TechLand Blog

Version 1.00

VERY IMPORTANT

It is highly recommended that this manual is read thoroughly and that the default data supplied with Dynasoft TelecomBilling.Net is used to accustom oneself with the programme. This will make porting new data to Dynasoft TelecomBilling.Net a lot easier.

Fully test all billing scenarios before final invoices are sent out to customers. This includes any change in your data that was the result of modifications Dynasoft might have done following a request for support. Finally, ensure that regular off-server backups are done of all your data.

Please do not send us any sensitive information contained in your files such as customer credit card details, smtp details,…

We recommend reading the programme’s user Guide and Read me page first before reading this manual.

1. Upgrading your portal to newer versions

The system automatically upgrades itself whenever you log in and the system detects a newer version. If it does so, logging in might take a bit longer than normal. Please wait for the Dashboard to load if you see the spinner box takes longer than normal to unload.

2. Getting Started

To sign-up to our service, visit the following page: https://www.telecombilling.net/signup/

Fill in the usual details and submit the form. You will receive in your mailbox an activation link. Visit the log-in page to start using your account: https://www.telecombilling.net/login/

You will be asked to confirm your acceptance of the portal’s Terms and Conditions.

3. How to Use the Portal

3.2. Landing Page

Access: After logging into your portal

The seven main menu items in the programme and their individual sub-items are the following ones:

• Home:
  • Dashboard: perform regular tasks and access an extensive set of financial and business data
  • Customers, distributors and suppliers: Manage all business contacts from these three pages
  • Billing: This is where all billing tasks are performed
• Data:
  • CDR data: View and manage all rated CDR data
  • Price lists: Add, import and delete all price lists from this page
  • Price list details: Access the content of the price lists for all your services
  • Transactions: Access all of your contacts’ transactions
  • Invoices: Access all of your contacts’ invoices
• Assets:
  • DDIs: Management of all the DDIs that can be allocated to the customers
  • SIMs: Management of all the SIMs that can be allocated to the customers
  • Inventory: Management of all the stocks items within your organisation
  • Packages: Voice/data bundles that can be allocated to customers
  • Subscriptions: Recurrent charges, products and services that can be allocated to customers.
• Tools:
  • Messaging: Configure the programme to send all your customer’s invoices automatically to them once these have been created
  • Import data: Import all the data the system needs using an easy-to-use import utility
  • Exported data: This shows all the data that was exported as you use the portal (billing files, exported price lists,…)
  • Retrieval of CDR files via FTP: Automatic or manual retrieval of CDR files and unzipping of all files if required
  • Financial reports: Three hundred reports giving full and precise control over all your business’s activity
  • Web Access: Go to the administrator area of your contacts’ portal
• Settings:
  • Configuration: This is where all the configuration elements of your programme are set, such as the times when peak and week-end rates start, payment methods, VAT, currency used, programme language, call types, options for your distributors and your customer’s invoices and subscriptions that have to be billed for your customers.
  • Voice Settings: Define the call types used when rating voice calls and more
  • Service Settings: Define the service types used when rating recurrent WLR-type services and more
  • CDR Formats: Define the types and formats of the CDR data used
  • Billing files: Configure the European payment standard ‘SEPA’
  • FTP: Define the FTP servers the system needs to access in order to download the CDR files
  • Web Access: Define the settings for the contacts’ Web Access
  • Payment services: Settings for your online payment accounts (Sage Pay, Paypal,…) (Pay versions only).
  • Accounting: Settings for Sage Accounts or Xero (Accounts versions only)
• System:
  • User accounts: Add, modify or delete the users that are authorised to access the programme and define their access rights
  • Maintenance: Reset certain aspects of the programme: the locking of records, rebuild the service numbers (SNs) and finally the association between the customers’ subscriptions and their SNs. These resets can also be done via the configuration page, under points ‘7.A.3’, ‘7.A.4’ and ‘7.A.6’ respectively
  • Logs: This page details any messages or errors found by the system that usually need to be addressed so the system runs smoothly
• Help:
  • Manual: Access this manual directly via your main interface
  • Guide: Access to the online guide of the portal
  • About…: Copyright information about Dynasoft TelecomBilling.Net, link to our Website to purchase the product and link to the latest news about your portal.

