requests.> Refunds file contains the accounts that which are due a refund.


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Statement Preparation

> The Statement Preparation component is responsible for creating and

preparing a customers statement for transmission to DST Output.

> Account information is supplied to Statement Preparation in the

form of a bill/report container, which holds an account or an

account hierarchy and the supporting customer and accountinformation needed to generate a statement for the account.

> When supplied with a bill container, Statement Preparation will

create a statement that includes a predetermined set of required

properties and an additional set of properties that are

determined to be included on a statement-by-statement basis.> The additional statement properties are configured using a

statement template.


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Bill Container Contents

AccountsAccounts

Payment

Methods

Payment

MethodsPayments

Payments

Account

Entries

Account

EntriesPrior Bill

Data

Prior Bill

DataLoyalty

Points

Details

Loyalty

Points

Details

Bill/Report Container

Retailer

Information

Retailer

Information

Customer

Information

Customer

Information

2006 P i d C fid i l I f i f A d


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Statement Template

> A statement template consists of a set of properties and a flag that

indicates whether or not the property is to be included or excluded from

the statement.

> For example, the statement template will indicate whether or not to

consolidate bill line items, suppress offsetting account entries in the

customers statement, or included statement totals for taxes, paymentsor fees.

2006 P i t d C fid ti l I f ti f A d


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Statement Output

> Once a statement has been created for an account or an account

hierarchy, Statement Preparation will output the statement in a format

that is suitable for transmission to DST Output.

> Statement Preparation will generate an XML file for each statement as

well as supporting files for descriptions, remittance centers, retailers,

and additional customer information.

> Statement Preparation is not responsible for delivering a physical

statement to the customer.

> The statement may be delivered to the customer in either a printed or

electronic form and may include additional messages or inserts that are

added by DST Output.

9. Amdocs Unix Billing

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