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 Post subject: Re: A2Billing invoicing - proposed work flow
PostPosted: Tue Feb 16, 2010 7:05 am 
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Joined: Fri Jun 23, 2006 3:56 pm
Posts: 4065
Hi

The work flow only describes how the invoice is prepared, not necessarily how it is sent.

We do have concerns about the potential loads on processor and bandwidth when several hundred or thousand invoices are turned into PDF documents and sent out on the 1st of the month, and our experience with html to pdf in version 1.3 was not a good one.

The first area to concentrate on is to get the workflow correct.

Thanks for your input on this, and your point is noted regarding not allowing the customer to close off the preview invoice. This seems to be the general consensus

Joe


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 Post subject: Re: A2Billing invoicing - proposed work flow
PostPosted: Sun May 16, 2010 10:28 pm 
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Joined: Fri Apr 06, 2007 8:26 pm
Posts: 34
Hi Joe,
there is one flaw at least from ou country standpoint in your Invoicing model which generally is correct but does not work accounting wise in some or most countries. An invoice can and should only reflect the invoice amount for the month in question, seeing that when an official invoice is generated it cannot be cancelled that easely because of tax and official invoicing issues so just adding the last months unpaid amount and reflecting the sum of the unpaid and the new consumption is incorrect. What should be done is the current monthly invoice should contain only the current periods consumption and if the customer has an outstanding amount you can mention that in some part of the invoice separately and the you can mention that the total outstandi payment needed to cover his account is the sum of the 2 amounts (the oustanding amount plus the new invoice amount) BUT this would not change the fact that the invoice amount is only for the current period.

I hope that this is clear.

Now the other issue is that I have tried to get help on for a while is the problem that the invoice amount generated in V1.7 is not correct and I dont know where this is coming from. The Invoice generated should reflect the consumption plu the DID charges but it does´nt. There is always money missing but the amounts are not anything identifiable. The receipts generated on the other hand for the same time period are correct and reflect ´perfectly what is in the accounts usage and DID´s that are active. The sum of the 2 receipts should add up to the Invoice amount but do´nt. Can you help?


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 Post subject: Re: A2Billing invoicing - proposed work flow
PostPosted: Mon May 17, 2010 3:31 pm 
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Joined: Tue Mar 17, 2009 4:00 pm
Posts: 153
Location: Where the sun shines
hi

I am joining this thread quite late, truly sorry about this, I've been busy on different matters... here are a few thoughts.

traditionnally, you have either a balance brought forward (BBF) or an open invoice (OI) system.

often also, there is some confusion between the account statement, and the invoice. An invoice is a legal document that sums up the charges during a period. It is used in your ledger to track the revenue. An invoice does not contain any payment. It can contain credits, to reverse incorrect charges. You can display on the invoice the account statement (ie, last amount owed, this invoice, payments received, new amount owed).

with the open invoice method, payments are assigned against a specific invoice. So, when a customer disputes part/all of an invoice, this invoice stays opened & due.

with the balance brought forward, you dont track which invoice is paid or not. Moneys are implicitly assigned against the oldest invoice.

where we need to be careful is not duplicate the revenue. so, if at bill time, customers owes $25, and charges during the period is $40 (calls + services + did...), then, the invoice needs to be of $40... not $65. The invoice presentation can (and should) show that the customers owes $65, but the invoice is still for $40.

An example:
Your last balance: $25
Payments received: $0
This invoice: $40
You owe: $65

Next Month:
Your last balance: $65
payments received: $25
This invoice: $30
You owe: $70

Next Month:
Your last balance: $70
payments received: $70
This invoice: $35
You owe: $35

etc...


You may want to look at your cellphone bill, or electricity bill, you should see that it works this way. The key is differentiating, in the database, the invoice and the statement.

Regards ,

J.


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 Post subject: Re: A2Billing invoicing - proposed work flow
PostPosted: Mon May 17, 2010 6:39 pm 
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Joined: Fri Jun 23, 2006 3:56 pm
Posts: 4065
Hi

Succinctly put

Quote:
with the open invoice method, payments are assigned against a specific invoice. So, when a customer disputes part/all of an invoice, this invoice stays opened & due.


I would like to get away from this method, as I do not think is suits telecoms billing, or anything with a regular monthly invoice.

The issue is at the moment is that we are hard at work on A2Billing version 2, leaving little resource for changing the invoicing system in version 1.x, and by changing the invoicing system, we undergo a period of instability while the bugs and unexpected gotcha's are sorted out.

However, we do want to make very sure that the invoicing is done properly in Version 2, so your input is appreciated.

Joe


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 Post subject: Re: A2Billing invoicing - proposed work flow
PostPosted: Mon May 17, 2010 6:54 pm 
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Joined: Tue Mar 17, 2009 4:00 pm
Posts: 153
Location: Where the sun shines
thanks for taking the time to read my input.

Though I personnally prefer the open invoice, I can live with your proposed method. I somehow think that one day we'll have to go there, but I understand the constraints.... Rome wasnt built in one day !

A key element is that the cc_invoice tables contains only the charges for the given period, and not the charges PLUS the open balance. This is key to account for proper revenue.

Finally, I probably can spare some time working that area if you deem it useful. I'd actually quite like to see the changes I've done in 1.4 integrated in the baseline (semi-detailed invoice with sums of duration/bill per tariffzone, and PDF). I am quite open to spend sometime to integrate this in the 2.0.

Rgds,

J.


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 Post subject: Re: A2Billing invoicing - proposed work flow
PostPosted: Mon May 17, 2010 8:39 pm 
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Joined: Fri Jun 23, 2006 3:56 pm
Posts: 4065
Hi

Your contributions are welcome in respect of 1.x

Meanwhile, things are still very fluid with v2, so lets see how things develop.

The issue I have with the open invoice is that there is an admin cost to showing the invoice as paid, with thousands of customers, this could get tricky. With the method proposed, it is pretty much self maintaining.

Joe


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 Post subject: Re: A2Billing invoicing - proposed work flow
PostPosted: Sun May 23, 2010 11:16 am 
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Joined: Sat Mar 28, 2009 5:50 am
Posts: 96
Based on the feedback from our postpaid customers, I believe listing the call detail records (i.e call time, duration, amount etc) is a 'must have' requirement for postpaid invoices. We have made few code changes to generate the postpaid invoices in PDF format along with all the call detail records. I am happy to contribute it to community. Please pm me, if you are interested.

Ta


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 Post subject: Re: A2Billing invoicing - proposed work flow
PostPosted: Tue May 25, 2010 2:41 pm 
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Joined: Tue Mar 17, 2009 4:00 pm
Posts: 153
Location: Where the sun shines
re: call records in the invoice, then you may want to have the ability to choose on a per customer basis the inclusion or not of the records. And if you really want to go the extra-extra mile... then digits anonymization - some countries require that you only print only the first 6 digits out of the 10 of the number ! but that is really hardly going to be used I believe.

re-reading this thread, I saw also a question about sending invoices. I have included in the batch billing a couple of lines to email a notification letting the cust know the invoice is ready. I curently now believe that it is best to have this as a separate batch - you want to generate your bills (in test), review, run in prod, check that it run as well as in test, and then let your cust know about the invoice being ready. It is already frustrating to run a crappy billrun, it is even worse if you email your customers during the run...

j.


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