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MATRIXX Pricing and Rating
Pricing
Pricing Plans
Pricing plans define the pricing and policies that allow you to control how you provide services to subscribers and how you are paid for those services. Pricing plans are comprised of catalog items, offers, bundles, and supporting objects required to implement pricing.
Balances and Meters
When you define rates, you specify which balances and meters to impact when rating occurs. The impacts are a result of the price components applied, and represent the financial liabilities to subscribers and groups.
Balances
A balance is a quantity of a currency or asset that is used for tracking and charging for service usage and service-related operations, such as recurring cycle fees.
Managing Balances
You can use MATRIXX Backoffice Customer Tool and any custom applications that call the SubMan APIs to top-up balances, forfeit balances, and adjust balances. You can also set up balance notifications to trigger when balances are created, reach a credit threshold, and expire. Expired balances are removed from subscriber and group walletafter a configured amount of time.
Balance Period Start and End Time
Configure whether balance period start time and end time are adjusted to be within the balance validity time.

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MATRIXX Pricing and Rating
- About Pricing and Rating
  MATRIXX Pricing and Rating provides an introduction to MATRIXX pricing and rating functionality and describes how to define the catalog components necessary for rating and policy selection. It also provides an overview of the MATRIXX rating process and an introduction to My MATRIXX, a web-based user interface application you use to create and manage product catalogs.
- Rating
  The following information describes MATRIXX Charging Application rating functionality.
- Pricing
  - Pricing Overview
    The MATRIXX pricing model is highly flexible and enables you to create innovative service offerings and tailor pricing to subscriber needs. It is compatible with the TM Forum (TMF) Shared Information/Data (SID) model.
  - Pricing Data
    The MATRIXX Engine pricing data model is compatible with the Shared Information/Data (SID) standard, as defined by the TM Forum (TMF).
  - Pricing Corrections and Revisions
    Make corrections and revisions to all pricing items except balance classes, meter classes, balances, meters, and products. For information about product offer versions, see the discussion about product offers.
  - Updating Pricing After Purchase
    Not all pricing items can be updated after pricing is loaded and subscribers are using it.
  - Pricing Plans
    Pricing plans define the pricing and policies that allow you to control how you provide services to subscribers and how you are paid for those services. Pricing plans are comprised of catalog items, offers, bundles, and supporting objects required to implement pricing.
    - Balances and Meters
      When you define rates, you specify which balances and meters to impact when rating occurs. The impacts are a result of the price components applied, and represent the financial liabilities to subscribers and groups.
      - Balances
        A balance is a quantity of a currency or asset that is used for tracking and charging for service usage and service-related operations, such as recurring cycle fees.
        Balance Classes
        A balance class defines a unit type and a measurement unit for all balance templates of that class. The unit type determines how the service impacting the balance is measured by duration, volume, or none.
        Balance Templates
        A balance template has balance-specific information, including the balance name and ID, start and end dates, thresholds, whether it is a periodic balance, and whether it is shared by a group.
        Balance Template Extension
        Balance templates can be extended during configuration to include custom fields that hold provider-specific information. The custom fields can be identified in normalizers to influence how charging occurs. The field values are automatically included in notifications and Event Detail Records (EDRs) in the TemplateAttr field.
        Periodic Balances
        A _glossary/periodic_balance.html represents a sequence of intervals that are impacted during rating. Each interval is identified by an ID and is valid for a different period of time. Each interval can also contain a different amount. This is unlike simple balances where the entire balance contains one amount.
        Actual Currency and Pseudo-Currency Balances
        A currency balance can be an actual currency balance (a financial medium of exchange, such as the Euro and the US Dollar) or a _glossary/pseudo-currency_balance.html.
        Main Balances
        A main balance is an actual currency balance in a subscriber or group wallet. An actual currency balance represents real money and not a _glossary/pseudo-currency_balance.html (such as vouchers). For more information about actual currency balances and pseudo-currency balances, see the discussion about balances.
        Prepaid Balances
        A prepaid balance is created when a subscriber purchases a credit in advance of service usage. All prepaid usage is tracked and authorized in real-time by the MATRIXX Charging Application.
        Postpaid Balances
        A postpaid balance accumulates charges that are billed and settled at a future date or on a scheduled billing cycle. Postpaid balances are impacted in response to subscriber usage processed by the Charging Server, in either online or offline (batch) mode.
        Balances with External Payment Requests
        When defining a balance template in My MATRIXX, select External Payment Request to have external payment requests generated for actual-currency balances (except postpaid main balances). External payment requests are generated when purchase, recurring, and cancel charges are applied to postpaid, actual-currency, non-main balances. When Automatic Recurring Recharge is enabled, external payment requests are generated for both prepaid and postpaid balances before recurring cycle renewal time.
        Debt Balances
        A debt balance tracks the debt associated with currency charges on a product offer. Debt balance is a simple, postpaid, locked, actual currency balance with unlimited credit that tracks the debt associated with currency charges in a product offer or bundle. Both the purchase and recurring debt balance must be simple balances.
        Private Balances
        A private balance restricts balance usage to a specific subscriber, group, or device on a subscription product offer.
        Balance Tags
        Balance tags are a subset of a balance class. Pricing Administrators associate balance templates with balance tags, and then refer to balances from the subset of templates that share a specified tag.
        Managing Balances
