Amdocs Billing System Pdf: Mitigating Churn and Improving Loyalty with a Transparent, Real-Time Spen

Telecommunications billing is the group of processes of communications service providers that are responsible to collect consumption data, calculate charging and billing information, produce bills to customers, process their payments and manage debt collection.[1][2]

Amdocs Billing System Pdf

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Telecommunications billing is a significant component of any commercial communications service provider regardless specialization: telephone, mobile wireless communication, VoIP companies, mobile virtual network operators, internet service providers, transit traffic companies, cable television and satellite TV companies could not operate without billing, because it creates an economic value of their business.

Billing functions can be grouped to three areas: operations, information management, financial management. In the broad sense, when billing and revenue management (BRM) is considered as a single process bundle, as special functional areas could be picked out revenue assurance, profitability management, fraud management.

Operations area includes functions of capturing usage records (depending on the industry it can be call detail records, charging data records, network traffic measurement data, in some cases usage data could be prepared by telecommunications mediation system), rating consumption (determining factors, significant for further calculation, for example, calculating total time of calls for each tariff zones, count of short messages, traffic summary in gigabytes), applying prices, tariffs, discounts, taxes and compiling charges for each customer account, rendering bills, managing bill delivery, applying adjustments, maintaining of customer account.[3]

Operations area functions implementation can vary significantly depending on communications type and payment model. In particular, for prepaid customers billing should be realized continuously (in near real-time computing standards, also noted as hot billing), and when a lower threshold amount at the account is reached, systems could automatically limit a service. In postpaid service model there are no vital requirements to decrease a balance of a customer account in real time, in this case charging scheduled to be rarely, usually, once per month.

Information management area unites functions that responsible to support customer information, product and service data, pricing models, including their possible combinations, as well as billing configuration data, such as billing cycles schedules, event triggers, bill delivery channels, audit settings, data archiving parameters.[4] Customer information often integrated with customer relationship management system; collaboration with customer can be a function of information management area of billing system or can be completely allocated in CRM.

Communication service providers, which operates with multiple services in multiple modes used to integrate in one bill all charges, unify customer management in one system. Term convergent billing system refers to such a solution, that could maintain single customer account and produce a single bill for all services (for example, it could be public switched telephone network, cable TV and cable internet services for one customer) and also do it regardless a payment method (prepaid or postpaid).[6][7]

A global market of the packaged telecommunications billing systems estimated to $6 Billion at 2007 and forecast to grow up to $7.2 Billion in 2012.[8] Market shares by application specific as of 2007 were following:

Fragmentation is an undesirable occurrence within an operating system when processes are loaded/unloaded from memory and free memory space is fragmented (divided into smaller pieces/fragments). Since memory blocks are small, processes cannot be assigned to them, and the memory blocks remain unused. There are two types of fragmentation in OS as given below:

JVM is a virtual machine that provides a run-time environment for executing Java byte code (program). Installing the Java Virtual Machine on your machine depends on which platform and which version you have. Since the configuration of each operating system (OS) varies, JVM is platform dependent as different JVMs are required for different OS. JVM converts Java byte code into machine code for the current OS.

As part of the IT commercial billing product team, the Systems Analyst supports the technical requirements relating to the Billing system and the delivery of projects within our Amdocs application portfolio. This position will interact with multiple teams and change agents and assist with new projects and issue resolution.

The standard accounting definition of billing describes it as the process of generating invoices for customers on a recurring or one-time basis, depending on the type of pricing plan that a customer has chosen.

As the name suggests, this type of billing method requires the completion of a milestone (which could be a particular event or a sub-contract). It is this milestone completion that is given a billing value. An invoice is generated and issued when this event occurs.

Here, invoices are generated as sub-items of a larger process (such as various parts of a construction process). Such a billing method helps strengthen cash flows. This is seen in the form of a proforma invoice, which is a preparatory bill sent before work is finished.

This type of billing method is popular in cases with a fixed fee or a one-time service. The payment is made when a service has been provided, or a product or project is delivered. This type of billing is very frequent for businesses offering retail services on restaurants, grocery stores, shopping centers, and so on.

This particular type of billing charges customers based on the cost per day. Customers, therefore, only pay for the number of days that they used the service. In many cases, this can encourage more customers to decide to buy a service or a product because canceling earlier would not lead to overcharging.

Most parts of the billing process can be automated using simple tools or software. This includes invoice generation, overdue invoice reminders, automated payments for recurring fees, etc. You can even use free invoice templates to speed up your billing.

It seems to be a common (and justifiable) notion that using spreadsheets can be bad for business. It is not only time-consuming but also leaves room for error. Therefore, investing in a good billing software or billing system can prove to be extremely beneficial. In addition to essential billing tools, a software billing system can pack in ERP features or recurring payment options. Cloud-based invoicing software is also worth considering.

So, in simpler words, the billing cycle refers to the interval between the last billing date and the current billing date for any sale of goods and services. The length of this cycle varies from business to business, but it typically lasts between 20 to 25 days.

Obtaining timely and adequate customer payments is essential for any business. An efficient billing system forms the foundation for an integrated and streamlined payment collection process and is crucial to your accounting and bookkeeping process. Therefore, for a small business, billing often requires more investment (such as spending in billing or invoicing software) to improve efficiency and minimize losses.

Amdocs Ltd, Oracle Corp, Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP, Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, Axino Solutions GmbH, CSG Systems International Inc, Nokia Corp, Infosys Ltd, and Softelnet SA. are the leading players profiled in the cloud OSS BSS market report. Several other essential market players were analyzed for a holistic view of the market and its ecosystem. The report provides detailed market insights, which help key players strategize their growth. A few developments are mentioned below:

The cloud OSS BSS market is segmented on the basis of solution, deployment model, enterprise size, industry, and geography. Based on solution, the cloud OSS BSS market is bifurcated into business support systems (BSS) and operations support systems (OSS). The BSS segment is subsegmented into billing and revenue management, product management, customer management, and others. The OSS segment is further segmented into network management and orchestration, resource management, analytics and assurance, and service design and fulfillment. Based on deployment model, the cloud OSS BSS market is divided into public cloud, private cloud, and hybrid cloud. Based on enterprise size, the market is bifurcated into small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and large enterprises. Based on industry, the market is segmented into IT and telecom, BFSI, media and entertainment, healthcare, and others.

The initiation of an era of user-centric networks with advancements in 5G connectivity is resulting in a greater number of 5G monetization opportunities. The demand for 5G is further increasing with the use of AR-based shopping features, drones, and factory automation. To cater to this, CSPs must run automated, intelligent, and secure networks for data transmission. For this, they require computing resources for processing the data to make it usable for business purposes. Also, by embracing cloud-native and open-source IT, CSPs can gain the scalability and agility needed to support 5G services and business models, along with creating an environment that favors innovation. This enables CSPs to compete with web-scale players. Various market players are working on digital BSS to support 5G monetization. For instance, Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson provides digital BSS to monetize enterprise 5G with a simplified customer experience. Transitioning to 5G and digital BSS will allow CSPs to provide a flexible and centralized catalog that can simplify product management, and drive fulfilment, charging, and assurance. In addition, an online charging system (OCS) enables real-time convergent charging, decoupling, policy control, and fast service creation. Thus, the growing adoption of 5G networks is likely to create significant opportunities for the cloud OSS BSS market growth during the forecast period. 2ff7e9595c