Setting Up Bill Factor Characteristics

After defining general information about a bill factor, open Main Menu, Rates, Bill Factor and navigate to the Bill Factor Characteristic tab to define characteristic values for which a charge is applicable. For example, a bill factor used to levy the applicable city tax would require the definition of every city that levies a tax.

Note: If all values for a bill factor are specified in contract terms, you do not need to set up Bill Factor Characteristics.

Description of Page

Enter a Characteristic Type to indicate the type of characteristic that controls how the bill factor's value is defined. This field will be gray if Bill Factor Characteristics are specified in the following grid.

The Characteristic Source defines where the system retrieves the characteristic value at billing time.

The following table lists and describes the characteristics source for a bill factor:
Characteristic Source	Description
`Account`	The characteristic type's value will be retrieved from the contract's account.
`Characteristic Collection`	Refer to Deriving / Passing In Characteristic Values for an explanation of this value.
`Main Person`	The characteristic type's value will be retrieved from the main person linked to the contract's account.
`N/A`	The characteristic type's value is the same for all customers using the rate. If this option is used, you must still choose a Characteristic Type. This Characteristic Type should have a single Characteristic Value. The ID of the characteristic value must be identical to the ID of the characteristic type.
`Contract`	The characteristic type's value will be retrieved from the contract.

Fastpath: For more information about characteristics, see Setting Up Characteristic Types & Their Values and An Illustration Of A Bill Factor And Its Characteristics.

Use the add and remove buttons to define the Characteristic Values that are relevant for the bill factor's Characteristic Type. For example, if the bill factor is used to levy a city tax, you would define the city's that have a city tax in the above collection.

Use the Minutes Per Interval if your Bill Factor is of type Interval. This defines, for each characteristic value, the number of minutes expected between each record of interval data.

Use the External ID if the values for this characteristic are interfaced to the system from an external source and you want to record an identifier for the source.

Note: If the bill factor's value is the same for all customers, you still must link a "dummy" characteristic value to the bill factor. In other words, you'll have to create a characteristic type called "n/a" and define for it a characteristic value of "n/a". Then, on the bill factor, you reference the "n/a" characteristic type and on the above window, you indicate a characteristic value of "n/a".