The Rate Card is one of the core billing objects used by the system. It is used to store prices against tariffs and tariff groups belonging to telephony-based services. Telephony services include:
- PSTN / ISDN phone services
- VoIP services
- Mobile phone services
Inside a rate card are a list of tariffs that is provided to Emersion by the carriers. Service providers enter their buy or sell prices against different tariffs and tariff groups. This is a similar process as entering prices against products within a product rate card.
A tariff is a single call type that can attract a charge. Examples include a local call, a national call, an international call to USA (landline), an international call to a UK mobile, etc.
A rate in the context of a rate card, is a price entered against a tariff.
Once the rate card is built and prices configured, it is then attached to a service plan.
As with all billing objects, buy prices are stored in a BUY rate card and sell prices are stored in the SELL rate card. See the BUY and SELL fundamentals article for further information on buy / sell structures in Emersion.
Carriers must provide Emersion with the tariffs needed for the Rate Cards. The tariffs in a Rate Card are globally available to all service providers reselling these services. If the tariff is not supplied to us, a price cannot be placed against it.
Included Value
Service providers can optionally nominate the tariffs that comprise a customer's included value allowance when they subscribe to a telephony service. The included value allowance itself is defined against the service plan.
Rating
Telephony carriers (such as Telstra, Optus, AAPT, etc) provide call data records (CDRs) containing all services and their associated usage. Each usage record contains a tariff key that defines the usage type incurred. The system looks up the tariff key in the rate card to determine the rating method to apply when calculating the charges to the customer.
Rate Profiles
Emersion supports a number of rate profiles that provide very flexible pricing options for telephony usage. When entering a rate, a rate profile must be selected.
Call Itemisation on Invoices
Emersion offers multiple ways to Include or omit call itemisation for retail invoices. Refer to the call itemisation settings of the invoice layout section of the invoice template, and the invoice design settings related to itemisation.
Call itemisation on invoices not available for wholesale service providers. Usage charges are instead provided via Service Information Records (SIRs).