In the status bar under the menus, one can keep track of the status of the tasks of the Tools menu if these have been activated. A green LED means the task is underway. A red one means it is idle.

When entering your own data into TelecomBilling.Net, start by first entering your price lists (see chapter 3.5.1), then your CDR formats (see chapter 3.4.2.3) and finally your customers (see chapter 3.4.2.1).

3.3. Settings

3.3.1. Programme configuration

Access: Land page > Settings > Configuration > First tab

Main Configuration

Many of the parameters in the configuration page also exist in the contacts’ pages. If nothing is modified there, then the programme will use the global settings defined in the configuration. Settings in the contacts’ pages that override those of the configuration are marked with two stars (**).

1. Identification

Identify your company’s details. Specify how fiscal or company ids are called in your country where requested. Add, remove and select what are your payment methods for the customers. If no payment method is specified for each customer, the default method identified here will appear on the customer invoice. The currency you work with. This will be used throughout the system and will appear on the invoices if it was not overridden inside a contact page. Your preferred language for the programme.

Access: Landing page > Settings > Configuration > 2-9 tabs

2. A. Numbering options

1. Here, write in the numbering system that will used to keep track of invoice numbers. They will increment automatically as long as you specify a digit as the last character at least. By default the system uses ‘INV_0’, but any other system can be specified.
2. Write in the numbering system that will used to keep track of order numbers.
3. Write in the numbering system that will used to keep track of customer numbers.
4. Write in the numbering system that will used to keep track of distributor numbers.
5. Write in the numbering system that will used to keep track of supplier numbers.

2.B. Rating of calls

1. This option makes it possible to round the total of a customer invoice. Write a number to which the programme will round an invoice total. For example, if an invoice comes to 345.23 and one has written a value for the number of 0.30, then the new total will 345.30.
2. To avoid creating pages and pages of invoice itemisation with too many calls with too small a value, specify a minimum value below which they will be ignored. This will not affect invoice totals.
3. How decimal monetary values are rounded up or down or as a 4 decimal number.
4. When importing price lists as per chapter 3.5.1, you may create your own cost items above and beyond those that TelecomBilling.Net offers by default. For voice services only, simply click on the cost items you created here to include them in all calculations of your customers’ invoices. You may send us an email if you fail to see how a particular field you added in might fit within the computation of your customer’s call costs: support@dynasoft.net.

3.A. Information types

1. Specify the types of customers that exist. Each customer needs to be associated with a type when they are created.
2. Enter the various types of credit cards available where you are.
3. Write the different types of suppliers that exist. These are shown in the suppliers’ account page.
4. Write the different types of transactions that exist. These are shown in the customers’ finance page.
5. Dynasoft TelecomBilling.Net uses three levels or types of distributors. Each distributor has to belong to a certain level. These are identified here.

3.B. Product categories

The programme uses product categories to organise the various products and services sold to customers (voice services, recurrent services, packages, subscriptions,…). With these text boxes and where they are used (the packages and subscriptions pages), it is possible to organise everything that is sold to your customers the way you want with the names you want. The programme then uses these names to display totals for each category in the customers’ invoices. For example, by default the programme calls packages ‘Packages’. This is the name that will appear in the invoices to group together all the packages. With the boxes given here, you may use any other name. The main sections in an invoice’s summary are grouped together based on this product category by default.

4.A. Files to include in invoices

The portal is compatible with JPG, 256-colour BMP, monochrome BMP, 16-colour BMP, 24-bit BMP and GIF image formats.

