General Balance Properties

General balance properties include balance names, balance precision, balance creation, balance expiration, and so forth, as listed in General Properties.

Table 1. General Properties
Property Description
ID An auto-generated unique ID used internally during rating to locate the balance.
Name A descriptive name for the balance. Balance names display in rate tables.
Description Information about the purpose of the balance.
External ID (Optional) Use this field to identify this item in MATRIXX pricing items. An External ID is saved to the pricing configuration file and loaded into the Pricing Database. Set the External ID value to any alphanumeric character that is meaningful to your implementation. An External ID can be used, for example, to relate offers in the MATRIXX system to products in an external pricing plan. It can be used, for example, by the Subscriber Management API to query and purchase product offers and bundle IDs.
Precision The number of digits to the right of the decimal point that are used to express the balance value; the value must be an integer between 0 and 7. It is the position at which fractional rating results are rounded. Currencies typically have a precision of 2.
Consumption Priority You can assign a Consumption Priority to an asset or currency balance template and each balance instance created from the template is given that priority. During rating, a candidate list of valid balances is created and they are ordered and impacted according to their priority. This enables service providers to control which balances are impacted first during subscriber usage.
Balance Instance Creation Policy Determines whether a new balance instance is added to a wallet when the offer requiring the balance is included in a catalog item that is purchased.
  • One per Start Time — If a balance instance exists in the wallet and it has the same start time as the one being added; no new instance is added to the wallet. The existing one is used. This is the default behavior.
  • One per Wallet — If a balance instance exists in the wallet, it is used regardless of its start time. No new instance is added to the wallet. This method is typically used when customers want subscribers to have one balance or meter impacted for all services they own. If you use this balance instance creation policy for a currency balance, you can specify an additional optional property, main balance.
  • One per Offer Purchase — Always create a new balance instance, regardless of whether an instance already exists. This method always creates a new balance instance for each offer requiring the balance that is associated with the catalog item being purchased. In this method, balances are created on a per offer basis. For bundles featuring different offers that require the same balance, each associated offer has its own balance instance.
  • One per Catalog Item Purchase — Always create one unique balance instance per catalog item purchased. The catalog item has either an offer or bundle template. In this method, balances are created on a per purchase basis. In the case where the catalog item has a bundle template, if the bundle has offers that require the same balance template, this method creates only one balance instance for those offers.
Activate Balance Tracking For simple balances only. When selected, records per-transaction real-time balance information in MEFs.
Actual Currency For currency balances, specifies that the balance represents real money and not a pseudo-currency balance (such as vouchers). Any currency balance not configured as an currency balance is a pseudo-currency balance.
Aggregate Specifies that the balance be added to a group wallet and the quantity shared among members of a group.
Balance Automatically Expires For simple, prepaid balances, configures a G/L balance instance to expire immediately when the balance amount has been completely consumed, rather than waiting until the balance end date to expire. This feature can be used with automatic life cycle transitions at balance expiration time to transition a device, subscriber, or group to a new status.

Expired balances are removed from the database on a regular basis by the Task Manager.

Create External Payment Request When selected, external payment requests are generated before charges are applied to the balance. Applies to currency balances (except postpaid main balances).

For more information about external payment request generation and details about the information returned in the external payment request event, see the discussion about balances with external payment requests in MATRIXX Pricing and Rating.

Device Specific Specifies that the balance tracks currency or other assets for a device. An offer with this balance cannot be purchased by a group.
Dynamic When selected, the balance instance is dynamically created based on network usage events.
Include in Cost When selected, pseudo-currency balances and asset balances are only reported as cost balance.
Liability Asset If an asset balance is a Liability Asset, the revenue recognition type is consumption-based. A purchase charge that buys an asset is consumption-based if the asset is a liability asset, or per-day if the asset is not a liability asset.
Note: Pseudo-currency balances are treated like assets when generating GL information in EDRs. Pseudo-currencies can be defined as liability or non-liability assets, which affects the revenue recognition type for charges that purchase pseudo-currencies.
Main Balance For simple currency balances, when the Balance Instance Creation Policy is One Per Wallet, you can set the balance as the main balance. Each wallet can contain zero or one main balance. When the product offer or bundle Payment Method is Pay On Account (or Pay Now, or Pay Now or Pay On Account is selected), the main balance is charged for the purchase.

For more information about Pay Now, see MATRIXX Pricing and Rating.

Prepaid Specifies that the subscriber pays in advance for the balance amount granted. Prepaid balances contain negative amounts that are subtracted until the prepaid quantity reaches zero (0). Typically, prepaid balances are for asset quantities.
Private Balance Select to require each offer that adds this balance in the required list to make this balance private. This allows multiple instances of the same product offer to operate independently and concurrently by allowing a balance range normalizer to use only the specific balances associated with each purchased instance of the product offer. For more information, see the discussion about private balances.
Note: To select Private Balance, the Balance Instance Creation Policy must be set to either One Per Offer Purchase or One Per Catalog Item Purchase.
Important: Selecting Is Private on the product offer on the Balances tab restricts the required balance to a specific subscriber, group, or device. If the required balance has Private Balance selected on the balance template, then the balance must be a private balance and you must select Is Private on the product offer, otherwise an error displays.
Suppress Higher Tier Virtual Balances You must select Aggregate to enable this feature.

When selected, specifies that when an aggregate balance is created through purchase of an offer requiring this balance template, virtual balances are created only in lower group tiers. When deselected, virtual balances are created in both lower and higher group tiers.
Prohibited for Tax Fees Specifies whether a currency balance can be used to pay for tax fees.
Note: To select Prohibited for Tax Fees, Actual Currency must be selected.
Report Highest Threshold Breaches Only Specifies that only the highest threshold breach is reported in events and notifications. Otherwise events and notifications are always sent.