Rounding and FCPO Rate Components

As described above, for calculation purpose only (FCPO) rate components don't contribute real amounts to a bill. FCPO rate components exist to calculate intermediate results that are used by later rate components. We therefore allow FCPO rate components to have a rounding precision greater than the rate's currency code to a maximum of 0.00001 (five decimal places).

Please be aware of the following:

  • As described under How To Use Description on Bill, you can indicate that the final amount of a bill line should be substituted into the bill line's description by using the %A substitution variable in the rate component's Description On Bill. If you do this for an FCPO rate component, the system will show the number of decimal places as dictated by the FCPO's precision.
  • While rate application calculates bill lines, the system maintains each rate component's value in memory. For FCPO rate components, this means that precisions greater than .01 are available during rate application. For example, you could indicate an FCPO rate component has a precision of .0001 and the resultant value will be maintained in memory and is available to other rate components while rate application executes.

When rate application completes, the FCPO's value will be either saved in the bill line's amount or discarded as per the value of the rate component's FCPO retention rule. If you indicate that the FCPO amount should be retained on the bill line and its precision is greater than two decimal places, the FCPO amount will be rounded to two decimal places before it's saved on the database. Keep in mind that this could result in an inconsistency if you used the %A substitution variable in the rate component's Description On Bill as the value substituted into the bill line will have a greater precision.