Billing Speci fication · 2020-07-07 · Your mobile subscriptions are paid for in advance and are...

RESELLERS

ZEST4 BILLING SPECIFICATION - VALID a/o JULY 2020

Billing Specification2020 (V5.1)

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CONTENTS

ZEST4 BILLING SPECIFICATION - VALID a/o JULY 2020 02

Billing Introduction ➜

Invoicing & Monthly CDR Delivery SLAs ➜

Need-To-Knows ➜

05 - What is Pro Rata Billing? ➜

06 - What is Pro Rata Bundle Allowance? ➜

07 - First invoice after tariff / bolt-on amend for full cost ➜

08 - How does alerting work with Zest4? ➜

Daily CDR Files ➜

M2M / IoT ➜

Using the Zest4 Customer Portal ➜

12 - Invoice View ➜

14 - Tariff Class Look Up ➜

14 - Daily CDRs ➜

14 - SFTIP ➜

14 - Unbilled Month to Date View ➜

Zest4 CDR/LDR Specification Documents ➜

How to Open and Edit a Zest4 Monthly CDR File ➜

Contact Us ➜CON

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INTRODUCTION

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INTRODUCTION

This document outlines how Zest4 provides billing data for our resellers and how, in turn, this data can be used to bill a customer base.

We at Zest4 offer a growing number of services and work with a number of different suppliers providing you and your customers with the best and most competitive Unified Communications solutions.

As a Zest4 reseller you will be able to take advantage of our unique relationships with different service providers while only needing to deal with one company to bill your customer base.

Call/Line Detail Files provided by Zest4 to our resellers will come to you after being processed through our billing system and so will arrive ready to be uploaded into your billing system on a daily and monthly basis.

This document will explain the basics and will also help you in setting up your own billing system so that it is ready to process Zest4 CDRs with ease.


INVOICING & MONTHLY CDR DELIVERY SLAs

INVOICING & MONTHLY CDR DELIVERY SLAs

Zest4 receive final call files, for fixed, data, hosted and mobile connections, from the networks between the 1st and 3rd working day of each month. Therefore all usage is captured from the previous month as part of the monthly bill run.

Zest4 M2M solutions are multiple supplier and multiple network solutions. For this reason, against some networks the final CDRs come into us between the 6th and 10th working day. This is too late for our standard bill run and therefore to prevent delays in billing other services the billing for M2M services works slightly differently:

• Rental for M2M is billed monthly in advance. • For some network’s usage is billed two months in arrears

and for others one month in arrears. • For some M2M suppliers, billed usage may only be available

to the 19th of the given month. (e.g. October 2019 Invoice Run may contain data up to 19th August 2019)

• Most Vodafone M2M usage files are delivered 24 hours in arrears and usage is available for viewing under Zest4 Customer Portal unbilled section.

Call files are processed by Zest4 upon receipt from the network and CDR’s are sent to re-sellers on the 3rd/4th working day of each month. Zest4 provides a single CDR file containing call data from all networks.

Zest4 makes every endeavour to get call files out to our partners as soon as possible.

PDF invoices will be available to view on the Zest4 Customer Portal on the 3rd/4th working day of the month.

An LDR File, which we suggest is used for reconciliation purposes only, is provided and will be available on the portal alongside the above.

Zest4’s CDR’s/LDR’s are made available on the Zest4 Customer Portal. As soon as the files are available on the Portal, they will also be available via SFTP. If you have any problems downloading the files or if for any reason your file has not arrived, please contact our Billing Department.

https://www.zest4customers.com









NEED-TO-KNOWS - What is Pro Rata Billing?

What is Pro Rata Billing?

For information on file formats, please see Reseller CDR Specification files which are available in the Zest4 Billing section of our Marketing Portal which can be accessed via: marketing.zest4.com

Your mobile subscriptions are paid for in advance and are based on a set monthly bill date (1st of every month). As such, on a connection’s first invoice or first invoice after a change in tariff, there will often be some pro rata billing coming into effect.

Example first invoice:

This is when the additional Line Rental (LR) cost that hadn’t been charged in advance, is added to the first full month’s LR cost. For example, if your monthly LR for a mobile connection is £10 pcm and your subscription connected on the 16th of September; then your first invoice dated the 1st October, will cover all of October’s LR, plus catching up on the unpaid 15 days (16th – 30th Sept inc.) prior to the first invoice. This would make the October 1st invoice LR total for the subscription = £15.00 (£10 + £5).

Example first invoice after tariff / bolt-on amendment:

This is when the additional Line Rental (LR) cost that hadn’t been charged in advance, is added to the first full month’s LR cost. For example, if your monthly LR for a mobile connection is £10 pcm and your subscription connected on the 16th of September; then your first invoice dated the 1st October will cover all of October’s LR plus catching up on the unpaid 15 days (16th – 30th Sept inc.) prior to the first invoice. This would make the October 1st invoice LR total for the subscription = £15.00 (£10 + £5).

http://marketing.zest4.com



NEED-TO-KNOWS - What is Pro Rata Bundle Allowance?

