The smooth way
to pay and get paid
Accurate billing and a smooth payment experience are a requirement for cashflow and good customer relations. With our billing automation your incoming payments will be hassle free.
More than a billing system
The COS-system supports any business model
Among broadband providers, the OSS/BSS, or at least the BSS portion is often referred to as a billing system. At COS we think that this term is too narrow for what we offer, as we provide an automated end-to-end solution from the start to finish in the customer journey. From the initial interest survey, through installation, service activation, and finally billing. But, of course, we do the billing component really well too.
Read MoreSince the COS software suite has support for any type of business model, from the traditional single provider model to full last mile Open Access and hybrids in between, the billing capabilities are extensive.
A tried and tested way to handle money
Automated billing by trusted platforms
The COS platform does not store any credit card or other data of that kind. This is instead stored in a specialized payment platform, e.g. Stripe. The COS suite is the orchestrator of all transactions based on the customer’s service selection and will set up the payment transactions in the payment platform by using integrations built against the generic COS Billing API. With this method we support automated credit card and ACH payments.
In our end-to-end platform, the first billing interaction is often when the future subscriber is paying a deposit to validate their pre-signup and/or to pay an initial installation fee. Once the recurring billing for services starts, there are a big number of billing models we support.
Wholesale Open Access billing
How to make your wholesale business run like clockwork
The traditional wholesale billing model is the most common among our Open Access customers. In this model the Network itself or the Operator of the network will not bill the end customer. Instead the subscriber will buy services themselves from their providers of choice at the network Marketplace or directly from the providers. They will then be billed directly by the providers they pick.
Read MoreThis is a very smooth billing model, where it’s very clear that the subscriber is owned by the provider delivering services on the shared infrastructure. To learn more about this and other Open Access models, please visit our Open Access page where we’ve tried to gather all our learnings around the topic. In this scenario the customer will have no billing details stored in COS Business Engine. The system is configured to produce a monthly wholesale billing report per provider, where all the wholesale fees associated with the services they sold on the network are detailed, but also summarized. This billing report is available to the provider directly in the COS Business Engine admin interface. In essence, if the operator of the Open Access Network has 10 different providers on the network, they would only have to send ten bills each month with the total wholesale fee amount owed, pointing the provider to the COS Business Engine for the detailed breakdown.
Single provider billing
Smooth billing with a traditional business model
This is billing as most know it today and requires very little explaining. The customer will register their credit card information or ACH details as they sign up for service in the network Marketplace. The service will be activated immediately through the automated provisioning functionality of COS Business Engine. As soon as the service is activated, billing will be initiated automatically with the subscriber’s preferred billing method.
Read MoreThe subscriber can at any time login to their mypages to review their active and historic services, related contract and their invoices and can themselves update for example credit card details or change payment method. All the transaction details will be available in the payment platform and most often there are pre-built integrations to the book keeping platform.
Open Access ready billing
Bundled billing – flexible business model
A hybrid of the two scenarios described above, where the operator of the network is also selling services but wishes to be open for inviting providers of additional services on the network. The aim is to increase the attractiveness of the network in order to boost take-rates, and to provide additional wholesale revenue streams.
Read MoreIn the Admin interface of the COS Business Engine the operator defines which wholesale services any invited provider can use to build their offer and publish on the plattform’s marketplace. The service providers will be charged a monthly wholesale fee, to be paid to the network operator, and if applicable also a one time start fee. The provider will add their margin and publish the retail offering on the Marketplace.
A customer buying services from multiple providers in the network will get one comprehensive bill, and the money drawn from their credit card or linked bank account. COS Business Engine will prepare a monthly billing report for each provider detailing the services sold, the wholesale fees and the collected retail revenue, effectively providing them with the total net revenue per month. This data is used by the operator to pay out the share of revenue each provider should receive.
We support other business models
The three scenarios above are the most common ones, but we do support others. Contact us to discuss pros and cons with different business and billing models, or ask how we can support your model. We’re pretty sure we can.
We provide FTTH operators and network owners with software for automating and digitizing every aspect of their FTTH venture. From survey and demand aggregation, to sign up, deployment and billing – to help bridge the digital divide.