Simple balances and meters use one
balance or meter instance for the entire validity period of the balance or
meter. As rating occurs against the instance, the value can increase and decrease according
to the applied charges, discounts, or grants.
By default, simple balances and meters are
valid immediately and never expire. To limit their availability, you can set
effective start and end dates. The end date can be set to indefinite, to a specific
date, set after the specified time period relative to the start time or purchase
time, or aligned with the end time of the catalog item that creates the balance or
meter.
Important: End time alignment to a catalog
item is for initialization only. If a balance or meter end time is aligned to a
catalog item end time that is modified, an adjustment is required to that
balance or meter because balance and meter end times do not track the purchased
item cycle, billing cycle, and so on.
When the end date occurs, the instance is no longer valid and cannot be used.
A private balance end date (EndTime) can be modified through the
MtxRequestSubscriberTopUpBalance SubMan API. A private balance start date (StartTime)
cannot be modified.
Note: Private balance end dates track the purchased item cycle,
billing cycle, and so on. This is to maintain the balance if the offer end date is
extended and to prevent a private balance from remaining in the database once the
owning offer is no longer valid.
For balances, you typically use the effective dates to grant subscribers prepaid assets that expire, but they can also be used for
postpaid assets or currencies.
Subscribers and groups can have any number of simple balances in their wallets.
