abillity - Billing Platform BILLity Power, flexibility and control

abillity - Billing Platform BILLity Power, flexibility and control

ABILLITY: THE ULTIMATE IN COMMS BILLING At 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. 1

The speed and flexibility of the abillity platform saves you valuable time, leading to faster bill runs for improved cash flow! abillity offers an outstanding range of features and functions: IMPORTING AND RATING abillity 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! 2

CARRIER RECONCILIATION AND REVENUE ASSURANCE A 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 MANAGEMENT Fraud 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. Multiple fraud plans can be set up to help detect fraud based on differing criteria 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. 3

The abillity bill run process has been designed to be fast and also accurate, reducing errors to maximise your revenue yield. INVOICE PROCESSING The 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 COLLECTIONS abillity 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. CUSTOMER CARE AND CONTACT MANAGEMENT A 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. 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. abillity makes the process of invoice generation simple 4

TARIFF AND CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT abillity 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. 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 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. The Config Manager allows management of all key system tables, for example charge groups, tariffs, commission plans etc 5

The end-user reports generated by abillity are highly valued by customers helping to ensure customer retention. SERVICE PROVISIONING This 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 MANAGEMENT abillity 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 6

END-USER INFORMATION A large range of different reports are available as standard and an almost unlimited range of bespoke reports are available on request. Standard reports include: abillity offers a wide selection of end-user customer reports 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: Customers can view a selection of reports via the web (WebaBILLity Pro) Paper Disk Email Web 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. Numerous internal reports are available to help manage your business 7

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 RESELLERS Whatever 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 OWNERSHIP Many 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. CONTINUOUS PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT POLICY A 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 SPECIFICATION Minimum 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 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. 8

ABILLITY ENTERPRISE SERVER For 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 Carrier Date Files (CDR) Data Rating and Mediation Fraud Management Reconciliation and Revenue Assurance Sales Ledger / Accounts Integration (Sage) CRM Integration (Microsoft Dynamics CRM) BT Openreach WLR3 CPS/IDA Provisioning Invoice / collections Manager Customer Management Manager Service Provisioning Paper Invoice Web Billing Email Invoice BT Openreach WLR3 ServiceDesk Fault Management Reporting Agent/ Sales Commissions Third Party Developers Developers API Microsoft SQL 9

Union Street Technologies Ltd The Courtyard 37 Sheen Road Richmond Surrey TW9 1AJ t: 020 8614 9090 w: unionstreet.uk.com e: info@unionstreet.uk.com CHANNEL ACCOUNT TEAM VENDOR Union Street Technologies Ltd. Terms and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and are hereby acknowledged.