Release 46

Invoice-related Account Comment Generation Optimized (DEV-10112)

This feature eliminates account comments about unstatementized invoices. Now, only statementized invoices generate account comments, optimizing data sync and storage. Account comments are available via the Account Overview screen for a specified account.

New UI Features for Refund Extension Functionality (DEV-10185)

In the Billing Cloud UI, it is now possible to open a paid line item payment and adjust it in the amount of an issued refund. Go to the Refunds screen (Accounts > [search for an account] > Payments & Credits > Refunds > New) to select the new "No, open paid line items" option in the Include Invoice Line Item Reversal? drop-down.This type of refund is effective to grant refunds on chargebacks and cases where discounts were not applied, allowing CSRs time to substantiate the claim and to quickly resolve the initial customer request with a refund transaction. It also allows you to delay immediate revenue reduction.  

In addition, Billing Cloud’s Refund feature now allows external refunds on electronic payments after surpassing the refundable deadline for the payment gateway or method. Refunds can then be issued in check form or any method processed outside Aria and recorded. It is recommended to set "Refundable Payment Maximum Days" via Configuration > Payments > Payment Settings to exceed the payment processor deadline by an ample margin to ensure an external refund can be issued. 

For more information on issuing refunds, click here. 

UI Enhanced To Enable Specification of Fulfillment Date and Additional Billing Directives for Bundled NSOs (DEV-10628)

This feature enhances the UI field 'Inventory Items Billing Assignment' in Accounts > [search for an account] > Plans > Add new plan to support the billing options 2 (Order Held), 3 (Fulfill on fulfillment date. Bill on the next anniversary bill after the fulfillment date), 4 (Fulfill on fulfillment date. Bill on the fulfillment date), and 5 (Fulfill on fulfillment date. Bill on the next anniversary bill that bills arrears services through the fulfillment date).

Support For Multiple Email Domains For Email Notifications and Reporting (DEV-10660)

This feature enhances the client parameter NON_PROD_ALLOWED_EMAIL_DOMAIN, allowing you to specify multiple domains for Email Notifications and Reporting in your non-production Aria environments. The value of this parameter can support not only  a semi-colon-delimited (;) list of text strings, but also wildcards as the leftmost part of those strings (e.g. *.mydomain.com, *.test.mydomain.com).

Note: This parameter is not available in the Aria UI. If you want to leverage this new feature, talk to your Aria Implementation Consultant.

Account Billing Group Modified Event Notification Enabled (DEV-10718)

The Account Billing Group Modified Event Notification is now triggered when one payment term is changed to another payment term for the same Billing Group. For example, when selecting the Payment selection button “Term” and Terms selection button “Test Payment Term” from the default in the Billing Group Details screen, a notification email will be generated.

For more information on Events Notifications best practices, go here. 

Contract Expiry Prior Notifications Now Sent At Master Plan Instance Level (DEV-10733)

This feature updates the Contract Expiry Prior Notifications behavior for multi-plan contracts so only one notification is sent, based on the Master Plan Instance. Previously, multiple notifications were sent, one for each plan instance, when there was a Master and Supplemental Plan.

You can specify when you want Contract Expiry Prior Notifications to be sent when configuring the Contract Expiry/Renewal email template. Learn more about creating an Email Template.

Reason Code Drop-Down Enhanced for Assigning Coupons (DEV-10734)

The Reason Code drop-down menu in the Assign Coupon screen has been enhanced to display all applicable reasons code types for selection. To access, click Accounts > [search for an account] > Payments & Credits > Coupons > Assign Coupon. Global Reason Codes of the Coupon type can be viewed via Finance > Reason Codes.

Learn more about Reason Codes from here.

Payment Method Now Mapped to Billing Group in Accounts (DEV-10736)

The Billing Group mapped to the payment method now appears in the Billing Group History dialog, providing more detailed account billing group information. To view, go to Accounts > [search for an account] > Plans > Billing Groups > Billing Group History/Action Detail column. 

Ability To Show Tax Detail For Child Accounts on Parent Account Statements (DEV-10749)

This feature adds the ability to display on Parent Account statements additional data related to Child Account charges and contact information. Charge information includes:

Account contact information includes:

Talk to your Aria Implementation Consultant to find out how you can configure and use a Parent-Child statement template. Find out more about Parent-Child account hierarchies. 

