Billing systems: CBS-AIP

The Carrier Billing System (hereinafter: CBS) is a general solution developed by Daten-Kontor Kft. to support its own and third-party settlement in an integrated manner. The system has a modular structure and it represents a ready-made solution for the full-scale business support of settlement tasks. The architecture of the system ensures flexibility for its use and for the independent use of functions depending on business needs. Our highly-qualified colleagues perform the implementation of the system in line with Daten-Kontor Kft.'s quality assurance. The core of the system consists of four parts:

1. Settlement module
2. Billing module
3. Interface module
4. Work Flow module


Potential of the system

The crucial factor of business success in the 21st century is information. Making use of the potential of the CBS system, the information related to business processes can be extracted easily and shared with decision-makers thus supporting planning tasks and highlighting the possibly weak points of the business processes. In the age of continuous changes, the CBS system offers a solution that is flexible and extendable to the appropriate extent.

Cutting costs and increasing profit

Our CBS solution offers a high-standard business solution for production companies and service providers with fast and safe implementation as well as plannable costs. For the support of future development, the system built onto open standards assists the settlement of income, the completion of billing tasks and the checking of incoming invoices by means of an optimized functionality. It also supports the clear overview of business the increase of efficiency. Owing to automatisms, the processing time related to business processes decreases and becomes plannable thus making information necessary for business decision-making available in time by the use of the system. Additionally, the human resource needs of a settlement system developed in a proper way are also low both from the aspect of operation and from the point of view of the operative number of settlement staff.

Flexibility

The modules implemented in the system are connected with one another, and as such, because of the WorkFlow engine it can be simply modified and flexibly set.

We develop the following billing systems:

CBS-AIP

CBS-AIP (AirPassenger Ticket Revenue Accounting) is a solution developed especially for the support of internal and external settlement of airlines. The system is based on the following modules of the general CBS solution of Daten-Kontor:

1. Interface module
2. Settlement module


The essential tasks and objectives of the system

The task of the CBS-AIP system is to process the hard-copy and electronic documents related to air passenger transport in the appropriate manner, to keep and receive incoming invoices, to generate outgoing invoices and to provide communication with the accounting systems; and all this by means of an interface which users can manage easily and overview clearly.

The system is automated to an optimized degree, i.e. all process steps in case of which no approval and creation of supervision points are necessary take place automatically, and only those items in case of which the integrated business logics are not capable of making a decision, i.e. user intervention is required remain “standing” at the individual supervision points. All items which the integrated automated supervision points have found adequate will pass through the settlement process and be finally booked.

The functionality implemented by the system

Interface module

The task of the interface module is to process the files of heterogeneous structure arriving from the various basic systems creating such homogeneous files that will constitute the input data of the Settlement module. The module knows and manages the standard data files applied in the air transport industry and the individual needs of the partners can be adjusted to them simply and easily. The interface module manages the incoming and outgoing files (e-ticket LIFT, BSP HOT, ARC, IDEC, ICH, TCN, etc.) related to sales, ticket use and settlement between airlines, and it supplies the analytic and batched information necessary for book-keeping.

In general about the interface module:

The interface module implements the link to the standard systems of the industry;

It manages the files complying with industrial standards (BSP HOT, ARC, IDEC, ICH, TCN, etc.);

The system can connect to Purchaser's business management and pricing systems;

It is capable of processing the files of Purchaser’s systems (e.g. the files of the database of the given airline);

Any special interface, by means of which connection to any external database is feasible, can be developed with the system;

The system is an adequate solution for establishing a connection with the interline e-ticket systems and for processing files. As this is different in case of each airline, it may be necessary to adjust it to the appropriate system of the airline.

The incoming data are validated (e.g. in case of Sales Reports only existing agent codes may involve sales);

It provides proper communication with Purchaser’s GL system.

Settlement module

The CPS-AIP system manages as many various currencies and related exchange rates as are necessary in the course of settlement;

It provides for the simultaneous operation of numerous various settlement periods in the course of settlement: simultaneous management of sales-, ticket-use- and settlement periods;

It is able to process BSP/ARC files and it creates ‘total’ rows making the processing and loading process supervisable;

It provides a proper solution for the management of taxes and commissions;

It manages commissions that can be fixed or percentage-based depending on the value of the ticket, the latter possibly meaning taxes or fares;

In compliance with the industrial standards, it automatically generates ADMs and ACMs;

It automatically processes incoming files, i.e. the fewest possible number of manual intervention is necessary. Only if the system regards the given items as erroneous or inappropriate from the point of view of settlement must users interfere with the processes;

It provides a full-scale settlement process, whose results can be aggregated for Sales Reports and can be handed over to the GL system;

It has a reliable pro-rating function, which manages SRP, MPA and SPA agreements and can function as an operable service solution even on its own. Pro-rating can take place fully automatically if the given items match the supervisory and validating options preceding pro-rating;

It supports both the manual and the automatic management of Refunds (Seat reservation systems and BSP, ARC, ATPCO as well);

The settled taxes can be reported; by the customization of the function it can be made compliant with the local legal requirements;

It is able to process files arriving from the RATD – Revenue Accounting Tax Database system;

If the input data of the settlement process are do not load automatically, manual recording can be performed too (ticket number, coupon number, check digit, fair basis, date of issue, validity, city pair, booking class etc.);

