technical user guide - chorus technical user... · 1.3.3 invoice lines on the chorus ebill file...

eBill

Technical user guide

You’ll receive a monthly paper bill from us. It’s a single summary page that’s

posted to your registered address.

Chorus eBill is an alternative electronic copy of the items that are summarised

on the bill. The file can be read into your systems and manipulated as required.

Version 5 aims to improve the quality of the data provided to enable you to link

the items in your bill to your expected costs.

Versioning

Version Number

Date Page number(s) Changes

1 13/12/16 Improve quality of data

2 May 2017 Update for new website

2 Technical user guide May 2017

Table of Contents 1.1 Purpose 4

1.2 Process 4

1.3 Interpreting the eBill file 4 1.3.1 Chorus eBill file format and naming conversion 4

1.3.2 Chorus eBill Fields 5

1.3.3 Invoice Lines on the Chorus eBill file 7

1.3.4 Data Population by Invoice Component Type 8

1.3.5 Data Contained in the Chorus eBill File 11

1.3.6 Checking Totals 31

1.4 Who to contact 32 1.4.1 Current Service Providers 32

2 APPENDIX A 32

2.1 eBill versioning history explained 32

3 APPENDIX B 32

3.1 Tables of values for Chorus eBill fields 32 3.1.1 Record Types 32

3.1.2 Call Type 33

3.1.3 Call Type 34

3.1.4 Jurisdiction 47

3.1.5 Rate Basis 48


3.1.6 Circuit Type Codes

49


1.1 Purpose

We developed this documentation to enable you to understand the information that will

be available via a Chorus eBill.

Further information on our Commercial terms and conditions relating to the provision of

billing information are set out in the Chorus Wholesale Services Agreement.

1.2 Process

The Chorus eBill is an electronic file that’s sent to you each month after your billing cycle

has run in our billing systems.

With the latest version 5 files, all Chorus eBill data will show:

Existing data fields, for example 'Product ID', 'OOT ID', 'WSP reference' and 'Service Id'

will be populated more often, and more consistently than before. You can expect further

improvements in later releases.

We have introduced new fields called 'product name', 'product amount change flag' & 'last

price book update' that will provide you additional information to assist you with your

reconciliation.

Our billing is processed monthly and generates an eBill file – this contains all the invoice

data for the month

The Chorus eBill files will be placed on the secure internet file transfer (SIFT) site where

it is made available to wholesale customers.

For more information on Chorus SIFT, please contact your Account Manager.

1.3 Interpreting the eBill file

1.3.1 CHORUS EBILL FILE FORMAT AND NAMING CONVERSION

The Chorus eBill version 5 file format will have the naming convention of:

CarrierID_StatementDate_EBXX.zip e.g. AAA_20120327_EB05.zip

Where:

The CarrierID is the 3 character carrier code

The statement date is in the format YYYYMMDD

EB signifies the file as being a Chorus eBill file


XX signifies the file format version, current version being 05

Data in the zip file is compressed to make transfer to your system quicker. It unzips to a

text file that contains invoice lines matching your invoice.

The text file (‘.txt’) will be a tab delimited file with the first line the field headings and

text fields enclosed in double quotes.

1.3.2 CHORUS EBILL FIELDS

As indicated above the eBill file is a .txt tab delimited file. The field names are the first

row of each file. These are tab delimited but no quotes.

The data items then follow. As this is a text file, each item is presented as text. To

understand how to process the file the data source type, if it is enclosed in double

quotes, and the format of the field needs to be understood. This is outlined below for

each field.


Where date format d/mm/yyyy is:

d = the day of the month is one or two digits as necessary i.e. 3 or 23

mm = the month is always two digits i.e. 03 or 12

yyyy = the year

Date format HH:mm:ss is

HH – the hour is in 24 hour format i.e. 01 = 1 am or 13 = 1pm

mm – the minutes

ss – the seconds

Currency format is 0.00 i.e. as many leading digits as necessary but always a leading 0

and two decimal places after the point. Credits are defined with a leading ‘-’ sign.

Examples are 0.12, 12.01, 1.00, -0.12, -55.00

1.3.3 INVOICE LINES ON THE CHORUS EBILL FILE

Each line contains data which differs depending on the invoice component – the type of

product being invoiced.