What is Pro Rata Bundle Allowance?

Like pro rata billing, pro rata bundle allowance also occurs in the first month after initial connection and/or during the month of any amendment.

Example - International minutes bolt-on applied:

When we quote a price for any bolt-on, that package is based on the bolt-on being applied during the whole billing period of any given month. However, if you apply a bolt-on part way through a month you will only receive part of the allowance (as you will only be billed part of the Line Rental (LR) cost – please see the example on the next page for full cost explanation).


NEED-TO-KNOWS - First invoice after tariff / bolt-on amend for full cost

First invoice after tariff / bolt-on amend for full cost

If you apply a 100-minute international bolt-on against a subscription on the 16th of September, because your bill date falls on the 1st of the month you will only receive half of the international allowance (approx. 50 minutes) for the remainder of that month (16th – 30th Sept). This pro rating of Line Rental (LR) and allowances applies to all tariff/bolt-on types apart from one exception:

Data Top-Ups:

The only exception to the above is when you add a Data Top Up bundle. When you apply a Data Top Up bundle to a number, the full Line Rental (LR) is charged for the month. This is irrespective of the date in the month that the bundle is added. The bundle also gives the number the full allowance of data, again irrespective of the date in the month that the bundle is added. Even if the Top Up bundle is added on the last day of the month, the full LR will be charged on the following month’s invoice, and the full bundle allowance given. There is no pro-rating. The bundle will apply to data used from the date and time that the bundle is added, to midnight on the last day of the calendar month in which the bundle was added. The billing system will automatically remove the Top Up bundle immediately after the last day of the calendar month.

If any Top Up bundle is requested over a weekend/bank holiday, the top up bundle will be backdated on the billing system, to the date that the bundle was requested through the Zest4 Customer Portal.




NEED-TO-KNOWS - How does alerting work with Zest4?

How does alerting work with Zest4?

Zest4 offer a range of default and bespoke alerting for our Mobile and M2M products.

Alerting on all networks cannot be guaranteed, therefore can only be used as a guideline to usage – call processing, delays at the network, a data session starting and ending, system failures, can all contribute to delays and issues with alerts – Zest4 endeavours to send all alerts to users, however alerts are never 100% guaranteed and on rare occasions, some alerts may not be sent. Alerts should not be relied upon as a credit control method.

A detailed guide to Alerting is available to download via the Zest4 Customer Portal or via the link on the right. Once logged in to the Customer Portal, simply go to the Marketing section option at the top which will link you through to the Marketing Portal - then head over to: Training > Guides.

The portal also includes the Ofcom Spend Cap Authorisation form.

For in-depth information on alerting please view the latest Zest4 Alerting Guide.

RESELLERS / CUSTOMERS

2020ZEST4 ALERTING GUIDE - VALID a/o JULY 2020

Guide to

Alerting

⤓ Download

https://marketing.zest4.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Zest4-Alerting-Guide-2020-July-V2.pdf









DAILY CDR FILES

DAILY CDR FILES

Daily CDR files are available on the Zest4 Billing Portal. There is a file produced hourly, and for this reason we recommend you set up SFTP to automatically download the files. Please contact our Billing team ([email protected]) to be set up with SFTP.

Daily CDR files are in the exact same format as the monthly CDR file we provide. For a full CDR specification document please see the Zest4 Marketing Portal: marketing.zest4.com

Different Networks send daily calls at different times and frequencies. Therefore, expect to see different call mixes in different files. O2 ABS send files throughout the day and are normally 6 – 12 hours behind.

Other Fixed and Mobile Networks send one file a day and no daily files are generated for 8x8, due to this limitation the data received on the unbilled CDRs provided by Zest4 will generally be 2 – 3 days behind. This delay is not created by Zest4 and cannot be improved upon and so it is important to remember that the data in the call file is not always up to the current date.

It is also important to remember that unbilled data received from networks may not always be 100% accurate, often usage will come through late or not at all.

*Unbilled CDRs should not be used to onward bill and should only be used to monitor customer usage. A monthly CDR file will be provided each month including all calls and with all rating completed, this file should be used to onward bill*

Often during our billing run there will be limited CDR file availability. A file will be provided on the first working day of the month. Depending on the network a limited number of subsequent files will be delivered after this point until the invoice run is complete. Once the invoice run is complete normal service will resume.




M2M / IoT

M2M / IoT

Daily CDR files are unavailable for some M2M connections (dependent on the network providing the M2M service).

Dependent on the M2M solution we have supplied, you may be able to access management information on your M2M SIM estate.

If your M2M solution is a managed solution and has the Arkessa APN, you can view your estate via Zest4 Connect.

Our business partners and end users are able to monitor their M2M usage in real-time by accessing the Zest4Connect portal.

