Price Changes and Interval Quantities

All of the above sections described situations where the service quantities will be prorated due to changes in the price during the billing period. The above sections assume that the bill contains a simple metering scenario, where reads will not exist on the date of the price break.

However, consider an interval billing example. There are two basic pricing scenarios for interval quantities:

  • Interval prices are applied to interval quantities. In this case, proration is not applicable because the prices are changing at small intervals and the appropriate usage rules in Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management understand how to apply the prices to the interval quantities.

  • Time of use prices. In this case, interval quantities are being mapped to time of use codes. Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management can compare interval quantities to a time of use map to create billing determinants for Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing. These will result in new entries in the bill segment's SQ collection when received by Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing. Calculation rules are then apply the appropriate price(s) for each SQ. In the time of use pricing scenario, it is possible for the prices to change during the usage or billing period. When usage requests are created by Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing, they will contain rate version date breaks to indicate to Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management to calculate the usage for each rate version period. Proration should not be necessary when the rate is applied for each usage (rate version) period. However, if prices are configured as bill factors and there are changes in bill factor values within the usage period, then proration may occur as the date breaks when bill factor values change are not included in the usage request from Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing.