Billing

Billing consists of the business process and IT support required to obtain payment from the customer for the amounts to which the company is entitled. Prior to this, the operator records usage (such as calls), subscriptions and discount arrangements. After every event has been charged and an invoice is created, Billing also concerns itself with the financial customer administration (accounts receivable) together with the associated collection and payment traffic. To support the customer, information is made available to the customer and the call center.
 
In e-TOM (extended Telecom Operations Map), Billing is accommodated as part of the operations domain and tracks the ‘vertical’ process “verticale”:

• CRM (invoicing, collections, payments, discounts and loyalty programs, invoice inquiries, insight into invoicing and usage) CRM,
• Service Management (set billable options for a service, Quality-of-Service monitoring with penalties, roaming, usage rating, increase prepaid balance)
• Resource Management (IT management of core systems such as IN prepaid, mediation, rating, billing, AR)
• Supplier/Partner management (interconnect billing)

The challenge in the current market is to ensure that the ever increasing options available to the customer in relation to a single session are accurately tracked by the operator. A call is nothing more than a simple session. However, the customer can initiate all types of interactions during the session with the handset and the operator, such as downloading content for example. It is also possible to exchange information with the customer’s immediate environment (e.g., micro payments at a checkout). The question then becomes: is the operator solely a supplier of connectivity or can the operator provide added value (and invoice for this)? The question also becomes whether the operator is prepared for such interaction. This requires real time billing. Post-paid or prepaid in that case becomes nothing more than a tool designed to help the customer control his costs.
 

VDVL provides billing expertise

This expertise can be used for the development of billing strategies, supplier selection, project management, creating billing architectures, functional design or process optimization and support. –

VDVL accomplishes this by continuously training its people and providing them with current product knowledge and involving them in current challenging billing projects. These same people competently serve the customer and contribute their extensive experience.

 
In the future, billing will increasingly migrate to the network as a means of optimally using the customer’s sessions. Combined with its in-house technical product knowledge, VDVL can provide rapid and relevant support.