1. The logo to be displayed on the customers’ invoices. Logo sizes in mm (W*H) are as follows:
   a. Classic: 466 * 550
   b. Contemporary: 571 * 169
   c. Elegant: 1016 * 381
   d. Professional: 423 * 349
   e. Streamlined: 423 * 307
   f. Modern: 423 * 291
   g. AvantGarde: 1037 * 190
   h. Standard: 910 * 296
   i. Elite: 825 * 360
   j. Traditional: 825 * 296
   k. Vanguard: 825 * 360
   l. Mainstream: 825 * 360
2. You may identify a picture file for your customers’ payment slips. This file will appear on your customer’s invoices along with basic information about the invoice such as the due date, payment method,…
3. It is possible to show on the customers’ invoices a covering page with a picture that uses all the space of the page. This can be used to show announcements or adverts. Specify the path and name to the picture file here. The picture will use the entire space of an A4 sheet of paper, so dimensions can be, say 2 cm shorter length-wise and width-wise than an A4 sheet.
4. A picture can be shown on the customer invoices. Specify the path to it here. Dimensions in mm (L*H): 47 * 18. The image appears at the bottom right of the summary part, normally on the second page.

4.B. System options

1. Identify the employees or commercial representatives that exist in your organisation.
2. Write and save the different separators that are normally used in price lists, CDRs, etc.…
3. Upload a dedicated language file to use to set all captions of your portal (requires logging back in to view changes). You can download the base file which is essentially the file with the current captions you can see in the portal.
4. Import default UK WLR and voice codes. This option will import a file with codes that will enable you to get started with WLR and voice codes. You will be able to modify the codes later via the ‘Import data’ under the ‘Tools’ menu.

5.A. Design of the invoices

Select the colour scheme to use for the lines and borders on your invoices along with the template to be used. You may view the template by double clicking on the jpg files. Specify the type of font to use on the invoices. It is also possible to define the template to use for each customer by going to each customer account. Click the following link to download examples of invoices.

Templates are Crystal Reports files. Please enquire with us if you require access to the source files for modification. See chapter 3.14, point A for more information.

5.B. Display of the data in the invoices

An invoice is separated into two parts: the summary part and the itemised part. The options under this point are there to define how invoices will be built by default: namely, the document type (invoice or billing note), if the client’s statistics and graphs section should be indicated, if the payment slip should appear on customer bills, the cost centre summary section, if each section of the detailed part should appear in a separate file, the summary of costs that show the past and current amounts due , the summary of costs per line or SN, and finally the package summary.
Identify how the summary of the calls in the bills will be consolidated, what part will be shown: the summary section, the itemised one, or both. Determine the file format of the invoices when the billing is done (see chapter 3.4.3): PDF, HTML, Excel, Word, CSV delimited by a tab or semicolon, …
Select the radio button that will set whether to show the money paid by customers (e.g., top-ups, prepayments…) in the summary parts or the money that corresponds to the use of goods and services available to and used by them. For the latter, the drop-down menus next determine how the summary and detailed sections that show the use of voice/data, recurring services and other items should be sorted. The main sections in an invoice’s summary are grouped together based on the product category by default. The sorting here is for sorting within each section in an invoice’s summary part.

The same settings under point ‘5.B.’ also appear in all the customers’ accounts and can be overridden there. If the programme does not find these settings under each customer account, the default values set here will be used. Additional settings relevant to invoices are given under point ‘8.A’.

