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• Organization and Access Management

Managing your Organization

At Settings>Organization in the Console, you can:

• View Organization details and edit the configuration to define:

  • Currency and currency conversion rates.

  • Timezone.

  • Epochs for billing.

  • Billing in arrears or in advance for standing charges, minimum spend amounts, and Prepayments/Commitments fee billing.

  • Auto-approval time for bills.

  • A schedule interval in minutes or hours for updating Bills.

  • Number of days before bills are due.

  • External invoice date.

  • Bill numbering.

  • Bill statements.

  • Suppression of empty bills.

  • Consolidation of bills across billing frequencies.

  • Credit application order for billing as between Account Prepayment and Balance amounts.

• Set Timezone - Notes and Recommendations

• Create and Manage Currencies

• Create Credit Reasons to use for adding credit line items to bills

• Create Debit Reasons to use when adding debit line items to bills

• Create Transaction Types to use for adding Transactions for Balances on Accounts

• Add and edit Custom Fields

Viewing Details and Editing Configuration

You can view your Organization's details and configure organization-wide settings.

To view and edit your Organization:

1. Select Settings>Organization. The Organization page opens with the Configuration tab selected. You can view your Organization Details at the top of the page.

• Select Copy against the Organization ID string to copy it to your clipboard.

2. To edit the configuration, on the Organization Configuration Details panel select Edit. The Organization Configuration page opens. You have several options:

• Currency and Currency Conversions. Use the drop-down list to select the code of the currency you want to use for your Organization:

  • Note that you must first create the Currencies you want to use in your Organization. For more details, see the following Creating Currencies section below.

  • The currency you select for your Organization determines the billing currency and overrides any currency settings in your pricing Plans:

    • For example, if the Organization currency is set to USD and a pricing Plan used for an Account is set to GBP, the bill for an Account using that Plan is calculated in GBP, and then each bill line item converted to USD amounts.

    • If you expect to have pricing Plans on Accounts in currencies that differ from your Organization currency, you can add conversion rates under Currency Conversions when you edit your Organization configuration - see below Adding Currency Conversion Rates.

• Billing in arrears/advance. You can select to bill in arrears or advance for:

  • Standing charge billing. Default is to bill in arrears.

  • Minimum spend billing. Default is to bill in arrears.

  • Prepayments/Commitment fee billing. Default is to bill in advance.

• Auto-approve bills. You can Enable auto-approval for bills, which will automatically approve bills after a specified time period. Once enabled, you can define the duration (in minutes, hours, or days) following bill creation, after which the bills will be automatically approved.

  • For example, suppose you are using a monthly billing frequency for an end customer Account and Bills are created at 12 midnight on the the last day of each month. You then enable Auto-approve bills and set it to 2 hours. Each month's Bill is approved automatically at 2 a.m. on the first day of the month following.

• Scheduled bill interval (hours). Define an interval in minutes or hours for when you want Bills to be updated. For more details, see Scheduling Billing.

• Timezone. Use the drop-down list to select the timezone for your Organization. For more details and guidance on timezone settings, please see the Timezones - Notes and Recommendations section below on this page.

• Epochs. Define the epochs for your Organization. Your Epoch settings determine the dates for billing periods to start: Year, Month, Week, and Day.

• Days before bill due. Enter the number of days after the Bill generation date that you want to show on Bills as the due date:

  • You can also define this at the individual Account level - see Creating an Account. This is useful for cases where you want Bills for your end-customer Accounts to show different due dates. The setting at individual Account level takes precedence over any setting at Organizational level.

• External invoice date. For your accounting purposes, select which date you want to use for external invoicing with respect to billing periods - two options:

  • First day of next period. Select this if you want to recognize usage revenue in the following period. This is the default.

  • Last day of arrears. Select this if you want to recognize usage revenue in the same period that it's consumed, instead of in the following period.

• Bill statements. Use this panel to set Organization defaults for Bill Statements:

  • Statement definition. Select the default Statement definition for your Organization.

  • Auto-generate statements. Select for auto-generation of Bill statements when Bills are either approved or locked:

    • None. Disable auto-generation.

    • JSON. Auto-generate Statements in JSON format only

    • JSON and CSV. Auto-generate Statements in both JSON and CSV format.

• Bill numbering. You can use two settings to control how you want to number your Bills:

• Select Enable bill numbering. The two settings are activated. (Default is enabled):

  • Bill prefix. Enter a string as prefix for Bill numbering.

  • Bill sequence start. Enter a number, from which Bills will be numbered as they are generated.

• For example, if you enter INVOICE- for Bill prefix and 100 for Bill sequence start, the first Bill generated after you update your Organization configuration will have a REFERENCE number of INVOICE-101.

• Suppress empty bills. Enable this switch if you want to prevent generation of Bills that contain no line items. Default is disabled.

• Consolidate bills. Enable this switch if you want to consolidate different billing frequencies into a single bill. Default is disabled.

  • If disabled, Bills are created by bill date and billing frequency. 

