Hold Bill Generation

Oracle Revenue Management and Billing enables you to hold the bill generation process of a person or an account through a hold request. If the bill generation process is kept on hold for an account, the system does not allow you to create any bills for the account from the user interface or through a batch process. If the bill generation process is kept on hold for a person, the system does not allow you to create bills for any of its accounts from the user interface or through a batch process.

While adding the bill generation process in a hold request, you need to specify the date range for which you want to hold the bill generation process for the persons or accounts. The system enables you to hold the bill generation process by creating a hold request from the user interface or through the upload request feature. If you want to create a hold request to hold the bill generation process for a person or an account through the upload request feature, you need to specify the following details in the CSV file:

• Whether you want to hold the bill generation process for the person or account (the valid values are Y or N)

• Hold bill generation start date (required if the hold bill generation is set to Y)

• Hold bill generation end date

You can also create, update, or release a hold request through an inbound web service. For more information, see Hold Request Creation, Modification, Release, and View Through Inbound Web Service.

Bill Generation Hold Activation

On activating a hold request for an account, the system sets the bill after date corresponding to the accounts whose date range falls within the bill generation process date range of the hold request. The bill after date is set to the hold entity end date or bill generation process end date whichever is earlier. This means that the system will allow to create bills for the accounts only after the respective bill after date.

Note that if the start date of the hold request, hold entity, or hold process is earlier than the system date, the system sets the respective start date to the system date. In addition, if there are pending bills for an account which is kept on hold through a hold request, the system creates an entry for the hold request in the CI_​BILL_​DEL_​REQUEST table. You need to then execute the C1-DELBI batch which will delete the pending bills of the respective entities along with their bill segments. For more information about the batch, see Oracle Revenue Management and Billing Batch Guide.

Let us understand how the bill after date is derived for an account that is kept on hold through a hold request.

In the scenario 1, the bill after date for the Account 1 is set to 15-Jan-2025 and the bill after date for the Account 2 is set to 20-Jan-2025. This is because the entity end date is earlier than the bill generation process end date. However, in the scenario 2, the bill after date for the Account 1 is set to 20-Jan-2025. This is because the bill generation process end date is earlier than the entity end date.

In the scenario 3, three hold requests are created with different hold reasons to keep the Account 3 on hold for different duration. In this case, the bill after date of the Account 3 is updated every time a new hold request is created for the same account. On 1st Jan, the bill after date of the Account 3 is set to 15-Jan-2025 and then on 5th Jan, the bill after date of the Account 3 is updated to 20-Jan-2025, and finally, on 10th Jan, the bill after date of the Account 3 is updated to 25-Jan-2025.

In the scenario 4, the bill after date for the Account 1 and Account 2 is set to 30-Jan-2025. This is because the system sets the bill after date to the bill generation process end date when the entity end date is not specified in the hold request. In the scenario 5, the bill after date for the Account 1 and Account 2 is set to 31-Jan-2025. This is because the system sets the bill after date to hold request end date when both the entity end date and bill generation process end date are not specified in the hold request. In the scenario 6, the bill after date for the Account 1 and Account 2 is set to 15-Jan-2025 and 20-Jan-2025, respectively.

In all the above scenarios, the start date of the hold request, hold process, and hold entity is same. Therefore, the bill after date is derived for the entities either immediately or in the deferred mode (when the C1-HLDRQ batch is executed). However, if the start date of the bill generation process or hold entity is later than the hold request start date, then bill after date is derived for the respective entity in the deferred mode (when the C1-HLMON batch is executed on or after the bill generation process or hold entity start date). For example,

In the scenario 1, the bill after date for the Account 1 can be derived on 01-Jan-2025 (in the online mode), or on or after 01-Jan-2025 (in the deferred mode). However, the bill after date for the Account 2 will be derived on or after 05-Jan-2025 (in the deferred mode). Similarly, in the scenario 2, the bill after date for the Account 1 is derived on or after 15-Mar-2025 (in the deferred mode) and not on 01-Mar-2025.

On activating a hold request for a person, the system sets the bill after date to the entity end date or process end date whichever is earlier either for all the accounts in the person’s hierarchy or only for the persons’ immediate accounts depending on whether the Hierarchy option is selected or not. Note that the system considers only the child persons and not the grandchild persons from the person’s hierarchy and then derives the accounts where the child person is the main customer. The way in which the bill after date is derived for the person’s accounts is same as that of an individual account kept on hold through a hold request.

Note that if the start date of the hold request, hold entity, or hold process is earlier than the system date, the system sets the respective start date to the system date. In addition, if there are pending bills for a person which is kept on hold through a hold request, the system creates an entry for the hold request in the CI_​BILL_​DEL_​REQUEST table. You need to then execute the C1-DELBI batch which will delete the pending bills of the respective entities along with their bill segments. For more information about the batch, see Oracle Revenue Management and Billing Batch Guide.

If the number of accounts in the hold request is less than or equal to the defer processing count (specified in the respective hold request type), the system immediately sets the bill after date for the respective accounts. However, if the number of accounts in the hold request is greater than the defer processing count, the system sets the bill after date for the respective accounts in the deferred mode when the C1-HLDRQ batch is executed. Note that when the entity level is set to Person, the system always sets the bill after date for the respective accounts in the deferred mode when the C1-HLDRQ batch is executed.

Bill Generation Hold Release

On releasing a hold request for an account, the system clears the bill after date for the respective account. This will enable the business to bill the account immediately on the same day when the hold is released.

Let us understand how the bill after date is updated for an account when the hold is manually or automatically released.

In the scenario 1, the bill after date for the Account 1 and Account 2 is cleared when the hold request is manually released on 10-Jan-2025. In the scenario 2, the bill after date for the Account 1 is cleared when the hold request is automatically released through the C1-HLMON batch on 20-Jan-2025.

In the scenario 3, the bill after date for the Account 3 is not cleared when the hold request 2 and 3 are manually released on 10-Jan-2025 and 20-Jan-2025, respectively. The bill after date for the Account 3 is cleared when the hold request 4 is manually released on 21-Jan-2025. This is because no more hold requests exist for the Account 3 in the system.

On releasing a hold request for a person, the system clears the bill after date either for all the accounts in the person’s hierarchy or only for the persons’ immediate accounts depending on whether the Hierarchy option is selected or not. Note that the system considers only the child persons and not the grandchild persons from the person’s hierarchy and then derives the accounts where the child person is the main customer. The way in which the bill after date is updated for the person’s accounts is same as that of an individual account whose hold is released either manually or automatically.

If the number of accounts in the hold request is less than or equal to the defer processing count (specified in the respective hold request type), the system immediately clears the bill after date for the respective accounts. However, if the number of accounts in the hold request is greater than the defer processing count, the system clears the bill after date for the respective accounts in the deferred mode when the C1-HLMON batch is executed. Note that when the entity level is set to Person, the system always clears the bill after date for the respective accounts in the deferred mode when the C1-HLMON batch is executed.