Sky Dance Billing

Client, Provider, Destination, Bilateral Agreements, Rates, Least Cost Routing, Prepaid, Custom Report, Billing Mediation

Minimum Requirements

BILLING runs on a customized Linux server. The hardware configuration has been designed to fit your specific needs.

Being a web application, BILLING runs on all the major browser: Firefox Google Chrome Internet Explorer Safari

The communication channel between your switch and the LAN where the web application will be running has to be IP. Several standard protocols can be used, SCP, NFS, FTP, etc. It is always recommended to use an encrypted connection and have enough bandwidth to avoid delays importing files.

Get Started

To begin a session in BILLING type the URL of the application that is assigned to your network in the address bar of your browser. This address will have the following format:

http://billing.yourcomapanyname.com

Your screen will display the Login window (Figure 1). Type your Username and Password to initiate the application. Your administrator is responsible for creating the user accounts and defining your profile, based on a role and permission security.

Figure 1. Login Window.

Note: Your Username will be restricted after three unsuccessful login attempts.

Once your username and password have been authenticated, you will see “Welcome, ‘your username’” in the upper-right corner of the main menu bar, and the opening screen with the following graphs.

Figure 2. Opening Screen - Summary.

These charts summarize the income and profit for the prior day, UTC±00:00. The currency used by default is USD.

• Income by Traffic Type This is the first pie chart to the left. Scroll over the divisions of the pie and you will see a text box showing the income for that division of the chart compared to the total income for the day, i.e., 108,621.06 of 714,310.92.

• Countries with Higher Profit This is pie chart to the right. Scroll over the divisions of the pie to see details of a specific country. The text box displays the profit of the country compared to the total profit for the day, i.e., 6,495.45 of 40,389.45.

• Evolution This is the bar chart located at the bottom of the screen. It summarizes the traffic volume (minutes) and profit behavior over the past 15 days. Scroll over a specific bar to display the exact value.

The Main Menu Bar

In this bar (figure 3) you will find every resource you need to understand in detail your business performance versus your traffic volumes.

Figure 3. The Main Menu Bar.

1 SUMMARY

The icon will take you back to the Summary Charts that shows the income, profit and volumes of traffic for the prior day.

12 ADMINISTRATION

This option provides administrative information about the carriers and the contracts, and rates and billing management tools. 12.1 Account Management

This tab is dedicated to classifying administrative information related to the customers, providers, and valid agreements with them.

Figure 43 shows the general structure of this option. The first screen that you will see is a list of contracts with the different carriers.

Figure 42. Account Management.

Following is an explanation of the fields of this table.

• Company This field is useful to manage different companies of the same group that are interconnected with the carriers. You can see a specific company and its accounts by clicking on the right corner arrow of the header and then selecting “Filters”. This will display the list of companies that form the business conglomerate. Select the company or companies you want to see the accounts.

• Account This is the internal Id given to the account.

• Acronym This is the abbreviated name of the company with whom you have an agreement. You can see a specific account by clicking on the right corner arrow of the header and then selecting “Filters”. Type here the name of the carrier you want to find in the list.

• Status You can select the status of the agreement by clicking on the right corner arrow of the cell and selecting “Filters”. You can define the status as “ACTIVE” when the agreement is operational, “BLOCKED” when the incoming trunk groups are blocked, and “CANCELLED” when the agreement is not valid anymore.

• Credit Limit This field shows the maximum amount of credit that your company can extend to the carrier. You can use the filter on the header by defining a fixed amount or a range (see figure 43).

Figure 43. Credit Limit.

• Credit Currency This is the credit currency that is specified in the agreement.

• Automatic Cut If the Automatic Cut is activated, the system will block the route once the Credit Limit value is reached. Use the filter to list the accounts with automatic cut or without it.

Now back to figure 42 the button Cash Flow Forecast takes you to a window dedicated to provide information about the expected consolidated incomings and outgoings of cash per account.

Figure 44. Cash Flow Forecast.

This table compiles the cash flow forecast for the following 10 weeks. Make use of the field “From” to specify a different time frame you want to see the forecast. The table of figure 44 provides the following information:

• Company This is the business unit or subsidiary under which manages the account.

• Acronym This is the abbreviated name of the carrier.

• Period This refers to the billing period.

• Due Days The amount of days before the invoice has to be paid.

• Week Number This refers to the week on which the forecast is being made.

The first line of the table shows the consolidated total forecasted per week. Click on to see the incomings and outgoings specific account. To see the incomings and outgoings of all the accounts click “Expand All”.

