1.5 Determine Prorated Bill Period, Consumption Period, Service Point, Meter, and Meter Reads

Reference: Manage Meter Charges Process Model - Page 1 for the associated business process diagram.

Group:

•	Get Consumption

•	Generate Bill Segment

•	Batch Billing

Actor/Role: CC&B

Description: As a first step of Metered Service Bill Segment calculation, CC&B determines consumption to be billed. The system determines the Bill Period boundary, and next determines the Consumption Period boundary. The system retrieves appropriate Service Point, Meter, and associated Meter Reads. Meter Reads determine the start and end date for the Bill Segment Consumption Period.

Manual Process: CSR or Authorized User provides the Bill period details if required. If not, the system defaults Bill period dates following the business rules:

•	Start Date

•	If this is the first Bill Segment for the Service Agreement, the start date is set to the start date of the Service Agreement.

•	If this is the regular Bill Segment the start date is the previous Bill Segment's end date.

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End Date

•	If this is the last Bill Segment for the Service Agreement, Bill Segment's the end date is the Service Agreement's end date.

•	If this is the regular Bill Segment end date is the end date of Bill Cycle schedule window.

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Or

•	In the case of on-line billing, determined by the CSR or Authorized User.

Automated Process: System identifies start and end date for the billing period using the same business rules as described in manual process.

The consumption period is the inclusive period passed to the Rates. It is used for calculating the charges for the Bill Segment. The system looks at every Service Point linked to the Service Agreement. The system retrieves each meter linked to each Service Point during the Bill period (a service point has multiple meters when a meter exchange has occurred during the Bill period).

If this is the first or final Bill Segment for the customer, the number of days may be more or less than the normal Bill period. Based on established business rules, the system allows for proration of first or final Bill Segment as well as other Bill Periods outside the normal time period.

Note: Every SA type defines the minimum number of days on a Bill Segment. Whenever the system attempts to create a Bill Segment other than the final Bill Segment, it checks if the number of days is at least as great as the minimum defined on the SA type.

Note: The system ignores Service Points that are not billable, disconnected before the Bill period started, or are yet to be connected as of the Bill end date.

Available Algorithms

•	CI_BSGC-SP - This algorithm is used to get consumption from the SPs linked to the SA. To determine consumption from meters, meter reads are retrieved from the Meter Configurations installed at the SA's SPs during the Bill period. The reads are stored in the Bill Segment's read details.

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C1-BSGC-MS - This algorithm simply copies the read and item details from the master SA's bill segment. This is done because ratable sub SA's are always billed together with their Master SA. This is done so that the exact consumption that is used to calculate the master SA's charges is also used to calculate the sub SA's charges.

•	C1-BSGC-USG (CC&B and MDM integration) - This algorithm is used for service agreements that require bill determinants from MDM.

Process

•	BILLING - The Bill cycle Batch processing creates Bills for accounts with an "open" Bill cycle.

Entities to Configure

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Frequency

•	Bill Cycles

•	Bill Segment Type and associated algorithms

•	Rates (Various Rate Schedule Algorithms and Major Configuration Information)

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SA Types