6.A. General options

1. Billing cycle used in the programme: the programme uses this when it works out the alerts for the customers’ voice and data packages.
2. TelecomBilling.Net uses the user’s today date on the invoices. However a different date can be used. Enter this date here. This date is typically there if an invoice for a particular customer has to be redone. If this is the case, another option in a customer’s account needs to be used in conjunction with this date field: option ‘g’ in the various options 4.B of a customer’s account.
3. Specify how invoices are called in your configuration. Depending on your legal requirements, this can be typically ‘Tax invoice’, ‘Invoice’, ‘Bill’,…This name will be used as the main heading on invoices.
4. Same as point ‘6.A.3’ but for billing notes.
5. Enter the fee the customers will have to pay if they owe any money when an invoice is issued. The fee will be triggered if there are any unpaid invoices or billing note at the time an invoice is created. TelecomBilling.Net uses the date of any previously unpaid invoice and adds the number of days under the payment terms defined in the configuration.
6. It is possible to create copies of the invoices that are created beyond simple originals. Indicate here the number of copies that should be created, if these should show the itemised part of the invoices or not and the numbering system that should be used and that will show on the invoice.
7. Specify the date or day of current month when the next direct debit will occur for those customers who are subject to this kind of operation. This date will appear on the invoices of the relevant customers. An option (‘e’) under ‘Options 4′ inside the customers’ account, under ‘Various options’ has to be ticked.
8. What is the number of calendar days when invoices are due.
9. What is the number of calendar days for orders to be fulfilled.
10. Customer referral system: Normal percentage rate granted to customers who obtain more customers for your company. If you change this figure later, only those customers that have this value as their current percentage will be updated. For customers who do not have any individual values, the commission rate that will apply to them will be this general value. For customers that do not have to have a commission rate, simply write 0 as being their current rate in their individual account. Each customer can individually be given a rate as explained per chapter 3.4.2 Commission rates apply to phone calls only.
11. The program can increase the prices of all subscriptions and packages automatically. Specify the percentage increase and start date here.
12. Write the text that will appear at the bottom of the invoices. Three boxes and one footer are provided; one could be for explaining things about the invoice, a 2nd one for advertising for example and the footer could have your company registration id.

7.A. Data management

An export can be done of all voice/data and recurrent services data. Select a lower date for the export.

It is useful to regularly clean out any old voice/data and services data along with any old transactions not needed anymore so the programme does not run too slowly. This will delete old CDR data previously rated but not needed anymore.

The portal’s logs can be periodically cleaned of all its entries by setting a number of days after which these will be deleted. Seven is the default number of days. Anything older will be deleted automatically.

7.B. Payment gateway

The fields for a possible payment gateway are provided if you use an electronic payment system when receiving funds from your customers (e.g., Bpay, Worldpay, Paypal,…). Under this point, specify the name of the electronic payment system available to your customers.

8.A. Various options

Tick the options under this heading as required.

More information about the options available to the user in order to handle the way subscriptions are billed: The established billing model in the Telecom sector is to pro-rate excess usage for voice and data services in arrears for the previous period and bill the cost of this service one period in advance. If this is your billing model, use options ‘1.a’, ‘2.c’, ‘1.b’ and ‘2.g’.

More information about option ‘2.b’: ticking this option will sort calls chronologically in packages and split calls that are at the threshold of a package into two parts: one part that belongs to the package and one part that falls outside of a package. Unticking will make the entire call fall within the package and sort from longest to shortest call.

More information about option ‘ab’: This option cannot handle certain aspects of the subscriptions: It stops the programme from managing billing periods as scrupulously as is explained in chapter 3.4.2.1, it will not allow certain types of billing such as billing periods in advance, it will not ensure that periods already billed will no longer be billed and does not track minutes and money used by the user if pro-rated billing is selected. Finally it will not bill periods of an item or package that was for instance deactivated for a while and then activated again at a later stage (option ‘2.h’). This is because TelecomBilling.Net uses certain fields to keep track internally where the user was in terms of the last date billed for the subscriptions. Ticking the option will stop the programme from tracking these dates. So, for instance, advanced billing is not possible if option ‘3.s’ is ticked as TelecomBilling.Net needs to know the dates it last billed. If a period is billed without this option and later the same period needs to be billed again, the items need to be reset as explained in chapter 3.4.2, point C.

More information about option ‘4.g’: A payment through authorize.net is inserted automatically if the option to automatically insert a payment when creating invoices has been selected in the configuration. Option ‘e’ (Options 4 tab) under a customer account also needs to be selected. This only applies to users with the payment services add-on and if an account for authorize.net has been defined.