Application Fixes 

• The following issues were resolved:
  • When the “Recurring In Arrears Invoicing Behavior” client parameter is set to 1 and a Proration invoice is generated after plan replacement, the generated Proration invoice now correctly calculates the volume discount and/or flat rate per tier pricing using the new rate schedule. Previously, the old rate schedule was used which resulted in an error.
  • When a multi-tier rate plan has multiple services, each service line is processed based on the rate tier. Previously, all service lines were incorrectly processed together for a given plan resulting in an incorrect volume discount and/or flat rate per tier calculation. (TICKET-18880)
• When setting Custom Rates for a plan that has the “Recurring In Arrears Invoicing Behavior” client parameter set to 0, the recurring arrears charge calculation now uses existing plan rates to ensure the custom rates are used for anniversary invoice generation. Previously the catalog plan rates were used in the recurring arrears charge calculation instead of the existing plan rates. (TICKET-18882)
• The XML Master File for statements generated during the nightly batch now includes all unsent statements in a client instance as expected. (TICKET-18913)
• The option to change the dunning state from "Complete" to "None" has been made available through the Dunning State Management UI found in Accounts > [select an account] > Plans > Non-Provisioned Plans > [select suspended plan] > Dunning State link. Previously, changing the dunning state to “None” was only available through the update_acct_plan_status_m API. (TICKET-18921)

API Support for Refund Extension Functionality (DEV-10185)(1 of 2)

To support the new Refund Extension functionality for the Open paid line items (<open_paid_line_items>) refund type, the issue_refund_to_acct_m and get_refund_details_m API were updated with additional input and output parameters, respectively. 

The following input parameters were added to the issue_refund_to_acct_m API:

The following output parameters were added to the get_refund_details_m API:

Error Handling for Refund Extension Functionality (DEV-10185)(2 of 2)

Error handling was introduced for the Refund Extension feature for validation purposes. This validation would apply to the use of the issue_refund_to_acct_m and get_refund_details_m APIs to issue a refund via the Open paid line items method and retrieve details about the refund. 

For error handling, the following Error codes and messages were added to support the Open paid line items feature: 

Billing Group's Collection Group Now Honored in update_payment_method_m (DEV-10199)

Four new optional billing group inputs have been added to the update_payment_method_m API to capture the Billing Group's Collection Account Group for greater efficiency in payment authorization. These inputs are as follows:

The following error messages will now be returned for update_payment_method_m:

Specifying Fulfillment Date and Billing Directives for Bundled NSOs (DEV-10628)

This feature adds the new input field <nso_fulfillment_date> to the API calls create_acct_complete_m, assign_acct_plan_m, and update_acct_plan_multi_m, allowing you to specify a fulfillment date for NSOs bundled with plans.

In addition, the <nso_bill_immediately> field now allows the following values:

• 0–Fulfill immediately. Bill on next anniversary. (existing Allowable Value)
• 1–Fulfill immediately. Bill immediately. (Existing Allowable Value)
• 2–Keep the order in "Order Held" status. It can be updated to other directives via a call to the update_order_m API. (new in Release 46)
  
  The new options 3, 4, and 5 of <nso_bill_immediately> will "Place/Fill" the order so it is queued for fulfillment based on <nso_fulfillment_date> as detailed below:
   
• 3–Fulfill on fulfillment date. Bill on the next anniversary bill after the fulfillment date. (new in Release 46)
• 4–Fulfill on fulfillment date. Bill on the fulfillment date. (new in Release 46)
• 5–Fulfill on fulfillment date. Bill on the next anniversary bill that bills arrears services through the fulfillment date. (new in Release 46)

Payment Method Now Mapped to Billing Group in record_alternative_payment_m API (DEV-10736)

The following have been added as inputs to the record_alternative_payment_m API to start honoring the Billing Group to be mapped with the payment method to enhance billing efficiency.

The following existing error messages will now be returned for record_alternative_payment_m:

Ability To Filter Billed or Unbilled Usage In get_usage_history_m (DEV-10748)

The get_usage_history_m API has been enhanced with the input field <billed_filter>, allowing you to retrieve only billed or unbilled usage records when used in combination with other filters.

API Fixes 

• The API call update_acct_plan_multi_m now executes both immediate and queued billing directives for non-subscription offerings (NSOs) as expected. When NSOs are queued for a future date as specified by the value of <nso_bill_immediately>, NSO information is shown on the Future Plan Changes tab under [specified account] > Plans, and the NSO is billed as specified.  (TICKET-18922)