Aggregation and charging using total machines and subtotal meters

Owned by John Nairn
Last updated: Aug 08, 2017
3 min read

Overview

Readysell's meter charging process is oriented around the following concepts:

  • Aggregation, Readysell allows you to aggregate meter quantities to any level. Some of the common aggregation levels are:

    • Individual meter

    • Subtotal, such as three colour meters that add up to the total colour

    • Subtotal of other subtotals and individual meters. Such as a hire charge which depends on both a individual mono meter and a subtotal colour meter which itself is the total of three individual colour meters

    • Total being the grand total for a machine

    • Total machine having it's own totals, subtotals and grand totals for any number of other machines

    • Machine charge group bring a group of total machines or individual machines. Groups of total or other machines can be placed in a machine charge group. If so that group of machines will be charged together, even if the machines are individual machines, children of different total machines or many different stand alone total machines

  • Charge, a single simple set of charging rules is applied to every meter. The aggregation rules handle all totals in advance. All the charging rules have to do is, for every meter:
    • charge the actual usage using a list of quantity break prices. If you don't want to charge at any level of aggregation, set the price to zero at that level
    • change the minimum charge. Being the minimum quantity less the actual quantity multiplied by the minimum price. Where the actual quantity is less than the minimum quantity and the minimum price is not zero
  • Charge cycle, a minimum and actual charge cycle being the number of months between minimum and actual charges:
      • normally each month
      • may may be zero for a short term hire machine
      • may be quarterly, yearly etc. for special cases
  • Charge to, being a any one of:
    • the customer that owns the machine
    • a charge to customer being different to the one that owns the machine, such as a manufacturer
    • a charge split, such as the first n quantity or value charges to the finance company while the excess charges to the customer 
  • Charge product, which determines the general ledger account to which any charge goes for each meter:
    • every meter has a different charge product
    • the same meter name at each level of aggregation charge to a different general ledger account
      

Breaking up aggregation from changing makes for a very flexible system. You can charge at more than one level and reuse actuals for more than one purpose, such as for colour charge, subtotaled for hire charge, total machine for contract and group of total machines for enterprise.

Meter aggregation and charging examples

Examples of features that are now supported:

      • Any fleet of devices can be invoiced as “consolidated meter charges”. When demonstrating this with you on Friday, we could not at the time think of any combination of meter charges of individual or fleets of machines that Readysell could not now handle
      • Use a total machine to sum up the quantities from meters with the same name on any group of child machines. Then to bill things like hire from subtotals on the total machine and on the individual machine
      • Include some meters on total machines that are not on some or all of the children. To handle charges that are in depended on the child machines or reuse the meters on the child machines in any combination
      • On individual or child machines include meters that are not totaled to the total machine, which don’t change on the child machine but charge on the total, which charge on the child machine but also on the total or which charge minimums and actuals in different combinations than the total machine
      • Include multiple quantity break prices at any level of aggregation for quantities
      • Use quantities from any other type of meter and any other type of subtotal on an independent subtotal quantity or minimum change
      • Handle minimum charges based on the difference between actual quantities and minimum quantities times a minimum variance price and/or as a comparison of meter values and minimum values
      • Any meter at any level can be associated with any appropriate general ledger account