More information about option ‘6.b’: Things like SMTP password and CC numbers are encrypted in the database if option ‘6.b’ is selected. Some settings are then shown back to the user unencrypted like the SMTP password but others are kept encrypted on the user interface like the CC numbers.

9.A. Inventory

Enter here:

• The different categories of assets
• The locations where these assets are kept
• The different statuses for these assets

9.B. Sales taxes

TelecomBilling.Net provides support for defining taxes for SNs and for up to 5 different percentage-based general sales taxes for you contact’s invoices. SN taxes can be defined as percentage or currency value.

The general sales taxes can be over-ridden for each contact by going to their individual account pageand modify values there.

Once created, the invoices will show a tax summary right after the invoice summary with a breakdown of all the taxes, their names and amounts.

The programme supports sales taxes of up to 8 decimals values.

9.C. Customer groups and sub-groups

Customer groups are groups of customers to whom the carriers decides to give free calls or calls at reduced rates depending on whether calls are placed to other members of the same group.

Link each group with a voice price list from this page. Each group can include any number of customer sub-groups.

It is important to pay attention to the fact that the call types you use in the customers’ underlying voice price lists need to be present in the price lists used here as the call types are what links an underlying voice price list with the price list you apply to a customer group. When TelecomBilling.Net comes across a call, it will extract the dialling code and look for a matching code in the customer’s underlying voice price list. However, instead of using the price in that list, it will use the call type it has found there and look up the correct price to use in the customer group’s price list. It will look to see first if the number called is a SN belonging to another customer within the same group.

3.3.2. Voice Settings

Access: Landing page > Settings > Voice settings

Call groups and call types are heavily used and are required throughout Dynasoft TelecomBilling.Net to:

• Show and organise the summary part of the customers’ invoices so calls are grouped according to what groups of similar destinations were called: Domestic landline, domestic mobile, North America, Europe, etc;
• For account reconciliation, to visualise profits made according to the groups of destinations that were called by customers.

Most carriers around the world issue invoices and organise destinations in groups of destinations (e.g., Domestic, Western Europe, North America…) or call types (e.g., national premium numbers together, national mobile numbers, etc…). Dynasoft TelecomBilling.Net requires that you identify in this page call groups and call types and so makes use of the same widely used convention.

Call types are sometimes called price groups, dial groups, dial classes etc. In the UK, Ofcom issues these for each type of number. More on this can be found at http://static.ofcom.org.uk/static/numbering/. TelecomBilling.Net includes them as download links in the configuration page, point 4.B. The codes will require regular updating from the information provided by Ofcom and your providers and these are imported via the ‘Import Data’ page under ‘Tools’.

Call types on this page are useful also because they are used in parallel with the same page in the supplier’s accounts to give full control on how rates are billed across the day (peak-off-peak) and week (weekend rates) in your price lists. The tab in the configuration page is a general one for settings that are valid across your set of suppliers and price lists. Call types in a supplier page apply only to that supplier.

These call types are also needed so your customer’s invoices can show the types of call that were made and how much was spent on each such type. See a screenshot for a typical invoice in chapter 3.4.3.

Call groups are also used to organise the summary part of the invoices and organise the line items for voice services on the call group.

On the first tab you are required to specify the call types that exist in your operators’ price lists. Give a type name for each of the call types on the page. These types can be for instance GSM for national mobile calls, NTL for national landline, ITL for international, etc… A description field is required. It is this field of the description that will appear in the itemised part of the invoices rather than the call type field itself. Also, identify the dialling code that corresponds to the call type. This is used in case your price lists do not have such codes: the program will use the dialling codes identified in this page that correspond to the call types in the price list.

Important:

The definition of these types is done here, but the use of them is done in each price list, so don’t forget to add these types in the corresponding column when you import and create your price lists in chapter 3.5.1.

In the price lists and in order for the programme to use this functionality, it will be necessary to create a destination for the required price lists, where call types have to be identified in the columns CallType.

