Terminology

Term

Definition

Account

Accounts typically represent customers or partners. Accounts contain contacts, packages, invoices and other account/billing specific settings and information. Accounts support a hierarchical tree structure with a parent-child relationship.

Bill Group

Bill groups comprise a collection of accounts which are billed alike, for instance billed on the same day, using the same invoicing settings. You can setup bill groups to bill different types of customers as required, for instance one bill group for residential customers and another for corporate or a bill group for credit card customers and another for ACH customers.

A customer's bill group is selected when a new customer account is created.

Counting Rules

Counting Rules are used to determine the tier that a given service falls into, when calculating the price during usage rating or billing. You can configure a Counting Rule to count the number of instances of either Packages or Services on a given account. A simple example of this is that you want to configure your monthly recurring service to be priced based on the number of physical devices sold. You would configure a Counting Rule to count Device Service A, and apply the Counting Rule to your Subscription Service A. Counting Rules can also be configured to count things in one or more of the Package or Services Statuses.

Invoice Delivery

Invoice delivery options are setup and selected on bill groups to specify how to deliver invoices to accounts under the bill group. Delivery options include how the invoice is sent to the billing contact (email, offline), the template (branding, layout, content) and any report attachments that may be required.

Product Catalog

This is the place where you configure all of the various products that will be sold to customers.

Package

A package in LogiSense Billing essentially represents a product or set of products that you offer to your customers. A package contains one or more services; the services are the individual line items that charges are configured on. A package's price is determined by summing the charges for the services within the package. Packages have a sub element called 'package frequencies' which allow you to setup multiple billing frequencies for each package that you create (for example a monthly billing version of the package and an annual billing version of the package).

When packages are added to accounts they are referred to as 'Account Packages'. The term 'package' typically refers to a package in the product catalog, while the prefix 'Account-' indicates that an instance of an object exists on an account.

Package Status

There are three base Package Statuses in the system that can be leveraged to define custom Package Status types (ie, Active, Pre-Active, Suspended, etc). The base statuses are: Billable, Non-Billable and Canceled. Canceled Packages can no longer be transitioned to any other billable or non-billable status.

Package Contracts

Package level contracts allow you to define any commitment terms and any associated penalties across your product catalog offerings.

Service

A service represents an individual chargeable item that will be sold to a customer (for instance a monthly service, a device, a license, etc). Services can be added to one or more packages within the catalog, to make up a product. Services can be defined as one-time, usage based or non-usage based subscription (recurring) charges or non-recurring charges. There is also a specific type of service that is associated with fee based charges that occur during billing events (ie, transition charges, contract penalties, termination charges, etc).

Service Status

There are 3 base Service Statuses in the system that can be leveraged to define custom Service Status types (ie, Active, Pre-Active, Suspended, etc). The base statuses are: Billable, Non-Billable and Canceled. Canceled services can no longer be transitioned to any other billable or non-billable status. Only custom Service Statuses that map to the Billable base status can have prices attached to them. Services in different statuses can have different recurring charges, e.g. you can charge a standard monthly price for a service in an 'Active' status and a reduced price if the service transitions to another status (suspended/on hold).

Service Types

There are 3 base Service Types in the system that can be used to build custom Service Types that suit business requirements and preferred categorization. The base types are: Recurring Charge, Non-Recurring Charge and Fee. A Recurring Charge should be used for any subscription type service and Non-Recurring should apply to anything that only has a one-time charge associated with it. Fee types will be used when configuring things like Contract penalties, Transition Charges, etc.

Service Transitions

Service Transitions define the lifecycle that services can traverse, and allows for configuration of fees for the given transition, during pricing configuration. A Service Transition requires a name and the source and destination Status. An example would be a transition called Activate which would be from a Pre-Active state to an Active state.

Share Plan Selling Service

The Share Plan Selling Service needs to be configured in the catalog and linked to the Share Plan itself. The Share Plan will not be “activated” on an account until the Package that contains the Selling Service, has been added to the account. You can choose to configure additional pricing for the Share Plan on this Share Plan Selling Package definition, if there is an additional Share Plan recurring charge that you wish to use, in addition to the regular pricing of the services that are on the account.

Usage Class Type

Usage class types are elements that allow you to categorize classes for reporting or mediation purposes. For example you may wish to categorize SMS classes by whether they are mobile originating or mobile terminating, or categorize voice related classes by whether they are on-net, off-net, land line, mobile, VoIP, etc.

Usage Classes

Usage classes define the type of usage (e.g. API, data, sms, long distance call, local call, etc.). The class is determined by the usage rating engine based on criteria that is defined in the rating logic.

Usage Rate Group

A usage rate group contains a collection of one or more rates. One or more rate groups are added to rate plans and rate plans are attached to packages and other system entities in order to determine rates for usage.  If you are only rating usage at a single rate (for example data usage may fall into this category) then your rates may be best organized into a single rate group. If you are rating API calls, airtime, messaging or other types of usage with rates that differ by location/provider then multiple rate groups will be needed.

Usage Rate

The Usage Rates screen allows you to configure rates for all the classes of usage you require (data, SMS, airtime, etc.) as well as setup rates that vary based on location or network/carrier. Rates are organized into rate groups (e.g. rates for Provider A, rates for Provider B, etc.).

Usage Rate Plan

Usage rate plans can be attached to various entities in the system (accounts, services, etc.) and are used to determine the rates charged for usage. Rate plans contain rate groups and rate groups contain rates. By selecting from the available rate groups you can quickly create rate plans with all the included rates desired.

Usage Base Bucket

Usage base buckets define the usage characteristics of buckets, such as the unit that is being consumed (data, time, count, etc.), the class of usage that is applicable to the bucket (data, voice, API, etc.) and the locations where usage is applicable to the bucket (Everywhere, North America, United States, etc.). Base buckets are selected when configuring usage buckets and share plan buckets.

Usage Bucket

Usage buckets are attached to services in order to provide included usage and usage tiers. Usage buckets utilize base buckets to define basic bucket properties such as the unit of usage deducted from the bucket (data, time, count, etc.), the usage classes that apply to the bucket (data, airtime, events, etc.) and the locations that are applicable to the bucket (Everywhere, North America, etc.). Usage buckets extend the attributes provided by base buckets to create the bucket that is attached to services. With usage buckets you can configure a one-time or recurring bucket, setup tiers with flat charges and/or rated usage charges

Usage Share Plan

Usage share plans provide a fixed or variable pool of usage which can be utilized by specified services. To be active share plans must have at least one bucket sub element configured for it. Share plan buckets determine the type of usage that will be shared (data, messaging, airtime, etc.) and other usage contribution, usage consumption and usage tiering options. Multiple buckets can be configured under a share plan allowing you to share various classes of usage all in one plan.

When share plans are added to accounts (via the selling service – see below) they will take effect immediately so long as buckets are configured on the plan. Services/Packages that are specified in the share plan configuration participate (contribute usage and/or consume usage) in the plan.