Aggregating the total usage of the customers, incorporating the charges for the telecom services rendered to them is widely known as the process of Telecom Billing. This process is cumbersome, due to which the companies often take the help of software or form alliance with companies offering easy solutions regarding the billing procedures. Telecom bills have many different forms, on the basis of which, the companies levy the charges on its customers.
The invoice of the customers consists of relevant charges for the usage of a regular service like a land phone, broadband or a prepaid mobile plan together with extra services enjoyed. The main items present in the billing of the customers are product charges, payment information, rated events, customer care information, adjustments, discount information, tax information and billing configuration. These data are fed to the billing company, which transforms them into a formatted bill.
Telecommunication Billing has a process of Bill Cycles for every customer. A customer becomes a member of this billing cycle from the date one starts paying the first bill. Customers who pay the bill in the 1st day of the month come under the nominal bill date while those who choose to pay later are under the category of actual bill date.
There are several types of Telecom Billing. Few of them are – Initiation bill: it is the first bill, which is levied on a customer, which only contains adjustments and product charge.
Periodic bill: the regular and routinely bill that the customer receives for enjoying the product and events, together with the adjustments
Interim bill: it contains the details of all such events and services which are enjoyed since the last bill was processed. It only includes the events and adjustment details and not the periodic costs.
Suspension bill: this bill is issued when an account is on leave or suspended for a period. It contains all events, adjustments and periodic payments.
Final Bill: it is sent when an account has been terminated from ones connection and is no longer considered a customer. In this regard, the company sends the Final Bill that is inclusive of the periodic charge, the adjustments, the due payments, refunds and of course, the security deposit.