New Usage Subscription Attributes

Idea Lab

Usage Subscriptions now include Customer Class and two new billing attributes: Start Day Option and Cutoff Time. Customer Class is provided through a new extendable lookup, while the timing attributes are derived from the service agreement or service agreement type.

In separate-instance deployments, these values are synchronized to from Customer Care and Billing to Meter Solution Cloud Service. In single-instance Customer to Meter or Customer Cloud Service (C2M) deployments, delivered audit processing maintains the Customer Class lookup and populates these attributes when a usage subscription is created.

Customer Class identifies the customer category associated with an account, such as Residential, Commercial, or Industrial. It supports grouping customers with similar processing rules, requirements, or consumption patterns. Valid values are defined in the Customer Class extendable lookup. When integrated with Customer Care and Billing, configure the Customer Care and Billing customer classes in this lookup.

Start Day Option and Cutoff Time define the interval-data boundary used to calculate customer consumption for billing. Together, they determine whether interval consumption includes the cutoff date or ends at the beginning of that date.

For example, assume a bill has a cutoff date of July 31, 2026, and the Cutoff Time is 12:00 AM (midnight):

  • If Start Day Option is Current Day, consumption includes the full cutoff date and ends at 12:00 AM on August 1, 2026.
  • If Start Day Option is Previous Day, consumption ends at 12:00 AM on July 31, 2026; therefore, the cutoff date is not included.

These new attributes improve billing accuracy by defining the precise interval-data boundary used to calculate consumption. Customer Class supports consistent down stream processing for different customer groups, such as residential, commercial, and industrial customers. While Start Day Option and Cutoff Time ensure that interval data is included correctly for each billing period. 

Steps to enable and configure

To enable and configure this feature, complete these steps:

  1. Configure Customer Class extendable lookup values.
  2. Configure the Start Day Option and Cutoff Time on applicable service agreement types.
  3. In separate-instance deployments, include the new attributes in synchronization configuration.
  4. In single-instance C2M deployments, ensure delivered audit and usage-subscription creation processing is active.