  • If enabled, charges that are billed on a given bill date are automatically added to the bill regardless of charge billing frequency.

  • For example, if you enable this option and charges are due on an Account for an invoice date of February 1st:

    • For standing charges and usage charges under a monthly-billed Plan.

    • For Prepayments fees billed annually.

    • Then, the billing frequencies for the different charges are ignored and a single Bill is created for the Account for the invoice date and covering all of these charges. In contrast, if Consolidate bills is disabled, then in this example two separate bills would have been created.

• Credit application order. Select to define the order in which any Prepayment or Balance amounts on end customer Accounts are to be drawn-down against for billing. Four options:

  • Prepayment then balance. Draw-down against Prepayment credit before Balance credit. Default.

  • Balance then prepayment. Draw-down against Balance credit before Prepayment credit.

  • Prepayment only. Only draw-down against Prepayment credit.

  • Balance only. Only draw-down against Balance credit.

• Currency Conversions. If you intend to use mixed currencies for billing against Accounts, you must add relevant currency conversion rates to convert any specific Account Plan currencies to the selected billing currency. For more details, see the following section for Adding Currency Conversion Rates.

3. When you have completed your editing changes, select Update Organization Configuration. Your changes are saved and you are returned to the Organization page.

Timezone Settings - Notes and Recommendations

For your Organization Timezone setting, you can use the drop-down list to select a timezone using formats that are valid under Release 2021c of the tz database (tzdata). For example:

• UTC.

  • Calendars. Depending on your browser and its settings, this timezone setting will typically resolve to show UTC for calendars used in the Console.

• Regional. By region using a regional timezone by tz database name. For example, Europe/Berlin. If you want to lookup tz regional timezones, they are listed in this Wikipedia article.

  • Calendars. Depending on your browser and its settings, regional timezone settings will typically resolve to show the equivalent GMT timezone for calendars used in the Console. For example, Europe/Berlin will show as GMT+1 for calendars.

• Special Area. Using the "special area" Etc prefix format, such as Etc - GMT-1. Note that this format entails a +/- sign reversal with respect to GMT, so the Etc - GMT-1 timezone setting is equivalent to GMT+1. Please see the Area section entry of the Wikipedia tz database article for more details on this format.

  • Calendars. Depending on your browser and its settings, special area timezone settings will typically resolve to show the equivalent GMT timezone for calendars used in the Console.

Creating and Managing Currencies

You can create Currencies for your Organization:

• The currencies you create will appear for selection in drop-down lists when you create and configure other entities in your Organization, such as Plan Templates or Accounts.

• You can set the maximum decimal places used for currencies.

• The currency you select for your Organization determines the billing currency and, for billing purses overrides any pricing currency settings used in your pricing Plans:

  • For example, if the Organization currency is set to USD and a pricing Plan used for an Account is set to GBP, the Bill for an Account using that Plan is calculated first in GBP, and then each Bill line item converted to USD amounts.

  • If you expect to use pricing currencies that differ from your billing currency, you can add conversion rates under Currency Conversions when you edit your Organization configuration.

  • Note, importantly, that if you don't define a conversion rate to convert a pricing currency you've used to the billing currency used for an Account, Bills will fail to generate for that Account - see below Adding Currency Conversion Rates.

• When you select a Currency to use for a specific Account, you can choose to use the Account currency as the billing currency and override the currency selected at Organization level.

• You're not restricted to creating standard world currencies - such as US dollars (USD) or British pounds (GBP) - you can also create non-standard or custom currencies for your Organization and which you intend to use as a billing currency for your end customer Accounts. You might want to:

  • Allow your customers to be able to purchase custom currency amounts as credits to use for consuming your products and services.

  • Use custom currency amounts to offer bonus or sign-up credits to your customers to spend when consuming your products and services.

Creating Standard Currencies

To create a Standard Currency for your Organization:

1. Select Settings>Organization. The Organization page opens with the Overview tab selected.

2. Select the Currencies tab.

3. Select Create Currency. The Create page opens.

4. If you want to create a Standard currency, this is selected by default. Use the drop-down list to select which standard world currency you want to create.

5. If you want to control the number of decimal places used when Bills are calculated using the standard currency, enter the Maximum decimal places. Note that if you leave this blank, then the default number of decimal places will be used for the selected currency.

6. If you want to archive a currency at any time, you can use the Archived switch to do so.

7. Select Create. You are returned to the Currencies tab where the new standard currency is listed.

Creating Custom Currencies

To create a Custom Currency for your Organization:

1. Select Settings>Organization. The Organization page opens with the Overview tab selected.

2. Select the Currencies tab.

3. Select Create Currency. The Create page opens with the Standard currency option selected by default.

4. Select Custom currency. The Create form adjusts.

5. Enter the Name and a Code for the currency.

6. If you want to control the number of decimal places used when Bills are calculated using the custom currency, enter the Maximum decimal places. Note that if you leave this blank, then the default number of decimal places will be used for a custom currency.