Below is a list of the invoice components that will be found in a Chorus eBill file.

Invoice Component (IC) Invoice type

1 Statement charges – payments / credits / transfers

2 Rental products

3 Calls (with any savings deducted)

4 Call savings

5 Additional services

6 Summary of plan savings

7 Summary information (as shown on the front page of your invoice)


Table 1 Invoice component types as they appear in the eBill file

1.3.4 DATA POPULATION BY INVOICE COMPONENT TYPE

The information populated in each invoice line will depend on the invoice component of

the line, a table of which of the information excepted for each invoice component can be

found below.


1.3.5 DATA CONTAINED IN THE CHORUS EBILL FILE

Each monthly eBill file will contain all the charges as found on the invoice .pdf. A single

file may contain multiple customer numbers and for each customer number there may

be multiple account numbers.

As indicated above, not all fields are populated for all of the different invoice

components. Below is a small sample of an eBill opened in Notepad. It was created by

selecting individual lines from a much larger (±100 000 lines) file, looking for each

invoice component and record type combination, for each customer account in the

original file.

Note: empty fields that are quote enclosed still have the “quotes”.


As indicated above, invoice components each return a different set of information. Below

is an outline of the data expected for each invoice component type. (IC)

Statement changes (IC 1)

The statement charges are high level changes to the invoice total these are indicated by

the record type and include:

Header information (record type HI)

Credits and adjustments (record type PC)

Disputed items (record type PD)

Payments (record type PP)


Rental (IC 2)


Calls (IC 3)

Individual call charges, these break down into different call types as in Tolls, local, etc.


Call Savings (IC 4)

Details of Call savings


Additional Services (IC 5)

Charges for all additional services – ie HSNS, PDL, etc

Amount charged will always be shown.

This Invoice Component was the key focus for improvements in Chorus eBill version 5


Plan Savings (IC 6)


The billing description for plan saving summary lines (invoice component = 6) is formed

from the concatenation of a number of different fields. E.g.

The description shows that

A discount has been applied to the direct connect

Total amount excluding GST for the item was 28.25

Total amount including GST for the item was 32.58

An 18% discount has been credited

Summary (IC 7)

Summary lines as they appear on the front page of the invoice


1.3.6 CHECKING TOTALS

It is possible to check if a full file has been received by comparing the relevant summary

information line against the sum total of the relevant amount fields for the relevant non-

summary invoice lines, using the following calculation:

Sum of amount excluding GST for all lines for invoice component in the range of 2

through to 6 (inclusive) =

Sum of amounts in reference field for invoice component = 7

Minus amount in reference field for invoice component 7

Where billing description = ‘front page summary subtotal’

Minus amount in reference field for invoice component 7

Where billing description = ‘front page summary GST’


1.4 Who to contact

1.4.1 CURRENT SERVICE PROVIDERS

Please log all enquiries about eBill in the TED customer portal in the first instance.

Alternatively, you can also email the billing team at: [email protected]. Be

sure to include your account number and details of the enquiry, including file name and

example data.

2 Appendix A

2.1 eBill versioning history explained

The provision of eBill files has gone through various versions

Version 1 is the file format historically provided (retired in early 2008).

Version 2 introduces several new fields (retired in early 2008).

Version 3 starts to populate the new fields and consolidates data across multiple accounts

into a single file.

Version 4 introduces new fields, field headers and a revised field order

Version 5 improves the quality of the information provided by populating the current fields

more often and introducing new fields as outlined above.

The five versions are differentiated by file name conventions. You’ll receive your current

eBill using the version 5 file format.

3 Appendix B

3.1 Tables of values for Chorus eBill fields

Many of the eBill fields are limited to certain values. Below are tables giving the possible

value for each field.

3.1.1 RECORD TYPES

Each invoice component is further broken down by record types. The table below defines

the valid record types for each invoice component.

mailto:[email protected]


3.1.2 CALL TYPE


3.1.3 CALL TYPE


Note that this list will change over time – please refer to contact your Account Manager

to confirm you have the latest version.

3.1.4 JURISDICTION


3.1.5 RATE BASIS


3.1.6 CIRCUIT TYPE CODES

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