Union Street: Telecoms Billing System - aBILLity - Billing Platform · 2019-09-30 · Each customer...
Transcript of Union Street: Telecoms Billing System - aBILLity - Billing Platform · 2019-09-30 · Each customer...
aBILLity - Billing Platform
Power, flexibility and control
BILLity
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ABILLITY: THE ULTIMATE IN COMMS BILLINGAt Union Street we are dedicated to the support of the
UK Communication Provider (CP) community. Since
Union Street’s inception in 1998, we have strived
continually to develop and deliver the most innovative
and reliable billing and provisioning solutions, coupled
with backup training and consultancy services to match.
As a result, our flagship product aBILLity is firmly
established as the UK’s most popular billing engine.
Developed after many man-years of research into the
telecommunications billing arena, aBILLity offers you
so much more than simply billing, it provides you with
a complete solution. As the UK market leader, aBILLity
continually sets the benchmark for telecoms billing.
With aBILLity at its core, we have developed a suite
of applications to provide you with a total solution
for billing, realtime analysis, fraud prevention, WLR3
integration and interfaces for accounts and CRM
packages. The aBILLity application suite provides you
with the complete answer to the billing challenge.
aBILLity is a Windows driven platform utilising the
speed and scalability of Microsoft SQL Server. It is
intuitive and easy to use for the non IT specialist. Using
aBILLity for your customer line provisioning and call
billing provides total peace of mind.
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aBILLity offers an outstanding range of features and functions:
IMPORTING AND RATINGaBILLity enables you to maximise your customers’
potential by allowing you to provide multiple services
from multiple carriers, for example Voice, Data, Mobile
and IP. A powerful data processing engine allows
aBILLity to import, fault verify and rate CDRs at a rate
of over 20,000,000 per hour using standard hardware,
which is much faster than most of its rivals.
� Complete support for all types of mobile billing,
GPRS billing (pence per MB)
� Extension billing (where available from the carrier)
� Free/inclusive minute plans
� Complete support for BT Openreach/Wholesale
billing including re-rating of BT fixed charges
� Extension level analysis
� Affinity group billing
The speed and flexibility of the aBILLity platform saves you
valuable time, leading to faster bill runs for improved cash
flow!
The speed and flexibility of the aBILLity platform saves you valuable time, leading to faster bill runs for improved cash flow!
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CARRIER RECONCILIATION AND REVENUE ASSURANCEA Carrier Watch feature allows you to check your buy rates against an
agreed tariff and automatically flag up specific over-charged calls. It will
then produce a credit claim form to be e-mailed back to the carrier.
aBILLity provides a complete reconciliation system to compare carrier
fixed charge files with the charges actually billed. New charges are easily
identified and added, ensuring that all revenue is billed.
The Sales Check and Fixed Check modules enable you to interrogate all
aspects of revenue and corresponding margin, by company, by carrier, by
destination and so on.
A powerful ‘What If’ rate modelling tool allows you to create new tariffs
and see what effect they have on margin and profitability.
Full management reporting is available within the package, providing you
with a complete understanding of your revenues and margin.
aBILLity helps you to capture potentially lost revenue, maximise profit margins
and ensure that your costs are controlled!
FRAUD MANAGEMENTFraud is becoming a major problem for CPs. The unprotected nature of
the open architecture used by many modern PBX systems means it has
become easy for criminals and so called ‘phreakers’ to hack systems and
plant dialler malware to bypass LCR systems for connection to premium
rate numbers.
The LineGuard option is designed to not only detect, but also to stop
fraudulent activity and is an additional module for the aBILLity platform.
The LineGuard module uses a sophisticated algorithm to detect unusual
calling patterns in a customer billing account.
LineGuard is innovative because it not only detects fraudulent patterns of
behaviour, it automatically prevents further losses by acting in real-time to
bar fraudulent activity using WLR3.
Using LineGuard helps provide revenue protection for you and your customers.
Reducing fraud helps reduce the chance of a customer dispute.
Multiple fraud plans can be set up to help detect fraud based on differing criteria
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The aBILLity bill run process has been designed to be fast and also accurate, reducing errors to maximise your revenue yield.
INVOICE PROCESSINGThe monthly billing run is a critical period for CPs, but with
aBILLity the process could not be simpler. aBILLity creates
a set of proforma invoices that you can check for any
inconsistencies compared to the previous months billing. If
any changes need to be made, the proforma invoices can be
easily recalculated.
When the billing run is approved, aBILLity will assign invoice
numbers and create the actual invoices. The invoices are
despatched in accordance with the preferred method of
delivery which can be set on a customer by customer basis.
