23 Customizing Payment Collection Dates for BRM-Initiated Payments
Learn how to configure Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management (BRM) payment collection dates for BRM-initiated customer payments.
Topics in this document:
About Customizing Payment Collection Dates for BRM-Initiated Payments
By default, BRM-initiated payments are collected on the date that bills are finalized. Alternatively, you can configure BRM to collect a BRM-initiated payment on the date a bill is due or on a specified number of days before the bill is due.
To support configurable payment collection dates, BRM-initiated payment processing involves these steps:
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You configure the payment collection date.
During account creation or modification, a customer service representative (CSR) uses third-party customer relationship management (CRM) software to set the collection date for BRM-initiated payments. This date is one of the following:
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Date the bill is finalized (default)
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Date the bill is due
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A specified number of days before the bill due date
For information about the opcode to call to set this date, see "Calculating Payment Collection Dates" in BRM Opcode Guide.
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At the end of each billing cycle, BRM calculates the payment collection date after determining the bill's due date.
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BRM collects the payment.
BRM-initiated payments are collected by the pin_collect utility.
About Configurable Payment Collection Dates and On-Purchase Billing
Usually, you bill a customer only at the end of the customer's billing cycle. However, you can use the Bill Now feature in Customer Center or the BRM on-purchase billing feature to bill the customer immediately. When you use these features, multiple bills associated with a single bill unit may be generated during the same billing cycle. When this occurs, all subsequent bills generated before BRM collects the first bill are collected on the first bill's payment collection date.
For example, Account A has one bill unit. Its monthly bill, which is paid by direct debit, is due 31 days after it is finalized. Its payment is collected 5 days before the due date. On August 10 (the end of the July 10–August 10 billing cycle), regular billing is run:
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Bill finalized = “Bill 1" (see Figure 23-1)
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Due date = September 10 (August 10 + 31 days)
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Payment collection date = September 5 (September 10 - 5 days)
The Bill 1 payment collection date (September 5) is stored in the bill unit associated with Bill 1.
On August 18, the Bill Now feature is used to bill the account:
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Bill finalized = “Bill Now" (see Figure 23-2)
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Due date = September 18 (August 18 + 31 days)
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Payment collection date = September 13 (September 18 - 5 days)
However, the Bill Now payment collection date (September 13) is not stored in the bill unit. Instead, the earlier payment collection date (September 5) is applied to both bills, as shown in Figure 23-3:
Figure 23-3 Bill Now Payment Collection Date
Description of "Figure 23-3 Bill Now Payment Collection Date"
Note:
If the Bill Now payment collection date were stored in the bill unit on August 18, it would overwrite the Bill 1 payment collection date, changing the date from September 5 to September 18. This would postpone Bill 1's payment collection for over a week.
For more information about Bill Now and on-purchase billing, see "About Bill Now" in BRM Configuring and Running Billing and "On-Purchase Billing" in BRM Opcode Guide.
About Configurable Payment Collection Dates and Delayed Billing
The BRM delayed billing feature enables billing for all the bill units in your system to be run a specified number of days after the end of their billing cycle. If you use delayed billing, be careful to avoid configuring payment collection dates that occur before bills are finalized.
For example, your system has a 14-day billing delay. Account A's bill is due 21 days after the end date of its monthly billing cycle. If you set a payment collection date that is more than 7 days before the bill due date, the payment collection date will occur before the bill is finalized. In such cases, BRM ignores the payment collection date and collects the payment on the date the bill is finalized.
For information about delayed billing, see “Setting up Delayed Billing" in BRM Configuring and Running Billing.