It is possible not to write any peak and weekend times for a call type. This then means the call type is valid throughout the day and week. This rule holds true also for call types added via the suppliers’ individual page.

In 3, write the default call type that belongs to the default call group as identified in 2.

In 4, identify the call group that includes the call types associated with local calls. This is used in order to apply a different pricing depending on whether a call is local or national. It is also necessary to identify destinations for local rates in the price lists and associate the appropriate call type for these destinations. An important consideration is that calls here are limited to ones to and from the same local dialling code. Another way of setting a different cost for local calls is through the use of packages.

In the database for TelecomBilling.Net there exists a table called Configuration. This is where most of the data for the programme’s configuration is kept. TelecomBilling.Net offers the ability to override all the parameters the user has selected via two fields in this table: FieldDataGlobal and UseDataGlobal. To set the parameters of the programme so that whatever the user selects is overridden, enter values of the parameters needed in FieldDataGlobal and set UseGlobalData to 1. Any other value in UseGlobalData (e.g., Null or 0) will make TelecomBilling.Net use the values in FieldData. The user can still modify the configuration via the programme’s interface and if he does so, then these settings are kept in FieldData. However, TelecomBilling.Net will use the values in FieldDataGlobal instead if one sets UseGlobalData against the parameters needed to 1. FieldDataGlobal and UseGlobalData can only be modified from the db. This is useful if the administrator wants to make sure certain parameters are used no matter what the user sets.

3.3.3. Provisioning

Coming soon.

3.3.4. Payment Services

Access: Main interface > Settings > Payment services

(Payment services add-on only)

Activate the payment services required and fill in the necessary details. The activated services will reflect and show in the Web Access so users can select them to process their payments.

3.3.5. Billing files

Access: Landing page > Settings > Billing files

Billing files are files that get created during a billing session (‘Home’ > ‘Billing’). It is a powerful tool that enables companies to generate a file that pulls together all the data that was billed during such a session (standard and advanced) or a SEPA file for processing by EU banks.

1. Standard

Activate the standard billing file. Billing files will show in the ‘Exported Data’ page under ‘Data.

2. Advanced

Enter the following information:

• In 1, select the default TelecomBilling.Net fields/columns and add them using the button with the right arrow. You may specify a different name for the column than the default names given. Advice: make a note of the original names of the renamed TelecomBilling.Net columns.
• Enter an ad hoc user-defined field/column in 2. Enter a column name and value. Add the column to the file fields using the same arrow button.
• In 3, view the file fields selected and identified. Use the left arrow button to remove fields and up and down buttons to change the order of the columns. Reset all identified fields back using the reset button. Point 3b enables you to identify values to look for in the default fields (see point 1 above) and replacement values. Click the double arrow button for more options. It is possible to combine an option ‘*TEXT*’ and ‘*BLANK*’ at the same time. This will mean that the programme will replace any text found with the ‘*TEXT*’ option and if no text is found (empty fields), the text of the ‘*BLANK*’ option will be used.
• In 4, identify the extension of the file (csv, txt,…)
• In 5, specify the format of all date fields that has to be used

3. SEPA

Enter the parameters required for the creation of SEPA files. The invoice number and date will replace the tags ‘<InvoiceNumber>‘ and ‘<InvoiceDate>‘ respectively. Other parameters need to be defined inside the customers’ accounts (bottom of Options 1 tab).

Ensure option ‘f’ in the billing options form (‘Home’ > ‘Billing’ > ‘Customers’ > ‘Option’) is selected in order for the portal to save the file during a billing session. Only customers who pay by Direct Debit (option ‘e’ under point 4.B in customer accounts) will appear on the SEPA file. The SEPA XML tag <MndtId> will hold the customer’s Sales tax number and the second tag<AdrLine> their post code.

