Metered Billing - Call Rates & Calling Plans

Metered Billing - Call Rates & Calling Plans

This article will provide an overview on how to configure Call Rates and Calling Plans in the Metered Billing plugin. For more information on how to generate a usage invoice or how to setup your switch for usage billing, please refer to Metered Billing Usage Invoicing here. Call Rates are applied to call records at the time that an invoice is being generated. This can happen either because the customer's monthly bill is being generated, or because you are creating an invoice for the customer. If there are call records available for that customer, they will be rated and their sum and cost will be included in the newly generated invoice.
Call Records are imported daily into the system automatically for customers that are setup for your installed switches. Please refer to each installed switch on how to setup customers for record sync. You can also manually sync call records, for information on how to do this, refer to Metered Billing Usage Invoicing

Call Decks and Rates

When you first open the Call Rates screen,  you will see a 'Default  Deck' already created in your system. This is where your default call rates will be saved, that is the call rates that should apply to everyone. You can also create additional decks for the purpose of grouping rates. If you have special rates that you want to apply to specific customers, you can do that by creating a new deck, and assigning customers to the decks you have created. 
The default deck can not be renamed or assigned to any customers! Only decks that you have created can have customers added to it. 

Adding Rates

From the Deck List, select the deck you want to add rates. If this is the first time you open this screen, you'll only see the 'Default Deck', click on the deck name. This will open the Deck Edit Page, which will list the rates that belong to this deck. To add a new rate, use the form at the top of the Deck Edit Screen:

  1. Origin Prefix: Define a prefix to match on origin numbers, Must always start with the country code. Leave blank for wildcard.
    Example: +1305 is for calls originating in US/Miami FL.
  2. Term Prefix:  Define a prefix to match on dialed or terminating numbers, Must always start with the country code. Leave blank for wildcard
    Example: +1212 is US/New York NY | + 1 is for all US Numbers
  3. Inbound Rate: The rate that will be applied to the customer receiving the call.
  4. Outbound Rate: The rate that will be applied to the customer making the call
  5. Call Type: This field is only required if you have only specified either an origin prefix or a term prefix. If you specify both (and they do not match then the call type will be calculated using NPA overlay data from https://localcallingguide.com/ ) .This will set the type of call this rate will apply to, This field adds improved system performance and allows for definition of catch-all rates (Example a base Local rate that can apply to all local calls regardless of state). The types in the list are of types that are applied to call records as the metered billing system process them. Our criteria for call types is the following:
    1. Local - calls whose NPA are the same or share an overlay as described by https://localcallingguide.com/
    2. Long Distance - calls whose NPA do not share an overlay but share the same originating country.
    3. International - calls whose country/region code of origin can be identified and is different from the terminating country/region. (If the country of origin cannot be determined the call is labled unknown and is searchable via the CDRs tab in Metered Billing. Contact our support team for more information on how to troubleshoot Uknown calls).
    4. Toll Free - calls whose origin or term are of recognized 8XX Toll Free NPAs
    5. 911 - calls to emergency numbers.
    6. Directory Assistance - calls to directory assistance numbers (411) or local NPA+555 - 1212

Examples:

Below are some examples on how you could configure a rate for the following calls:


Origin Prefix
Term Prefix
Inbound Rate
Outbound Rate
Call Type
All inbound US Local Calls
+1
+1
0.001
0.000
Local
All local calls (regardless of origin)


0.001
0.000
Local
All long distance




Long Distance
Miami to NY
+1305
+1212
0.023
 0.013
 

Call rates will be applied to the call records based on the following criteria:
  1. The call record matches the Call Type for a rate.
  2. The call origin number matches on the Origin Prefix*
  3. The call term number matches on the Term Prefix*
If a call rate is found for a call record:
  1. The outbound rate will be applied to the origin customer (if any is found based on synced phone numbers).
  2. The inbound rate will be applied to the term customer (if any is found based on synced phone numbers from).
Customer records are identified based on phone numbers assigned. When retrieving call records, we first sync phone numbers assigned to customers from your installed switch integrations, we then proceed to retrieve and assign call records to the customers that exist in your system.

Customers must be properly set up with each Integration in order to retrieve call records. This is can be done by checking the integration's settings in the Customer Profile. The Metered Billing tab can give information for each switch at the customer level

Creating a new deck

To create a new deck, click 'Create Deck'. This will open a dialog with a form, just give it a name and hit 'Save'. You'll be redirected over to the Deck edit page, this will look the same as the Default Deck, except on the right you'll notice there is a customer search field. Search for existing customers and select them to add them to the deck. To remove the customer, click the 'X' icon to the right on the list below the select.

Customer Decks

New decks can have customers, these serve as priority pricing. Rates that are found on a customer deck have a higher priority over default deck rates. If you wanted to offer special pricing to customer, you would create a new deck and add the customer to this pricing. Any rates not defined in the customer deck will be supplemented by the default deck. Another use case is to remove a default rate for a customer, you could provide an override in a customer deck. If you remove all customers from a deck, the deck will function as another Default deck, in which case it acts more as a folder for your rates. If you have overlapping rates across two default decks, the one which was created first will have priority.

Calling Plans

Calling plans are used to offer usage allowances to customers. When generating usage invoices, whether automatically due to a recurring subscription or manually, calling plans will be applied based on the customers current subscriptions products. Calling plans can be defined for specific call types, as well as direction
Unlimited calling plans are account wide for a customer. currently we do not support a metered extension in the same domain as an extension with an unlimited plan. If a single ext. receives an unlimited calling plan, all extensioons on the same domain will also have unlimited minutes.

To create calling plans go to Metered Billing -> Calling Plans. Click 'Create calling plan' this will open a dialog:

  1. Plan Name: a descriptive name for the plan
  2. Minutes: this is the total number of minutes the plan will include: For unlimited plansset the value to '0'.
  3. Call Types: the call types for which this plan applies.
  4. Call Direction: sets for which call direction the plan applies to, call direction is decided by who owns the originating/terminating number.
  5. Products: These are the products that will include this plan when added to a recurring subscription.

Adding Calling Plans to Customers

Once you have created your calling plan and have assigned it to at least one product. This product must be a subscription product so that it is included in the customers monthly invoicing. On the customers billing day, minutes from their calling plan minutes will be deducted from their total billable minutes.


If you want to be up to date with what the QuotingBill community is suggesting for our product, or even suggesting something yourself that you don't see here, please visit our roadmap page here https://roadmap.quotingbill.io/










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