Now, back to the Account Management window (figure 42), the button Last Notes take you to the following window:

Figure 45. Last Notes.

This window is useful to compile final notes regarding the performance of the agreement.

Again going back to figure 42, if you expand one of the companies, you will see the general address of the carrier and the financial contact information. If you click on one of the acronyms you will access detail information about the agreement: Account info, contact info, commercial info, financial info, special conditions, contact info, subscriptions, invoices, documents, and notes. Following is an explanation of these windows.

To add a new line in the Account Management table click on “New Account”. The following window will appear:

Figure 46. New Account window.

Fill in the information required and save the changes. Following is an explanation of the different tables of this window.

12.1.1 Account Info

In this window you see general information about the account. Figure 47 shows an example for a specific carrier.

Figure 47. Account Info.

The fields in this window are explained as follows:

• Company This is the business unit or subsidiary, which manages the account.

• Acronym This is the abbreviated name of the carrier.

• Account Name This is the full name of the carrier.

• TIN This is the Tax Identification Number of the carrier.

• Status This field denotes whether the agreement is active, blocked or cancelled.

• Manager This is the person in your company responsible for the relation with the carrier.

• Time Zone This is the time zone that has been settled in the agreement.

• Geographic Zone This is useful to define the geographic zone, such as Europe, Latin America, Asia, etc., to which the account belongs.

Note: To enable the edition of most of the fields of Account Info, Contact Info, and Financial info, use the button “Edit” located under the window of Special Conditions. After you make the changes, click “Save” to confirm the edition or “Cancel” to discard it.

12.1.2 Contact Info

This window gives you specific information about the contact person or department, and the physical location of the carrier. Figure 48 shows an example for a specific carrier.

Figure 48. Contact Info.

12.1.3 Commercial Info

This window shows details about the rates notification.

Figure 49. Commercial Info.

The fields in this window are explained as follows:

• Rates Notification Period This period is specified in the agreement. It tells the days in advance required to enforce a rate or code change.

• Rates Notification Subject Some customers accept rate changes through an email automatic upload module. This field specifies the subject of the email you must include to validate the reception of the amendments.

• Rates Notification Sender This field specifies the email address from which you must send the rate notifications.

12.1.4 Financial Info

This window provides general information about the financial status and the conditions agreed in the contract.

Figure 50. Financial Info.

These conditions are:

• Balance In case of a bilateral agreement, this field shows the difference between the traffic you receive and traffic you send to the carrier in terms of money.

• Currency The currency is as agreed in the contract.

• Bank This is the bank where all transactions are made.

• Payment Terms This is the amount of days that the customer or your company has to pay an invoice.

• Issue Invoice If this box is checked, it means that a physical invoice should be sent to the customer.

• Invoice Model This field helps clarify the case where multiple business units emit different invoice models.

• Invoice Subject This field specifies the subject of the email you must include to validate the reception of the invoice.

• VAT This field indicates the Value Added Tax applied in the invoice.

• Accounting ID This is the ID of the account.

• Credit Limit A zero in this field means that the customer does not need a credit to send traffic. A one in this field means that the offset value can’t be different to zero and further action should be taken. A different amount specified here represents the credit the customer has to send traffic.

• Insured This is the insurance policy coverage in the event that your company is unable to collect on the accounts receivable.

• Automatic Cut When this box is checked it means that the routes will be blocked once the credit reaches a zero value.

• Balance Offset When this box is checked it means that traffic routing is allowed even when the offset value is not zero.

• Alert The system sends an alert that indicates that the credit limit is reaching this value.

• Prepaid Client/Provider This field indicates if this is a client or provider prepaid account.

Going back to Balance, Click on to see the daily movement of consolidated incoming and outgoing invoices, and the balance. The following window will appear:

Figure 51. Detailed Balance window.

To create a bank transaction click “Add Transaction”:

Figure 52. Transaction Addition.

Select the type of operation -Consolidate, Incoming Payment, or Output Payment. Select the date, the amount, the currency, and type a brief description if required. Then click “Save” or “Cancel”.

To edit a bank transaction click and make use of the Operation, Date, Amount , Currency and Description, to make the edition.

12.1.5 Special Conditions

In this field you can document special financial conditions to be considered in the agreement.

Figure 53. Special Conditions.

12.1.6 Contact Info

This table summarizes the contact information of the different areas involved in the daily performance of the routes of the agreement You can add or delete contacts using the commands “Add Contact”, “Save”, “Cancel”.

Figure 54. Contacts.

Following is an explanation of this table:

• Delete To delete a contact, click on the x and then confirm the change by clicking on “Save”.

