Meters

Optional Features

About Meters

Meters collects usage on a product that you can then use for billing or to generate preventative maintenance. The meter reading you enter identifies the usage. The product must be on a contract to generate billing or generate preventative maintenance. If you want to bill meters on a different schedule, you specify a meter invoice rule. Based on the invoice rule, bill schedule entries are created for all meters associated with products on the contract line.

If you add meters to the model, they are automatically created on the Product record when you create a product using that model.

Meters Process Description

Meters are added to a product.
Meter plans and meter pricing are added.
Metered products are added to a contract.
If meters are billed on a different schedule than the contract, an invoice rule for meters is added to the contract.
During task debrief, meter readings are entered.

About Meter Types

The meter type is a definition of all characteristics of the meter, for example the unit of measure, whether estimates can be entered, and limits. When you add a meter to a product, or the meter defaults from the model, the meter type is specified.

About Meter Pricing

Meter pricing refers to determining a price for meter readings. Pricing occurs according to billing schedules on the contract, either the normal billing schedules, or meter billing schedules when specified.

About Meter Plans

Each meter pricing rule has a meter plan specified. The meter plan contains the type of pricing as well as the minimum quantity to bill and whether proration is allowed. There are three types of pricing you can specify.

Price Type	Description
Overage Pricing	Each unit above a single threshold is charged the specified price.
Tiered Meter Pricing	The number of units in each of multiple thresholds determines the price for those units.
Accumulated Value Tier	The highest of multiple thresholds reached determines the price for all units.

Price Type Examples

Overage Pricing. Assume a pricing rule where the usable quantity is 1000 and the per‐unit price is 0.01. For a quantity of 1379, the first 1000 are not charged

and the remaining 379 are charged 0.01.

Tiered Meter Pricing. Assume three tiers:

For usable quantity 1000, a per‐unit price of 0.10
For usable quantity 5000, a per‐unit price of 0.05
For usable quantity 10000, a per‐unit price of 0.03

For a quantity of 1379, all units are charged 0.10; for a quantity of 7236, all units are charged 0.05; and, for a quantity of 53186, all units are charged 0.03.

Each tier includes quantities of the previous tier, plus one, to the value specified. The last tier can be any arbitrarily‐large number; quantities more than the last tier value are charged at the last tier value.

Flat Rate Pricing. Flat‐rate pricing is used when you want to charge a fee to record meter readings but the readings themselves are not charged, for example when the meter reading is used to determine when to change a part.

About Meter Pricing Rules

Pricing rules determine the list price, and may adjust the price further. For example, you can use rules to set the standard price and then other rules to give your customer a discount or waive the charge altogether.

Meter Pricing Rule Parameters

Up to ten parameters can be specified for each rule. The parameters determine which table and column is used to determine a price or adjustment based on parameter value. You also specify the appropriate meter plan.

You can also specify a map list or alias column list on meter pricing rule parameters. They enable you to specify information not directly available by following relationships from financial records, such as part usage, to related records, such as place. For more information, see “Pricing”.

Meter Pricing Rule Conditions

Rule conditions are used to specify values for the parameters you specified.

Meter Pricing Rule Lists

For each rule condition, the price type determines the calculation that is performed. The following price types are available:

Per unit price. This price type causes the rule to determine per‐unit prices within the overage or tiers you specified.

Flat rate price. This price type causes the rule to determine a flat‐rate price for any usage within the overage or tiers you specified.

Per unit adjustment. This price type causes the rule to add or subtract the specified monetary amount to the per‐unit price.

Flat rate adjustment. This price type causes the rule to add or subtract the specified monetary amount to the flat‐rate price.

About Access Groups

You can assign access groups to meter pricing rules. The access group does not affect meter pricing; it only determines who can view the meter pricing rules.

About Estimated Readings

Estimated readings are used when actual readings are not available or they happened too long in the past. For example, if you have a meter billing period

of three months and you normally enter readings each month, you might choose to estimate a reading if one was skipped for the last month of the billing period. The Allow Estimates option on the Meter Type record determines whether to use estimated readings.

An estimate is calculated when one of the following occurs:

No meter reading is recorded during the current billing period
The maximum number of days without a reading is passed; this value isspecified in the Max Days Without Reading field on the Meter Plan record

When the billing period is vouchered and one of the above is true, the average usage is calculated for the number of billing periods specified in the Periods to Estimate field on the Meter Type record.

This average usage is added to the previous meter reading to obtain an estimated reading. This estimated reading is recorded and billed unless there is an actual meter reading in the billing period that is higher than the estimate.

In other words:

If there is no meter reading in the billing period, the estimated reading is recorded and billed.
If there is a previous actual reading in the billing period and it is lower than the estimated reading, the estimated reading is recorded and billed.
If there is a previous actual reading in the billing period and it is higher than the estimated reading, the estimated reading is discarded.

Instead of calculating average usage, you can specify a value in the Beginning

Estimate field on the Meter Type record. This value added to the previous actual reading then becomes the estimated reading.

About Allowances

An allowance enables you to waive charges for usage under the specified allowance amount. When you add a meter plan to a contract, you specify whether an allowance applies and the allowance amount. All products using that meter plan on the contract have their usages applied to the allowance amount. Only the pooled usage above the allowance amount is billed.

You can choose to use a multi‐line allowance. When specified, products on all lines on the contract using the specified meter plan are included in the allowance.

About Weighted Allowances

You can choose to use weighted allowances, which gives a greater weight to meters with higher usage. Usage is calculated as follows:

Usage for all meters included in the allowance are totaled.
The usage of a particular meter is calculated as a percentage of the total usage.
The percentage is multiplied by the allowance to obtain the weighted usage.
The weighted usage is subtracted from the meter usage to obtain the billable usage.
The billable usage is the amount that is then billed.

Example

Two meters, A and B, are included in a 10000 unit weighted allowance plan.

Meter A has 8000 units usage and Meter B has 6000 units usage. The billable usage of Meter A is calculated as follows:

Usage is totaled: 8000+6000=14000
Usage of Meter A as a percentage of the total: 8000/14000=0.5714
Weighted usage of the allowance: 0.5714X10000=5714
Billable usage: 8000–5714=2286

The billable usage is 2286. A similar calculation is applied to Meter B.