        You can use MATRIXX Backoffice Customer Tool and any custom applications that call the SubMan APIs to top-up balances, forfeit balances, and adjust balances. You can also set up balance notifications to trigger when balances are created, reach a credit threshold, and expire. Expired balances are removed from subscriber and group walletafter a configured amount of time.
        Balance Top-ups
        A balance top-up is a one-time purchase of prepaid assets for an existing balance. They are typically applied when a balance is almost or completely consumed.
        Prepaid Balance Recharge
        A currency balance recharge is a one-time top-up to a prepaid actual currency balance. It is similar to a one-time payment initiated with the payment APIs for postpaid main balances.
        Balance Forfeitures
        A forfeiture removes a currency or asset amount from a G/L balance. Only the entire balance amount can be forfeited, so the resulting balance amount is 0.
        Expired Balances
        When a balance or meter expires, the object is removed or purged from the owner's wallet"/> after a configurable amount of time.
        Balance Period Start and End Time
        Configure whether balance period start time and end time are adjusted to be within the balance validity time.
        Modifying Balance Validity Periods
        Extend or shorten the validity end time (expiration date) of simple and periodic G/L balance instances.
        Postpaid Balance Payment
        Using the SubMan APIs, you can make payments to a _glossary/subscription.html or group postpaid main balance. It is similar to a one-time recharge initiated with the recharge APIs for prepaid actual currency balances. For information about prepaid and postpaid balances, see MATRIXX Pricing and Rating.
        Balance Rollovers
        Balance rollover occurs at the end of a period when the unused portion of a prepaid, periodic asset balance, for example, voice minutes or data, is made available for charging usage in subsequent periods. Balance rollovers are handled the same for individual product offers and offers in bundles; all available non-supplemental product offers are evaluated in order of priority until an applicable rollover component is found.
        Balance Transfers
        A balance transfer is a subscriber management transaction that moves an amount from one balance instance to another balance instance.
        Auto-Expiring G/L Balances When the Balance Amount is Fully Consumed
        Configure a simple, prepaid G/L balance to automatically expire when it is fully consumed. When the balance reaches its credit limit, the EndTime of the balance is set to the time of the message that triggered the consumption, rounded down to the nearest second.
        Adjusting Balance End Time to a Date in the Past
        By default, the end time of a simple or periodic G/L balance instance cannot be adjusted to a date earlier than now.
        Balance Attributes for MATRIXX Backoffice Customer Tool
        Add custom attributes to balances to configure how they are displayed in MATRIXX Backoffice Customer Tool. These custom attributes are not used for rating.
      - Meters
        A meter is a non-financial counter that tracks service usage, charges to a balance, balance amounts, discount amounts, or the overdraft amount of a set of balances.
      - Simple Balances and Meters
        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.
      - Smart Balances and Meters
        A smart balance or smart meter has one or more associated filters. The filters act like policies that determine whether it is examined for validity during rating so it can be used.
      - Dynamic Balances and Meters
        Balance and meter instances can be created dynamically in response to network usage events. A dynamic balance can be simple or periodic, and can represent a quantity of a currency or an asset. A dynamic meter can track charge amount, discount amount, or usage quantity.
      - Balance and Meter Notifications
        Configure notifications to be triggered when balances and meters are created and expire, when they reach a threshold amount and credit limit, and when a recurring processing failure occurs. The threshold settings are not mutually exclusive — any combination of notifications can be specified for any balance or meter template.
      - Balance and Meter Adjustments
        An adjustment is a subscriber management transaction that can debit or credit a subscriber or group balance, increase or decrease a meter, or change the start time of a balance. customer service representatives (CSRs) typically perform them on behalf of a subscriber to reconcile an incorrect charge or a service complaint.
      - Device-Specific Balances and Meters
        Device-specific balances and meters track currency or other assets for a device. Their balance impacts are recorded in a subscriber'swallet with a device association. Device-specific balances and meters are particularly useful for prepaid applications, such as topping-up a device with resources.
      - Group-Owned Balances and Meters
        All balances associated with a product offer that was purchased by a group can be shared by group members or limited to the group owner. The balances can be allocated across devices to enable family sharing plans, corporate asset pools, and the like, and enable service providers a way to enforce spend control on services and track member usage.
      - Balance and Meter Quantity Units
        Quantity units specify the measurement in which a balance or meter amount is stored.
      - Balance and Meter Precision
        Balances and meters have precision values that determine how quantities are handled before they are applied to the balance or meter.
    - Thresholds and Credit Limits
      Create thresholds and credit limits when you create or change balances and meters.
    - Decision Tables
      Decision tables consist of a number of _glossary/normalizer.html columns that define a set of business logic (one or more condition sets) that can be reused in different circumstances. Decision tables can be combined with a set of results into any type of component table, such as a policy table, rollover table, rate table, _glossary/gl_transaction_type.html table and account table, filter, or priority generator.
    - Contracts
      You can create finance or service contracts. A finance contract defines the terms and conditions of a contract. A service contract defines the terms and charges for a service, for example, voice or data.
    - Final Unit Indication
      You can configure Diameter Final Unit Indication (FUI) information to be static or dynamic.
    - Announcements Components
      MATRIXX Engine uses announcement pricing components for determining the list of announcements to play to a subscriber during a voice call, and the language they must be played in. You configure announcement data to be dynamic, so a different result occurs based on conditions that are valid at the time of rating.
    - Data Modifying
      You use the data modify interface in My MATRIXX to configure data modify actions, data modify profiles, and data modify profile selectors.
