Note 9: Important Data Concepts

Posted: 18 December 2005

Five core concepts

The billing process operates on data collected from customers, networks, marketing and other sources. Billing applications contain a range of customer, network and marketing concepts, but a core set forms the basic framework that anchors bill processing. This basic framework is then supplemented by vendor, industry and biller specific extensions.

A data concept is implemented as a structured grouping of related fields into one or more related 'databases' that billing processes can reference during bill processing. A customer's database entries will be updated over time reflecting their ongoing interaction with the biller and its network(s).

Core data concepts are often shared across different functional areas within the biller, but each functional area focuses on the specifics relevant to its local operational needs. For example, a network function (e.g. activation) will focus on the network-specific data (fields) representing a telephone service whilst billing will focus on different billing-centric data (fields).

In this example, the data concept of a network 'telephone service' is 'shared' across functional domains through the use of a common and unique identifier, the telephone number. Identifiers such as these allow databases to be reconciled and other cross-domain processing to be performed without the forcing the replication, and much worse, maintenance of all data fields across a biller's entire operational environment.

The five core data concepts are:

Customer identifies each external person or business entity involved in or responsible for billing or subsequent bill payment.
Accounts are the structural entity at which the billable charges incurred against a customer's network services are aggregated to form bills, and the entity against which (pre-paid) credit / (post-paid) debt amounts are often stored.
Service entities differ the most between industries and network technologies as they represent the network delivery point for the biller's market offerings.
Products represent what the biller sells to its customers including network (e.g. consumption) and non-network (e.g. pricing plans) offerings.
Billing Hierarchies are a relationship structure that associates customers, their accounts and related services. In more complex (corporate) billing, hierarchies can link network services into sub-groupings for use in bill presentation and pricing.

Seven secondary concepts

Important second-level data concepts are either generated by the billing act, or extend / support the billing relationship and include:

Taxation
Address
Contact History
Notes
Bill Details
Disputes
Financial Postings

Databases of Record

The core data concepts listed above represent key information that must be shared accurately and consistently across multiple functional domains within the biller (e.g. products), and therefore the databases that hold these concepts are often classified as databases of record. Databases of record (DBoR) are the referential 'points-of-truth' used when determining an accurate and definitive value for a data value or record.

DBoRs are updated in one 'location' using a consistent update process, even when copies of the database are stored in multiple locations around the biller. The 'primary' or 'master' database is deemed to be the 'truth', with all databases being 'secondary' or 'slave' copies of this information. Additional processing costs and complexity may be incurred associated with database replication and alignment to maintain the 'primary' database's status as a DBoR reference point.

Tags: Billing, Data