Ways To Control The Start Date Of A Bill Segment

Bill segments produced for a service agreement have two time periods:

• The bill segment period. The bill segment period defines the entire period of time covered by a bill segment's charges.
• The consumption period. The consumption period defines the period of time used to calculate the number of days for daily charges.

The consumption period almost always starts one day after the bill segment period. The consumption period always ends on the bill segment's end date. For example, a bill segment period that spans 5-Jan-2002 through 6-Feb-2002 will almost always have a corresponding consumption period of 6-Jan-2002 through 6-Feb-2002. The reason that the start dates don't match is because a bill segment's start date equals the end date of the prior bill segment (i.e., the start date was already counted in the previous bill segment's consumption period and we don't want to count it twice).

The only time when the previous paragraph isn't true is the first bill segment that's produced for a new service agreement. This is because different companies count the first day of a new service agreement differently than others. Refer to Initial Consumption Period Considerations for examples and an explanation of how you can control the start date of the consumption period.