Let's look at this from a fine-grained perspective. A ProductOrder generally has multiple ProductOrderPrice, representing one-time, recurring, and usage charges that result from the order itself and of course from the ongoing ownership of the Product. Each Price subentity should be associated with an Account subclass (in most cases this will be a Billing Account), and the charges will be applied (AppliedCustomerBillingRate - ACBR) to that account and will affect the account balance. This is indeed reflected in the model.
Some charges may need to be paid up-front, at ordering time, e.g. device purchase, first recurring charge, etc. And in your case, some charges may need to be refunded directly to a payment method (instead of being credited on the next bill).
If we look at the current Open API model, we can see that there is room for improvement in this area:
However, once it is determined that an immediate payment/refund needs to be made, the association of a payment method is supported as part of the Payment Management API TMF676.
Any opinions and statements made by me on this forum are purely personal, and do not necessarily reflect the position of the TM Forum or my employer.
Original Message:
Sent: Jun 30, 2024 23:29
From: Varun Pandhi
Subject: Refunds in TMF 622 Product Order Management
Hi Jonathan,
Thanks for your response, however when a POST Product Order API is fired, refund is issued to the customer as a result of the ProductOrder creation, so is there any way in which we can have a reference to Refund in ProductOrder resource/ POST ProductOrder API response?
Similarly, for the payment methods as well, a customer might be supporting multiple payment methods (Bill to Account, Credit Card Payment, Cash, Debit Card Payment etc.). While placing a Product Order, they would want to specify which payment method (from the allowed payment methods) to use for a particular ProductOrder. Is there a mechanism in TMF 622 ProductOrder resource/POST ProductOrder API request to provide the same?
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Varun Pandhi
Infosys
Original Message:
Sent: Jun 25, 2024 02:13
From: Jonathan Goldberg
Subject: Refunds in TMF 622 Product Order Management
I think that correlatorID is intended for a consumer to refer a refund or a payment to its own records (semantically I would have preferred to use ExternalIdentifier for this).
Payment has a list of PaymentItems, where each item has an entity reference to the entity that caused the payment item to be made (e.g. an order, a bill, etc.). However Refund does not have this corresponding list - we should consider adding it.
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Jonathan Goldberg
Amdocs Management Limited
Any opinions and statements made by me on this forum are purely personal, and do not necessarily reflect the position of the TM Forum or my employer.
Original Message:
Sent: Jun 24, 2024 14:08
From: Varun Pandhi
Subject: Refunds in TMF 622 Product Order Management
Thanks Matthieu and Jonathan for response.
Essentially to summarize we could use Refund resource defined in TMF 676 Payment Management API and associate it to an Account, but there is no means to know refund came about as part of which ProductOrder or ProductOrderItem. Am I correct?
Or is CorrelationId meant to satisfy this requirement wherein CorrelationId on Refund resource would hold TMF Id of ProductOrderItem due to which it was initiated?
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Varun Pandhi
Infosys
Original Message:
Sent: Jun 24, 2024 11:35
From: Jonathan Goldberg
Subject: Refunds in TMF 622 Product Order Management
Thanks Matthieu
I think that Varun is wondering how the business process of product ordering cause payments and refunds to be initiated. I would say that this is part of the internal business logic of a Product Order Management system (or the corresponding ODA components). Based on the actual order data and the prices defined in the catalog, the OM system would need to collect payments and/or issue refunds.
Of course these would also need to be recorded as applied customer billing rates on the customer bill.
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Jonathan Goldberg
Amdocs Management Limited
Any opinions and statements made by me on this forum are purely personal, and do not necessarily reflect the position of the TM Forum or my employer.
Original Message:
Sent: Jun 24, 2024 10:09
From: Matthieu Hattab
Subject: Refunds in TMF 622 Product Order Management
Hi,
It doesn't. TMF 622 is about product ordering, which impact Profit & Loss.
monetary transactions (credit, payment, refund...) are Balance Sheet operation only (what TM Forum ODA calls "Party Financial Management activities")
you need a totally different API like TMF676, possibly 670.
EDIT: It is also advised to use the communities search engine. It will give a list of discussions that were already posted on that topic.
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Kind regards,
Matthieu Hattab
Lyse Platform
Original Message:
Sent: Jun 22, 2024 16:11
From: Varun Pandhi
Subject: Refunds in TMF 622 Product Order Management
Hi all,
As part of change product orders, customer might want to return some items or downgrade his plan leading to some refunds being issued to the customer in context of the Change Product Order.
How does TMF 622 Product Order suite of APIs propose to handle refunds to the customer?
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Varun Pandhi
Infosys
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