For log in details or account issues please contact our Service team via [email protected]

https://zest4connect.com

mailto:[email protected]

https://zest4connect.com



USING THE ZEST4 CUSTOMER PORTAL

Using the Zest4 Customer Portal and How to Download Your Monthly & Daily Billing Files/View Invoices

The Zest4 Customer Portal can be accessed at: www.zest4customers.com

All resellers will receive an email invite as part of their on-boarding process, and must click on the link to set up their password before logging on.

The initial email will be sent to the registered email address we hold on our system, subsequent reseller or customer users can then be created by this user.

http://www.zest4customers.com

http://www.zest4customers.com


USING THE ZEST4 CUSTOMER PORTAL - Invoice View

Invoice ViewOnce the user logs on they will see the following options:

Customers will allow the user to view invoice details and set up new users. Click on the Blue Box containing the account number to view the invoice details.

The boxes across the top denote the invoice – the date and the invoice number are quoted. The user can click on the relevant invoice and the details of this invoice are populated in the box below:

Scroll down to see the breakdown of services for this given invoice. This gives the handset number, username and the charges on the invoice. Again, if the user clicks on a different invoice the breakdown of services changes accordingly.

The user is able to download their invoice PDF, a .csv file of all line rental items (LDR) and a .csv of the calls on the selected invoice (CDR).

Note that for Resellers this is your monthly CDR in your usual format to be uploaded into your billing system, and your LDR in CSV format (Text). You can log on and download them, or collect them by SFTP, and they will be ready as soon as your monthly invoice is ready.


USING THE ZEST4 CUSTOMER PORTAL - Invoice View

It is also possible to download a CSV of calls for a given service, but not PDF.

The handset view can be changed to an overview of the charges if required:


USING THE ZEST4 CUSTOMER PORTAL - Tariff Class Look Up / Daily CDRs / SFTP / Unbilled Month to Date View

Tariff Class Look UpTariff class look ups are available to download either by specific network or for all networks. This can be run from the portal and will always be as up to date as our billing system.

New call classes are added monthly and so a tariff class look up should be downloaded each month prior to running your own invoice run.

In order to download a tariff class, look up – log in to the portal and click on the Reports tab as seen below.

Select the tariff classes report and click the green ‘Run Report’ button. This will take you to a new page, select the network and click download CSV report or view in window.

SFTPTo be set up with SFTP please contact our Billing Team: [email protected]

Daily CDRsDaily CDRs are delivered into the Downloads Section of the portal.

They can be manually downloaded or collected by SFTP. We recommend collecting by SFTP due to the frequency of the file delivery.

Unbilled Month to Date ViewDaily CDRs are designed to give our Resellers regular files to upload into their billing systems in order to monitor usage. If a reseller does not automatically upload their files, it is still possible to obtain a simple month to date view of their unbilled usage via the Zest4 Customer Portal. Navigate to the Unbilled Tab of the Customer Portal. Selecting the CALLS Button will download a Pipe Delimited CSV file – this is the usual format supplied for upload into a billing system. Follow the steps given later in this document to open the file into Excel, if required.




ZEST4 CDR/LDR SPECIFICATION DOCUMENTS

ZEST4 CDR/LDR SPECIFICATION DOCUMENTS

Specification documents are available in the Billing area of the Marketing Portal.

Please note that there may be slight differences in the data contained in each column between the monthly and daily CDR files, due to this separate specification documents are provided for both unbilled and monthly CDR files. Once CDR file is provided with data from all networks (separate CDR examples are simply to show the difference in data between networks).

An LDR Specification Document is also available.

https://marketing.zest4.com

https://marketing.zest4.com


HOW TO OPEN & EDIT A ZEST4 MONTHLY CDR FILE


The monthly CDR file that we provide our resellers is ready to be loaded straight into your billing system. It is not recommended to open and edit the file before doing this, but we understand that in some circumstances you will need to be able to do this even if just to look at the data we have sent you.

Please be careful not to change the data format or to save over the original copy of the CDR we send as this could affect your invoice run. This guide will show you how to open the file step by step.

Step One: Locate the file you wish to open, select this file and drag a copy of it to your desktop.



Step Two: Open a new Excel workbook, drag and drop the file into the Excel window.

Step Three: Select row A, go to the data tab at the top and click on Text to Columns.



Step Four: Ensure Delimited is selected and click next. Step Five: You can leave Tab and Comma selected but then select other. In the text box press the shift key and the | (pipe) key together. This Key has the symbols | and \ on and is located between the shift and Z keys on your keyboard.



Step Six: Select all the data in the Data Preview box by holding shift and selecting - change the column data format to Text and then click complete.

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CONTACT US

For general billing queries please raise a Billing Query/Support 1st Line Support Ticket on the Zest Customer Portal, or email [email protected].

For escalated billing queries, or queries regarding CDRs/LDRs and the monthly Invoice Run, please raise a support ticket using the Billing Query/Support 2nd Line ticket type, or email [email protected].

Please note that Zest4 Customer Portal Service Tickets are our preferred method of contact and will be prioritised over emails.

If you need any assistance in using the Customer Portal, please contact our Service Team.





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