3.4. Home

3.4.1 Dashboard

Access: Landing page > Home > Dashboard

Access 25 pieces of vital statistics about how your business is faring: from your turnover and profit over the previous 3 months to a list of best and least performing customers and distributors. Under the frame “Tasks”, access daily tasks such as: open a customer or distributor account, an invoice or price list …

3.4.2. Customers, Distributors and Suppliers

Access: Landing page > Home > Customers, distributors or suppliers

To view a customer, distributor or supplier, simply go to the drop-down menu at the end of a line and select ‘Modify’ to modify a contact or view to view it as read only. Click on Insert new or Delete selection to add or remove an existing contact. Select one or more lines and click on Archive contacts to remove contacts from the list but not from the underlying database. These will be merely archived. Click on Restore contacts to retrieve these contacts.

Using the same drop-down menu on each line of a contact, access additional pages to enter the customer’s bank and credit card details and more.

At the bottom of the page in the last bulleted point item in the page for customers, the OK button at the far right is used to reset the subscriptions and packages of the selected customers in the main table. TelecomBilling.Net uses a couple of date fields in the database to keep track of the last time subscriptions were billed and when they should show next in the customers’ invoices. The controls given here help the user manage these fields by enabling him/her to reset the next date when the items should show. There exist three possible ways to reset these items as indicated in the drop-down box to the left of the OK button:

• Reset the items to the date selected in the date field on the left
• Reset the items back to their activation dates
• Reset the items to the date of the last known invoice

It’s also possible to reset each individual item separately to their activation date by opening a customer account, go to their subscriptions/packages page, select an item and select ‘Reset dates only’. If a customer is clicked on the main customers page, it is possible to see under the second bulleted point a date field that indicates what the last billed date for the customer’s subscriptions/packages was.

If resetting the items to a date using the date field to the left, the date needs to be the date of the first day of the billing period sought. So if the date sought for the first day of the next billing period is, say, May 1st, the date selected here needs to be May 1st. This resetting of dates is not needed if the option ‘3.s’ is selected in the configuration screen, point ‘8.A’.

With the search box at the top of the table, you may do a search for any term associated with the customers’ details or search for a customer based on their SN.

3.4.2.1. Customer Details

Access: Landing page > Home > Customers > Drop-down box at right-hand corner > Modify a customer > First and second tabs

Customer details

Fill in the page with the customer’s details.

Access: Landing page > Home > Customers > Drop-down box at right-hand corner > Modify a customer > 3-6 tabs

Options 1, 2, 3 & 4

1.A. Customer associations

1. Who obtained this customer? Give the name of the distributor by selecting it from the drop-down menu.
2. Select the commercial representative that created this customer.
3. Identify the customer group and sub-group to which the customer belongs.
4. Add the different departments and/or branches associated with the customer. It is then possible to link each SN in the SN screen with a department/branch.

1.B. SEPA

1. The SEPA parameters for the customer. The direct debit sequence takes the value ‘FRST’ with the first invoice and then takes the value ‘RCUR’ with subsequent invoices. This sequence goes back to ‘FRST’ if the customer’s unique mandate reference code (‘‘) changes.

1.C. Design of the invoices

Select the invoice template to associate with this customer and some of its design settings.

2.A. Customer parameters

1. Enter the user’s user name and password for TelecomBilling.Net Web Access. Password length is limited to 50 characters for all passwords in TelecomBilling.Net.
2. Set the status of this customer. This is just a placeholder for a status and is not used anywhere else in the programme.
3. The next two boxes give to the user an idea of how many voice calls and minutes a customer is using at the moment. The option ‘2.f’ in the configuration’s point ‘8.A’ has to be ticked first. This information is also shown on the customer’s invoices and the usage within packages is shown in the itemised part of the bills too (subscriptions and packages section).
4. Language for this customer. This is the language that will be used for his/her invoices and when they access the Web Access.

2.B. Display of the data in the invoices

As was explained in the Configuration chapter 3.3.1, specify how the invoice (or billing note) will be saved, displayed or printed for this customer. If different formats are selected for the summary and itemised parts, then two files will be created. Only one file if formats are identical.