It is capable of managing the following settlement areas:

• Sales settlement,
• Uplift line settlement,
• Uplift interline OneWorld settlement,
• Uplift interline non-OneWorld settlement,
• Inward settlement;

It represents an adequate solution for the conditions of the OneWorld industrial settlement standard;

In the course of interline settlement it is able to process and report Rejection Memo files and IDEC files;

In the course of interline settlement it is able to produce and report Rejection Memo files and IDEC files;

It issues the first Rejection Memo without manual intervention in case of inappropriate charging;

It manages receivables and payables properly;

It can transfer data to IATA Clearing House (ICH) with a specifiable frequency and it fully complies with the interline settlement standards of IATA;

It provides possibility for manual data recording too (LIFT, ticket exchange, refund, MCO, etc.) on the areas related to interline settlement;

It provides possibility for the automatic supervision of fares, commissions and taxes and the automatic generation of ADM and ACM documents on the basis of a set of related rules;

It displays the settlement items related to invalid documents by means of reports, and on the basis of these it books them on the appropriate GL number automatically generating GL items;

It ensures daily, weekly or monthly data transfer toward the GL system;

By means of a suitable authorization system it guarantees that all users can only use data relevant for them or assigned to them, and can only see data within the functions that they are permitted to see or perform operations on (view, modify, delete, create);

iComm - billing and customer relations business unit:

The DK-iComm application is an integrated commission and incentive settlement system. Its purpose is an integrated management of the commissions due to external and internal sales representatives active in the sales areas of the company (group).

In the course of the planning and development of the system, it was a primary aspect to implement the possibility of quick reaction to the changes of the company’s and company group’s settlement environment. Accordingly, DK developed a system that can be modified and set easily and flexibly by the users (settlement managers) without the further intervention of developers.


In horizontal aspect, the system consists of so-called incentive/settlement areas. The term settlement area refers to every sales agent – sales – settlement rule system set that have some kind of logical relationship with each other. This may refer to the sales agents belonging to the same sales organization, the identity of source systems and sold products/services or even similar settlement rules and methods. The numerosity of the incentive areas that can be created is unlimited in the system.

The DK-iComm system in a vertical point of view: support of the settlements of the individual incentive areas is enabled by a tool system by means of which the manager performing the settlement can always establish the process of the settlement in accordance with the currently valid rule system. The system can handle the settlement of monthly, quarterly, biannual or annual commissions or even the combination of these very flexibly. Custom-defined rules referring to certain sales agents or agent groups can be established, but at the same time, the generally defined rules will remain valid for all the other employees of the incentive area. By this method, the application is able to manage all sales agents either in a unified way or in a customized manner.

Within this framework, the application is capable of either the independent or the hierarchical management of sales (incentive) areas mapped on the basis of the organizational hierarchy.

The steps of the settlement process are supported by the calculation module and the over 60 procedures built into it, by means of which any related calculation step can be implemented. The algorithms unite the series of the individual steps, which being arranged into rules and assigned to employees enable the implementation of the commission settlement process in a flexible manner.

The sales representatives have or may have access to the system and can view the data content accessible to them, i.e. they are the passive users of the system. It usually refers to their own sales and settled commissions. However, it is also possible to manage the sales agents as groups from the point of view of overview. In practice this means that a sales unit manager can only see the data of the sales agents that belong to him/her organizationally, whereas the settlement of various sales groups can take place in a unified manner as well, i.e. within an incentive area.

ICBS - billing and customer relations business unit:

Inter Carrier Billing System

For the players of the telecom market, an inevitable requirement of the liberalized market is the development of a precise and reliable partner service provider settlement and billing system, whose flexibility ensures the establishment of a service (connection, wholesale) portfolio adapting to the expectations of the competitive market and the enforcement of an efficient pricing strategy.

Daten-Kontor Kft. implemented the ICBS system at Magyar Telekom Nyrt (MATÁV’s legal successor) in 2000, on the eve of the opening of the market as Compaq Computer Magyarország Kft’s (Hewlett Packard Magyarország Kft) partner . The functionality of the system has been continuously expanding since the implementation, adjusting to the changing market- and regulation environment, the introduction of new services and the headway of the IP technology.
In 2005, we implemented the ICBS solution at the Macedonian telecommunications company (Makedonski Telekomunikacii – MakTel) as T-System Hungary’s partner. Unlike at Magyar Telekom, besides domestic settlement ICBS supports MakTel’s settlement with international partners as well.

The integrated modules of the ICBS system

The ICBS consists of three components:

DAPRE - Data Preprocessor module (DK fejlesztés),DAPRE - Data Preprocessor module (DK development),InterconnecT (az INTEC Telecom Systems PLC terméke),InterconnecT (INTEC Telecom Systems PLC’s product),DAPRO - Data Provider module and NU - Non-usage module (DK development).

These three components integrated into one system (common platform, database connection) perform:

the reception, converting, unification, checking and validation of CDRs

the identification of rating objects and affected partner service providers, the assignment of the appropriate rates to them and their summary daily and by settlement period,

the support of settlement functions

the settlement of non-usage products

the provision of billing and settlement basic data and turnover statistics for connected systems.