Charging groups

A charging group is a price list for DIDs. A Selling group sets what you charge the account or sub-customer a DID is assigned to: a one-time setup fee, a recurring monthly fee and per-minute charges for incoming calls. A Buying group sets what the DID provider charges you for each incoming call, so you can see the margin of every number. Groups let you price categories of numbers differently, for example local numbers cheaper than toll-free ones.

How it works

You create groups on the Charging Groups screen and select them in the DID form: the selling group in Selling Charging Group of the DID, the buying group in Buying Charging Group of a provider’s authentication rule. See DID pool.

Charge the setup fee. When the DID is assigned to an account or a sub-customer, the Setup Fee of its selling group is charged once.
Charge the monthly fee. For an account, the Monthly Fee is charged together with the account’s service plan on each billing date, converted to the account’s currency. With a weekly or biweekly billing cycle the account pays a quarter or a half of the monthly fee per cycle. When the balance cannot cover the plan and the DID fees, the service plan is suspended. For a sub-customer the fee is charged once a month from the date the DID was delegated, and its commission agent earns a share.
Rate incoming calls for the owner. Each call to the DID is rated by the Incoming Tariff of the selling group. The tariff’s rates are matched by the caller’s number (CLI), not by the dialled number, so you can charge more for calls from mobile networks or from abroad. The special prefix default matches callers that no other prefix matches; without it such calls cost nothing. The charge is debited from the assignee and appears in Reports → DIDs Call Records.
Record the provider’s cost. The buying group of the rule that matched the call prices it at the provider’s rates: Interval 1, Price 1, Interval N, Price N, Connect Fee, Free Seconds, Grace Period and Post Call Surcharge work as in a tariff. The cost appears in Reports → Vendor DIDs CDRs.

Reports → DID Summary Reports puts both sides together: revenue from the selling side, cost from the buying side and the profit, grouped by DID, owner, charging group or caller country. See Reports.

The fields of each side and how the intervals and fees combine into a call cost are described in Rating and billing.

Key terms

DID — Direct Inward Dialing: a phone number bought from a vendor and assigned to an account to receive calls.
Charging group — a DID pricing group: what the DID owner pays (selling) and what the provider charges you (buying).
Tariff — a named set of rates that defines how calls are priced; an incoming tariff prices DID calls by the caller’s prefix.
Connect fee — a one-time charge applied when a call is answered, regardless of duration.
Grace period — seconds at the start of a call that are free when the call is not longer.
Billing cycle — the period after which recurring charges are applied and an invoice is generated.

Common scenarios

Local numbers and toll-free numbers at different prices

Create two selling groups, for example Local with Monthly Fee 2.00 and Toll-free with Monthly Fee 10.00 and an incoming tariff with a per-minute price. Select the matching group on each DID. Toll-free access numbers of a calling card service are a typical case: the card holder’s call costs you money on the provider’s side, and the incoming tariff passes it on.

Charge more for calls from mobile callers

Add the mobile prefixes of the countries you serve to the incoming tariff with a higher price and a default rate for the rest. The caller’s number decides the price, so a mobile caller and a landline caller to the same DID pay differently.

Hand numbers to a reseller with a monthly fee

Assign a number or a range to the Cust. sub-customer with a selling group. The sub-customer pays you the monthly fee for each delegated number and can set its own selling group when it assigns the number to its accounts.

See whether a number makes money

Set a buying group on the provider’s rule and a selling group on the DID. Group DID Summary Reports by Charging Group or by DID to compare revenue and cost.