3.A. General options

1. Text to appear on the customer’s invoice or billing note.
2. Payment method for this customer. See chapter 3.3.1, 1st Tab, for more information on how this works.
3. Hide one or more of the columns that appear in the itemised part of the customers’ invoices.
4. Do not display in the itemised part of invoices calls that are associated with the listed call types. This is useful if you wish to prevent certain calls from being shown on the customer’s invoice such as calls to adult lines, charities, social services lines, hide national calls to reduce the size of the itemised part of the invoices…
5. Name and set the indirect sales taxes to apply to this customer’s account and invoices.
6. Select the way numbers will be rounded throughout the programme for this customer. The way amounts are rounded by default is the one set in the configuration screen.
7. Write how many days this customer has to pay their invoices.
8. Default margin multiplier for the rating of CDR data. When the system is billing and rating CDR data, it can do so in a number of ways: using a price list or rate card, a margin multiplier which will be applied onto a purchase cost of the call,…Margin multipliers can be identified for a whole type of CDR or per customer. This default value under this point is the per customer figure.

4.A. Customer referral and commissions

1. If relevant, select the customers the current customer has referred.
2. Who is referring this customer, i.e. which customer obtained this current customer whose file you are viewing?
3. Select the types of commission the current customer will get. These can be:
   a. The percentage discount he will get in his next invoice based on the sum total of the monies payable by his referred customers.
   b. Customers can also get free periods for their subscriptions, inventory assets and packages if they have referred customers for the same items. Each quantity sold will get them a free period with a maximum of 12 free periods. The number of currently given free periods is reset to 0 if a billing period starts on the same day as an item’s activation date in the billing screen. More on this in chapter

Notes:

Any changes you make to the table of referred customers and to the drop-down menu holding the customer’s referrer will reflect on all other customers. For example, if a referred customer X is clicked in drop-down menu under point 2, it will be unchecked for all other customers in the system, as customers can feature as referred customer only once. If a referring customer Y is unchecked in table 1 and if you open his file, no referring customer will appear for him/her.

4.B. Various options

Tick the required options.

Access: Landing page > Home > Customers > Drop-down box at right-hand corner > Transactions

Transactions

This screen keeps track of all transactions and payments done by the customer and of all monies by him/her owed to you. Click ‘Add’ to open a new form:

From top to bottom:

1. Select the type of transaction: a discount, a refund, a cancellation, a chargeback, a commission, a new invoice, a payment carried out by or to your customer, etc… Top-ups are typically money a customer says he will pay which will decrease the money owed by a customer. This is often used with prepaid accounts when the actual money has not been received yet from the customer, but a confirmation by fax has been received, for instance. Normally with prepaid accounts, the sums that appear on a customer’s invoice are the sums that were paid to reflect the use of top-ups. A billing note with the details of the calls made is then attached with the invoice. When running a billing session in chapter 3.4.3, the discount entries for this customer will be aggregated and deducted on the customer’s invoice for the period sought. If you select to use post-paid accounts, you then would enter customer invoices and not top-ups. Customers will pay on receipt of their invoice. Top-ups should be deleted when invoices are sent out to maintain consistency between the payments done by the customers and the invoices they receive. ‘Latest usage’ is the total amount of money owed since the last invoice and up to the very last CDR that was analysed in the billing screen.
2. Write a reference number, such as an invoice number.
3. Payment method that was used by the customer: bank, credit card, a popular online payment service,…
4. Transaction date.
5. Any notes or remarks about this transaction.
6. If the transaction has been paid.
7. Write the net amount of the transaction.
8. Tax amount of the transaction set by the system.
9. Press ‘Add’ after or select an item in the table and press ‘Modify’, ‘Delete’ or ‘Create document’ in order to create a document with the values entered here. Transactions have to be saved before a document can be created. Double-click a line to enter sub-items that correspond to the transaction entered. If the accounting add-on is installed, transactions and direct debits can be sent to or deleted from Sage Accounts or Xero.