This includes:
� Printing
� Email billing, where invoices and reports are saved as pdf
files and despatched via email
� Web Billing (utilising WebaBILLity Pro) allowing
customers to log onto a billing portal to ‘download’ their
invoice
SALES LEDGER AND PAYMENT COLLECTIONSaBILLity includes a tight integration with Sage accounts
so that the invoices raised can be automatically posted
into your sales ledger, broken down by nominal account.
aBILLity will create a Direct Debit collections file for the
bank and post the payments back to the sales ledger.
The accounts activity for each customer including payments
received is then viewable within aBILLity. As part of
the invoice run aBILLity will also create statements for
despatch.
If you use an accounts package other than Sage, you can
utilise the sales ledger built into aBILLity. Alternatively,
invoices can be posted to an accounts package via an export
file.
The accounts integration provided by aBILLity eliminates both
the time wasted re-entering data to an accounts package and
the errors that can occur with manual data entry.
CUSTOMER CARE AND CONTACT MANAGEMENTA customer contact management function stores customer
information in the system including names and addresses,
invoicing information and reporting profiles. The contact
management function has been designed to make it
possible to integrate with third party CRM (customer
relationship management) and ERP (enterprise resource
planning) systems. For example, aBILLity has an integration
module available with Microsoft Dynamics CRM providing
a bi-directional data exchange and synchronisation
between applications.
Each customer is given a default package of tariffs for calls
and services. Bespoke over-ride pricing can be applied on a
customer specific basis. These can even be set for a specific
dialled string or for calls made between a group of CLIs.
The system incorporates a number of tools to help avoid
churn and increase customer satisfaction.
Integration with CRM and ERP systems increases your
productivity, improves your customer service provision and
reduces the risk of errors and discrepancies creeping into your
systems.
aBILLity makes the process of invoice generation simple
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TARIFF AND CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENTaBILLity has the flexibility to create
innovative packages and price plans.
Numerous features and billing techniques
within the product increase margin and
add to the bottom line without necessarily
increasing published tariffs. In some cases
the increased margin and cost savings that
the product produces will cover the cost of
the software.
A powerful tariff manager allows the CP to
create multiple tariffs for voice, data, mobile
or service charges, each one individually
configured. It is also possible to apply
discount structures or inclusive usage plans.
These pricing elements can be bundled
into packages to simplify administration.
The unrivalled flexibility of the platform
makes it easy for a CP to create customer
propositions with real differentiation.
Fixed charges per customer can be set to
allow CPs to bill on a one-off or recurring
basis for any item, thus giving the customer
one consolidated bill for all services.
aBILLity gives you the power to be innovative
with your sales proposition helping you to gain a
competitive edge.
Direct debit collections can be easily managed with the Sage sales ledger integration module
It is simple to manage every aspect of a customer’s account
The ‘Config Manager’ allows management of all key system tables, for example charge groups, tariffs, commission plans etc
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The end-user reports generated by aBILLity are highly valued by customers helping to ensure customer retention.
SERVICE PROVISIONINGThis optional module assists you in managing the
service provisioning process. As the process is
totally automated, the module saves valuable time by
negotiating data transfer with carriers and avoiding
duplication of data entry. The module includes complete
integration with WLR3 for provisioning services with BT
Openreach and it will also connect directly to carriers
such as Opal and Gamma for CPS and IDA provisioning.
The key features of the module are:
� Contract management
� Welcome letter/pack
� Provisioning of service
� Engineering scheduling
� Synchronising of additional service charges to
customers’ accounts as services are provisioned
� Traffic test
Service charges are automatically added to customers’
accounts as products are provisioned, saving time, reducing
errors and ensuring prompt billing of services to improve
your cash flow.
FAULT/SERVICE MANAGEMENTaBILLity incorporates an integrated fault management/
ticketing system. The optional ServiceDesk module
enables you to manage network faults and keep track of all
activities relating to a specific incident. Customers receive
a unique incident reference and the system can generate
emails to keep customers informed as actions are taken.
ServiceDesk is integrated into WLR3 to allow you to log
faults directly on BT Openreach. This allows you to put an
engaged signal on a line or place a divert on a customer
CLI in just a few minutes. It is also possible to expedite a
fault to be handled faster than the care level option that
the customer had contracted to.
As an integrated solution, ServiceDesk allows you to manage
customers in one place which helps reduce errors and saves
time.
