Hi Eriksson
You have a point here , because this information is updated frequently and has no specific time for changes! And some of it can be changes right before or at the time of the invoicing/Billing!
You have mentioned example of such information e.g. Addresses , Contacts details , Preferred language ,loyalty or customer level .. I add also product description in different languages , comments and tags on each product in the invoice/bill etc.
All Billing Systems , Core Banking are not directly in access to such information!
It is the responsibility of the Invoicing Formatting system or Bill/Invoice Presentment to capture such information on the fly or on demand before o during Bill Cycle!!
And many of the Bill presentment system such as Lagrange Systems , OpenText , GMC , PitneyBowes are using different ways to access and update such information!!
The best scenario here is some of these data are frequently changing and has no specific time and the best way is to make it -operational wise- external files (CSV/XML) on secure file system , this way operators or even trusted users in business can do the changes easily and quickly e.g. product description in different languages , Comments , communication text messages and promotional ads which appeared on the bill or invoice etc.
However another type of information are based on logic and need other systems to access it e.g. CRM, loyalty, Customer help, Apps !
It is wisely stored in database tables which can be accessed by other systems and bill presentment as well.
So, in both ways Bill/Invoice presentment must capable to use both ways external CSV/XML tables and DB tables before or during Bill cycle/invoicing.
Ahmed Zaki
Lagrange Systems
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Ahmed Zaki
TO BE VERIFIED
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Original Message:
Sent: Jun 10, 2020 14:36
From: Tobias Eriksson
Subject: How do I carry details about invoicing in the Product Order (TMF622)
I am trying to figure out what TM Forum says about onboarding and how to carry information about invoice details, such as bill-cycle, invoicing address, language that kind of things. TMF622 does not really reveal this, is there a better place to read up on this ?
Scenario is like this
0 Customer visits webshop (say he is already a customer to make this easy)
1 Catalog has a PostPaid Subscription "Gold" that the customer picks
2 A Product Order is prepared for "Gold"
2.1 As the order is prepared I now need to also provide details about
* invoicing address (email or postal address)
* language on the invoice
* bill cycle (should the bill be on 1;st of the month or the 15;th or ...)
3 Order is submitted
4 Order is fulfilled
4.1 the subscription "Gold" is created in the system
4.2 the billing/invoicing details are stored together with "Gold"
TMF622 refer to BillingAccountRef, but to me that should mean that the Billing-Account is created before the Product-Order is submitted, is that correct.
How would I carry information about invoicing in an Order if I would go TM Forum way ?
-Tobias
#TMForumGeneral
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Tobias Eriksson
Qvantel Oy
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