Periods

You can use Period records to define any time intervals used for the accrual of charges. They are used in recurring rules to determine how often to accrue recurring charges and also in the billing events when using split day billing. The system has preloaded some of the most common periods such as Day, Week, and Month, but you can also create custom periods with your own date ranges.

Required?: No. Because the system comes pre-loaded with the standard period types, you only need to configure Period records if you use custom billing records.

Primary Fields

Note: The detail view is only displayed when you create a period with a custom qualifier.

Period/Description

The name and description that identify this period.

Qualifier/Period Qty

The Qualifier and Period Qty determine the repeat rate of the period. The Qualifier gives the interval and the Period Qty specifies the number of those intervals that should occur until the event re-triggers. Qualifiers include:

Month (number of days vary depending on the calendar month)
Day (a single day)
Week (a seven day interval)
Customized Period (User defined dates)

When using a customized period, save the record with a zero in the Period Qty field and a detail screen will allow you to configure user-defined From/To Date. You can also specify a threshold for the number of days to enable the split percentage feature, or specify the date when the split percentage takes effect.

Split Days

Only required if you are using split billing, which bills different amounts based on the specific day (within this period) a charge is accrued. The Split Days value identifies the date to use as the cut-off point for split billing.

For example, for a monthly period type, you might set the split days value to 15. Full charge amounts will be billed on all charges accrued prior to the 15th. A partial charge amount, based on the split billing percentage set on the event group record, will be billed for charges accrued after the 15th.

From Date

The date on which the period starts. Use this field to start the period on a specific date.

For example, if you would like a period that recurs on each Thursday, specifying a From Date that falls on a Thursday and use the Week qualifier, with the quantity set to 1.

To Date

The date on which the period ends.

Period Detail Fields

You create period master records directly in the master list view. However, if you create a period with a custom qualifier, you must display the record details and then create the appropriate period detail records to define each cycle within the customer period.

A list of each date range supported by this custom period is displayed in the detail area. Click the Detail icon to display the details of an existing record, or New to create a new date range.

From Date/To Date: The date range for this portion of the period. This constitutes one cycle within this period.
Period Days: The number of days in this cycle.
Split Days/Split Date: For split billing, the number of days in which to split billing, or an actual date to use for the split.