Fault management includes full integration with WLR3 for logging faults with BT Openreach
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END-USER INFORMATIONA large range of different reports are
available as standard and an almost
unlimited range of bespoke reports are
available on request. Standard reports
include:
� Breakdown by call classification or
destination
� Breakdown by day, time, site
� Longest duration
� Most expensive
� Most frequently dialled
� Service charges
� Statement of Account (Sage integration)
Billing information is available to customers
in multiple formats, with the ability to specify
from a wide range of graphical and statistical
reports available in:
� Paper
� Disk
aBILLity also provides exception reporting
based on pre-defined criteria. The eAlerts
feature will generate an email to the
customer if a defined criterion is met. For
example, all calls costing more that £3.50
made to numbers starting ‘07’ made at
weekends.
The end-user reports generated by aBILLity are
highly valued by customers helping to ensure
customer retention.
� Web
aBILLity offers a wide selection of end-user customer reports
Customers can view a selection of reports via the web (WebaBILLity Pro)
Numerous internal reports are available to help manage your business
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As a scalable solution aBILLity can meet the needs of the biggest CPs and carriers with fast batch processing and prompt billing.
SALES AGENTS AND RESELLERSWhatever your sales channel strategy, aBILLity enables
you to create flexible commission structures for sales
people and agents which can be target driven.
If your agent or partner is a company, you can offer
Self-Billing invoices for commission payments.
End-user customers can receive dual branded
invoicing.
If you provide wholesale services, aBILLity can create
CDR files so that your resellers can onward bill.
Third party sales are an important revenue generator for
wholesale aggregators and aBILLity provides full flexibility
for billing and commission payments giving an important
competitive edge.
LOW COST OF OWNERSHIPMany people moving into the telephony CP market
assume that the process of billing is complex and time
consuming and are persuaded to outsource their billing
to a bureau. With aBILLity this is not necessary. The
product takes much of the pain out of CDR processing
and setting up and managing customers. The system is
very intuitive and easy to use and boasts much better
performance than other platforms.
aBILLity’s full client-server architecture allows multiple
users to have full or limited access to the application.
Change logs are stored to show who changed what and
when.
A start-up CP can install aBILLity on a rental basis typically
at a lower cost than bureau billing and as they grow the
rental will decrease proportionally to less than half a per
cent of the billed revenue.
CONTINUOUS PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT POLICYA massive 35 per cent of aBILLity’s revenue is
ploughed back into R&D to keep the product ahead
of its competitors and enable it to adapt to market
changes with the introduction of new services. aBILLity
is always ahead of the curve!
A web service Application Programming Interface (API)
is also available to enable aBILLity to be integrated with
other third party applications.
You benefit from new enhancements via regular software
updates.
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONMinimum Server basic:
� Dual Core 2.4 GHz
� 4Gb RAM
� 15Gb of free HDD space
� 32-bit or 64bit Windows OS
� Microsoft SQL 2000 or above
� Back-up solution in place
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Data Rating and Mediation
Fraud Management
Reconciliation and Revenue Assurance
Sales Ledger / Accounts Integration (Sage)
CRM Integration(Microsoft Dynamics CRM)
BT Openreach WLR3CPS/IDA Provisioning
BT Openreach WLR3
Third Party Developers
WebBilling
PaperInvoice
EmailInvoice
Invoice / collections Manager
Customer Management Manager
Service Provisioning
ServiceDesk Fault Management
Carrier DateFiles (CDR)
Reporting
Agent/ Sales Commissions
Developers API
Microsoft SQL
ABILLITY ENTERPRISE SERVERFor larger CPs, system performance can be a critical
factor in ensuring that billing happens in a timely
manner. aBILLity Enterprise Server is an optional
component that manages the importing and rating
process at the server, hence gaining a significant
improvement in system performance.
aBILLity Enterprise extends the vast functionality and
flexibility available in the product and makes it available
to the very largest CPs and carriers.
aBILLity Enterprise enables the CDR importing
process to be automated. It can connect to a carrier,
automatically download CDRs, import and rate them,
run fraud checks and automatically bar fraud calls
without human intervention. Imports can also be
scheduled so that they happen when the network is
quiet, for example at 2.00am.
As a scalable solution aBILLity can meet the needs of
the biggest CPs and carriers with fast batch processing
and prompt billing.
aBILLity ENTERPRISE
SERVER
Union Street Technologies LtdThe Courtyard37 Sheen Road
Richmond Surrey
TW9 1AJ
t: 020 8614 9090w: unionstreet.uk.com
© Union Street Technologies Ltd. Terms and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and are hereby acknowledged.
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