• Name, Email, Phone These are editable fields that contain detail information of the recipient or contact person.

• Rate, Balance, Automatic Cut, Alert, Invoice A checkmark on one of these columns indicates that the recipient or contact person is to receive the designated information.

12.1.7 Subscriptions

This table provides information about the existing subscriptions with the carrier. In the example of figure 55 there are two subscriptions with this carrier, one as provider and one as client.

Figure 55. Subscriptions.

Following is a description of the fields of the table:

• Id This is the account ID.

• Subscription This field describes the subscription.

• Type Here you see the nature of the subscription: Client or Provider.

• Traffic This field describes the type of traffic that’s being routed.

• Rate This identification takes you to the table of applicable rates for the subscription.

• Custom Rating This field indicates that the rates change according to specific conditions agreed. These conditions could be for example volume of minutes, time of the day when the calls are placed, etc.

• Billing Cycle These are the billing terms according to the agreement.

12.1.8 Invoices

This table summarizes the recent invoices sent to the customer. The system saves up to two months of invoicing.

Figure 56. Invoices.

• Id XXXX.

• Prefix This field gives an idea of what business unit in your company is invoicing the customer.

• Invoice This is the number of the invoice. The actual file is accessible by clicking on the number.

• Invoice Date This field is the date when the invoice was issued.

• Minutes The volume of traffic billed.

• Invoice Amount This is the amount due by the customer.

• Due Date The last date to submit payment

• Accounting Date

12.1.9 Documents

In this field you will find contractual documents or any document supporting the agreement.

Figure 57. Documents. 12.1.10 Notes

Here you will find information or comments of any nature that help clarify the spirit of the agreement.

Figure 58. Notes.

12.2 Trunk Management

Figure 59. Trunk Management Window.

[4/29/13 10:58:05 AM] jorge zeppenfeldt: el base on es la manera en que el billing identificara la llamada, en este caso dice incoming TG / Outgoing trunk, es decir que factura por TG ID [4/29/13 10:58:22 AM] jorge zeppenfeldt: hay otras opciones como DNI Prefix [4/29/13 10:58:55 AM] jorge zeppenfeldt: en esos casos va a una tabla predefinida donde pones prefijos de los DNI a los cuales asignas la subscripcion [4/29/13 10:59:01 AM] jorge zeppenfeldt: por ejemplo [4/29/13 10:59:46 AM] jorge zeppenfeldt: tu puedes poner que para todo lo que venga con el codigo 57 use una subscripcion y si viene con 1 otra y asi ...... [4/29/13 11:00:12 AM] jorge zeppenfeldt: si le dices incoming tg , te pone la subscripcion a todo lo que venga con el TG x [4/29/13 11:00:48 AM] Pilar Saavedra: oook capto. Abajo en esa misma ventana se definen los casos de DNI y ANI [4/29/13 11:01:00 AM] jorge zeppenfeldt: recuedo que tambien habia ANI prefix [4/29/13 11:01:01 AM] jorge zeppenfeldt: si [4/29/13 11:01:27 AM] jorge zeppenfeldt: el ANI prefix es coo DNI prefix pero en base al ANI [4/29/13 11:01:47 AM] jorge zeppenfeldt: eso lo que te dice es como aplicar la subscripcion

12.3 Users

This section explains the user access management to the platform functionalities.

Figure 60. User Management.

The Users main screen gives you a complete list that you, as an Administrator, will need to manage the profile and permissions of every user. You have access to the following information:

• Username This is user identification accessing the platform.

• Group This field defines the group the username belongs to. The Administrator creates a group based on a role and responsibility matrix of users.

• Phone, Cellular Phone Number, Email This is the contact information of the user.

• Op Click to enable or disable a user.

To add a new user, click on “Create New User”. The following window will open:

Figure 61. User Creation.

Enter essential data –Username, First Name, Last Name, Phone, Cellular, Email- and password. Select the Group the user will belong to from a drop-down list.

To access detailed information about the groups that are created in the system, click on User Groups. The following window will open:

Figure 62. User Group Information Window

Click on a group to retrieve specific information of it. You can see the following fields:

• Group Name. • Group Description • Security - Users Groups • Reports – The access to the different features of the platform is described here. Each group has access to specific options of the menu depending on the user profile and permissions.

Now, if you want to edit data from an existing user, click on the username. The following window will open.

Figure 63. User Edition.

In this window you can:

• Edit contact information -Username, First Name, Phone, Cellular, Email. • Edit password. • Edit group - Add or remove the user from a group. 13 LOGOUT

Clicking on Logout will take you to the login window of figure 1.