    - Filters
      Filters are independent, reusable, pricing items that can be associated with balances, meters, subscription product offers, and notifications.
    - Normalizer Templates
      Normalizer templates identify the MATRIXX Data Container (MDC) and its fields, catalog item parameters, balances, quantities, or times that are normalized during rating to determine which rates to apply. The fields can be located in a network message or in a MATRIXX database MDC, such as a subscriber, device, group, or purchased offer MDC.
    - Normalizer Instances
      Normalizer instances condense large sets of discrete field values into a manageable set of parameters. Each parameter represents the aggregate value set, so that assigning a result to every possible field value is not required.
    - Parameters
      You can configure definitions for parameters that you can use in pricing items such as catalog items, bundles, product offers, and price components.
    - Products
      A product represents the provisioning of a service type when a _glossary/catalog_item.html is purchased for a _glossary/subscription.html, _glossary/device.html, or _glossary/group.html. The products identify the service type, which in turn determines the pricing that can apply.
    - Catalog Items
      Catalog items are customizations of offers and bundles that are offered to a specific group of subscribers.
    - Catalogs
      A catalog contains catalog items and eligibility rules. The eligibility rules determine which catalog items are included or excluded from the catalog. You can also add metadata fields to further define the catalog.
    - Eligibility
      Eligibility rules define requirements and exclusions.
    - Product Offers
      Product offers are the basis for the pricing components that subscriptions, groups, and devices purchase, either singly or in bundles.
    - Bundles
      Bundles group one or more product offers together so they can be purchased as a unit. You can also create bundle-specific charges, grants, and discounts that override or supplement the existing price components defined in individual product offers.
    - Price Components
      MATRIXX price components are reusable pricing items that can be included in any number of product offers. They include charges, discounts, grants, refunds, and forfeitures.
    - Policies
      Policies provide the business logic for real-time policy decisions and rules, allowing you to track subscribers' service usage in real-time and change the behavior of a service based on that usage (for example, by throttling bandwidth).
    - Inbound Roaming
      Configure inbound and emergency roaming requests to define the agreements with third-party operators that allow requests for subscribers that are not identified in MATRIXX.
    - Denial Codes
      Denial codes are a way to deny service access to subscribers for a specific reason. You define them in My MATRIXX and add them to rate table rows in place of a rating formula, so the value is returned to the network based on the row selected during rating.
    - Offer Life Cycle Profiles
      An offer life cycle profile consists of a set of offer statuses, a set of policies associated with each offer status that describe behavior that can be executed in this status, and a set of transitions that can have conditions defined that can trigger a transition and actions defined that are executed after the transition is performed. Both offers and bundles can have an offer life cycle profile defined. Use offer life cycle profiles to customize the behavior of MATRIXX for your business processes.
    - Status Life Cycles
      A status life cycle is a collection of object states, policies, and transition rules that are defined for a specific object type. You can define a status life cycle for user, device, subscription, group, and offer objects to customize the behavior of MATRIXX for your business processes. For example, a device life cycle can begin with a provisioned status, transition to an active status, and finally transition to an inactive status.
    - Status Notification Profiles
      Notification profiles are reusable pricing components that define when expiration and recurring processing failure notifications are sent and the frequency with which those notifications are sent. Notification profiles can be assigned to each status in status life cycles. For a complete list of possible notifications, see the discussion about notifications in MATRIXX Integration.
    - System Attributes
      System attributes are custom properties you can attach to product offers, price components, rate tables, and rate table rows to add metadata to the object in the pricing database. They contain a mapping of attribute values to _glossary/mdc.html fields. The MDC fields get populated with the attribute values during rating and returned to the network in an MDC message.
    - Virtual Fields
      You use virtual fields to avoid creating multiple pricing configurations if your MATRIXX environment accepts multiple rating message types, for example, messages from Diameter and 5G networks.
    - Usage Triggers
      Use usage triggers to add lists of re-authorization triggers to the charging response messages for a session or rating group. Usage triggers are available for both Diameter Gy and 5G charging messages.
    - Usage Trigger Gy and 5G AVPs
      You trigger re-authorization for a session or rating group by assigning the Diameter Gy Trigger-Type and 5G triggerType AVP values listed here to usage trigger profiles.
    - Metadata
      Metadata summarizes basic information about other data and makes working with specific data easier. Metadata provides information about pieces of information that have meaning in relation to another piece of information in My MATRIXX.
  - Planning a Pricing Plan
    Before you create a _glossary/pricing_plan.html, determine how you want to name, organize, and set up the items that form planning a pricing plan.
  - Deploying a Pricing Plan
    Deploying a pricing plan involves compiling the pricing plan into a configuration file and loading the configuration file into the pricing database. During compilation, the pricing schema is validated and any errors that occur are displayed.
  - Group-Owned Pricing
    Groups can own product offers that define service pricing for group members. The product offers can define pricing for both usage and non-usage event types.
  - Taxation
    MATRIXX supports two types of taxation: tax classes and selectors, and US taxation. Tax classes specify tax rates or fixed taxes, and tax selectors dynamically select the tax rate, and apply one or more taxes to a charge. US taxation determines the taxes for a given location, and specifies the tax type, product category the tax applies to, and the tax authority who receives the tax based on CCH tax data.
- Appendices
MATRIXX Pay Now
MATRIXX Subscriber Management
MATRIXX Subscriber Management API
MATRIXX Business API SDK
My MATRIXX Help
MATRIXX Backoffice Customer Tool Help
MATRIXX Third-Party Licenses
Glossary

