In both instances, MI3's navigation menu is dynamically configured based on the customer's records held in the database. The actual display and structure of the services submenus will be determined by the structure of the services as configured in the Services section in MI9. An example is shown below:

The services menu for this particular customer shows:

• The customer has both current and expired services
   
• The current services include both Internet Access and Hosting as defined in MI9
   
• Within Internet Access, the customer three services, one being a dial-up modem service, a business grade ADSL service and telephone line rental

Any changes to the customer's services status made in MI9 will automatically update the menu structure in MI3.

Services Detail

For every Service Item defined in MI9, the following attributes are configured in MI9:

• Default attributes (those critical to the billing of the service)
   
• "Other" Attributes (those more for informational and record keeping purposes)Furthermore, in MI9 for each service a feature exists which allows the service provider to determine exactly what is to be displayed to the customer through MI3 and whether the customer may or may not edit the displayed attribute. The order that these attributes are displayed in MI3 is also determined in MI9.

The screen below shows the following:

• The default attributes as deemed viewable by the service provider up to the "Reference ID" field
   
• A lot of "Other" attributes after the Reference ID field which have been selected to be viewable by the customer
   
• The Reference ID field has been set to be editable with a visible entry (the Reference ID is displayed on the invoice next to each service line item and enables the customer to better identify the service for their own internal cost allocation purposes)
   
• The Password field has been set to editable with an invisible entry method

The information below is extremely useful in assisting the customer with their own record keeping for their organization (or self).

Depending upon the service type as previously configured in MI9, the service may have associated with it log records. If this is the case, on the services detail window a Log Summary button will appear as show above.

Log Summary - Data

As CentreBill collects and bills against specified data allowances on a per service basis, the customer is able to view, in real time, the following:

• Specify the range to display a full graphical history of the consumption of data against a particular service – a maximum of twelve entries will be displayed on the graph
   
• A full list of the history against each service kept in CentreBill
   
• The invoice number against which that service was billed in the corresponding month with a hyperlink to view the invoice online
   
• The current unbilled period will be shown as having no invoice number associated with it
   
• By clicking on each of the hyperlinks under the column "Logs for the Period Ending" will display a report showing full log details for the service period selected (see example below)
   
• The total units of data consumed within the period billed
  The total number of hours the service was active for the period billed – an incomplete month in the case of permanent services, such as ADSL, would indicate that the modem was switched off at times

The Log Details shown below is for a specific billing period and shows each of the entries stored in the database against that period. Please note that CentreBill stores logs in three separate tables:

MI3's "Logs for the Period Ending" entries will only show hyperlinks for the periods where there is a complete history of log details in the table for the specified period For all later periods there will be no hyperlinks and the customer will not be able to view the log details for these older periods. It is the philosophy of CentreBill that each service provider will decide a tradeoff between database storage capacity and flexibility for the customer.

Log Summary – Voice

CentreBill's voice call billing capabilities provide a very similar customer view as the data based billing services. Instead of data logs being billed against, CentreBill would do the same for Call Data Records (CDRs) provided by the voice billing engine in MI9.

In the screen below, the customer has subscribed to several voice services:

The attributes, both Default and "Other" are specific for voice-based services and this is reflected in the customer's service view:

The screen below shows the calls details view in MI3 for a specific ISDN based service and includes:

• A summary line displaying the total $$ value of the calls for the period, together with the total number of discrete calls made in the period
   
• For each call record, the following is displayed: the date and time the call was made, the source phone number (calling number), the destination phone number (number called) and the duration in seconds of the call
   
• The report may be printed online
   
• The CDRs may be exported to a CSV file for further analysis

Print out of call details report for a specific service

Other Service Views

As previously stated, CentreBill caters for any form of billing and its intended purpose is to be the sole debtors (or receivables) control system for a service provider. This means that CentreBill must be sufficiently flexible to enable billing of other types of services. This is achieved through the Services module in MI9. The screens below illustrate some examples of customer views for different services.

Domain hosting service:

Telephone line rental:

Internet dial-up service: