Usage data billing, continuous invoice run, transaction builder?

← Billing & Invoice Management FAQ

In many business models, companies charge their customers variable amounts based on how much of a product or service they have used. When setting up such scenarios in JustOn, you come across concepts like usage data billing, continuous invoice run or transaction builder.

What are they, actually?

Usage data billing is the general name for JustOn's approach to generate invoices from custom object records that represent product consumptions (volume or traffic data, service coverage, etc.).

The continuous invoice run is the key player in this operation: it creates invoices and invoice line items from the object records that hold usage data. As the name suggests, it can run multiple times, repeatedly aggregating new usage data to existing invoice line items as long as an invoice is Draft.

The continuous invoice run, for its part, relies on the transaction builder. This mechanism itemizes the consumption data – converting it to actually billable items.

Modeling usage data billing in JustOn usually involves

• Custom object: Set up to hold both the usage data and the controlling data
• "Target" subscription and corresponding items: Holds the items set up to match the transactions for the invoice generation
• Transaction filter: Defines which objects and records to include in the transaction build process
• Continuous invoice run: Set up to create invoices and invoice line items directly out of the objects that hold usage data

For details on how to set it up, see Usage Data Billing.

Info

Be aware that the transaction builder provides a number of additional setup options. These are, however, only required to cover select specific use cases.