Billing
Verizon Business provides a comprehensive set of billing capabilities for the collection, aggregation, formatting, and reporting of billing and accounting information for FTS2001 Bridge customers. These billing systems are currently provided to large commercial customers of global integrated services. Verizon Business offers the GSA and federal government customers a number of distinct billing benefits:
- Use of Existing Commercial Systems. Use of the same Verizon Business proven systems, processes, and procedures that have successfully supported Verizon Business' largest global customers.
- Trained and Experienced Billing Professionals. Support from trained billing professionals experienced in the areas of billing production, audit and control functions, who can quickly identify and manage invoice-related issues to ensure on-time, accurate invoicing.
- Commercial Product, Feature and Enhancement Availability. With the Verizon Business commercial billing systems, we can offer simultaneous new product, feature and enhancement availability once approved as a modification to the FTS2001 Bridge contract.
- Effective and Efficient Billing Tools. Invoice features, reports and billing analysis tools can enable government customers to effectively and efficiently analyze their telecommunications use, costs and trends in easy-to-understand formats.
Benefits of the Verizon Business billing systems include:
- Distributed processing to ensure on-time, accurate invoice delivery
- Multiple audit and control points throughout the billing process
- Use of multiple invoice distribution centers to ensure invoice timeliness
- Comprehensive flat files for electronic bill processing and audit verification
The basic invoicing functionality inherent within these commercial systems enables Verizon Business to produce payable invoices for both the centralized and direct billing options.
Centralized and Direct Billing Options
For centralized billing, Verizon Business will deliver invoices and Customer Data Records (CDR) to GSA for payment and processing. At the government's request, Verizon Business will deliver its CDR data directly to an agency or sub-agency in electronic media consistent with commercial practice.
For direct-billed customers, Verizon Business will provide invoices and CDRs to each agency or sub-agency, as directed by the PMO, for payment and processing. The CDR for the direct billing option will show the same data fields as the CDR for the centralized billing option.
Verizon Business Production Data Centers
Verizon Business utilizes production data centers to process invoice information. Each production center has an associated distribution center. This method of distributed processing and production not only facilitates invoice availability, but also provides invoice production redundancy. Use of multiple data centers and distribution centers significantly reduces potential risk associated with the monthly invoice production process and helps ensure that any potential delays resulting from natural disasters are transparent to Verizon Business' customers.
Each of Verizon Business' key commercial billing systems collect, aggregate, and format billing and accounting data following the same basic steps. Billing systems interface with other key processing systems to ensure accurate, consistent data across services. This exchange and sharing of information across Verizon Business systems ensures that customers receive consistent service, in terms that make sense to them, from Verizon Business customer service and customer-provided tools (e.g., Network Management, Billing Analysis), regardless of the "behind-the-scene" systems used to provide the service.
The billing process consists of four primary functions:
- Gather and Process Customer Data. This requires interfacing with the order entry systems to obtain key customer information, such as billing name and address, account numbers, service features provided, and circuit numbers, as well as interfacing with systems that capture information from the network, such as adjunct processors that contain call usage information.
- Price. Each system supports various pricing methods for the products or services for which it bills. Generally, systems support both commercial and customer-specific pricing scenarios at a minimum.
- Prepare Invoice. Priced information is mapped against key customer information such as account numbers, billing addresses, and defined billing hierarchies. Charge information is summarized for invoice supporting reports.
- Produce Invoice. Invoice-ready information is provided to the distribution centers for physical production of the invoices.