Balance Period Start and End Time

Configure whether balance period start time and end time are adjusted to be within the balance validity time.

By default, the Charging Server does not adjust the start time and end time of a balance period to be within the balance validity time before they are reported to Event Detail Records (EDRs), notifications, and SubMan API responses.

You can change the default so that the balance period start time and end time are within the balance validity time by changing the default answer (n) in the following create_config.info question: Global:Should reported balance period start time and end time be adjusted to be within balance validity time (y/n)?

After making this change to the create_config.info question, apply the configuration change. For more information, see the discussion about applying MATRIXX Engine configuration changes in MATRIXX Installation and Upgrade.

If you answer y to the create_config.info question, the impacted periodic balance start time is the larger of balance validity start time and period start time, and the impacted periodic balance end time is the lesser of balance validity end time and period end time.

For example, a periodic balance:

Is valid from January 15 to December 30
Has a new period on the first day of each month
Is charged on January 20 (during the first period)
Is charged on December 25 (during the last period)

If you answer y to the create_config.info question, the event on January 20 will have January 15 (instead of January 1) as the balance start time, and the event on December 25 will have December 30 (instead of December 31) as the balance period end time.

For information about configuring global system behavior, see the discussion about global system configuration in MATRIXX Configuration. For an overview of balance validity dates, see the discussion about modifying balance validity periods.