7. If you want to archive a currency at any time, you can use the Archived switch to do so.

8. Select Create. You are returned to the Currencies tab where the new custom currency is listed.

Adding Currency Conversion Rates

You can select a billing currency at either Organization or individual Account level:

• If you use a different pricing currency for an Account Plan attached to an Account, when a Bill is generated line items are calculated in the pricing currency and then converted to the billing currency.

• If you intend to use mixed currencies, you can add any required currency conversion rates when you edit your Organization.

To add Currency Conversion Rates for your Organization:

1. Select Settings>Organization. The Organization page opens with the Overview tab selected.

2. On the Organization Configuration panel, select Edit Configuration. The Organization Configuration page opens.

3. Scroll to the bottom of the page and under Currency Conversions, select Add.

4. Use From and To select the conversion rate direction - for example, from British Pound to US Dollar.

5. Enter the Conversion rate.

6. Select Update Organization Configuration. You are returned to the main Organization page Overview tab where the new currency conversion rate is listed under Currency Conversions on the Organization Configuration panel.

Creating Credit Reasons

You can create Credit Reasons for your Organization, which you can then use when you want to add a credit for an existing bill line item or apply a product credit.

To create a Credit Reason for your Organization:

1. Select Settings>Organization. The Organization page opens with the Overview tab selected.

2. Select the Credit Reasons tab.

3. Enter a Name and Code.

4. Select Create. You are returned to the Credit Reasons tab where the new Credit Reason is listed and will now be available for adding credit line items to bills or applying product credits. See Adding Credit Line Items to Bills.

Creating Debit Reasons

You can create Debit Reasons for your Organization, which you can then use when you want to add a debit for an existing bill line item or apply a product debit.

To create a Debit Reason for your Organization:

1. Select Settings>Organization. The Organization page opens with the Overview tab selected.

2. Select the Debit Reasons tab.

3. Enter a Name and Code.

4. Select Create. You are returned to the Debit Reasons tab where the new Debit Reason is listed and will now be available for adding debit line items to bills or applying product debits. See Adding Debit Line Items to Bills.

Creating Transaction Types

You can create Transaction Types for your Organization. These are then available across your Organization for adding individual Transactions, such as when you want to add Transactions to a Balance on an end customer Account.

To create a Transaction Type for your Organization:

1. Select Settings>Organization. The Organization page opens with the Overview tab selected.

2. Select the Transaction Types tab.

3. Enter a Name and Code.

4. Repeat step 3 to create multiple Transaction Types.

5. Select Create. You are returned to the Transaction Types tab where the new Transaction Types are listed:

In this example, we've created four Transaction Types to use when creating Transactions. These will now be available for creating Transactions across the Organization, for example, when creating Balances on end customer Accounts. See Creating Balances for Accounts.

Adding and Editing Custom Fields

Custom Fields allow you to attach custom data to some entities in m3ter. You can use Custom Fields to define string or number values for these entities. When you set up your Organization, you can create them for your Organization and for the following entities:

• Product

• Meter

• Plan

• Plan Template

• Account

• Account Plan

• Aggregation

• Compound Aggregation

The key points to note about creating and using Custom Fields are:

• You can define Custom Fields for these entities at two levels: at the Organization-wide level and at the level of individual entities. Note that Organization is the obvious exception.

• When you create Custom Fields at the Organization-wide level for any of the entities listed above, this allows you to set-up default Custom Field values for these entities.

• You can create up to ten Custom Fields for each entity type at Organization-level.

• Custom Fields can be referenced in your Meter Derived Field calculations and in your Compound Aggregation calculations. Using number or string values stored in Custom Fields in this way offers you great flexibility when using those calculations to fulfill complex usage-based pricing use cases.

• If you want to use entity-level Custom Field values in your calculations - for example for a specific Account - you must first create a Custom Field for that entity type at Organization-level - in this example an Account Custom Field. This ensure a default Custom Field value exists for the entity type at the Organization-level. The entity-level Custom Field value will then be used for your calculation instead of the default value.

This section explains how to create Custom Fields for your Organization and other entities when setting up your Organization.

To add Custom Fields at Organizational level:

1. Select Settings>Organization. The Organization page opens with the Overview tab selected.

2. Select the Custom Fields tab.

3. On the Custom Fields panel, select Edit Custom Fields. The Custom Fields page opens.

4. Select Add under the entity for which you want to add Custom Fields - Product, Meter, Plan, Plan Template, Account, Account Plan, Aggregation, or Compound Aggregation.

5. Enter a Name, select the Type, and enter the Value.

6. If you want to add multiple Custom Fields, select Add again - a new row is added and you can repeat steps 4 and 5. The maximum number for any entity type at Organization-level is ten.

7. At the bottom of the page, select Update. You are returned to the Organization page and the new Name/Value pair is shown under the entity in the Custom Fields panel.

Next: Understanding, Creating, and Managing Permission Policies

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