How the SAFE Billing Process Works
Each stage of a billing run, from carrier files to collected payments, and what your team checks along the way.
A billing run in SAFE takes usage and recurring charges for a period and turns them into delivered invoices and collected payments. The platform does the processing at each stage; your team reviews the exceptions and approves the run before any invoice is produced. The Next Steps panel on each billing run shows where it has reached.
CDR Import
Call records arrive from your carriers by manual upload, email collection, FTPS or API, depending on the carrier and your package. Bundles too large to email can be uploaded through the portal. A banner on the Billing Run menu shows any CDR files still waiting for attention.
What your team checks: Confirm that every expected carrier file has arrived for the period.
Allocation and Rating
Each call is allocated to a customer by number and rated against the applicable tariff, by destination, time of day and service type, with discount plans and allowances applied. Records that cannot be processed are listed under Billing Errors.
What your team checks: Work through billing errors, such as numbers not assigned to a customer.
Recurring and One-Off Charges
Line rentals, subscriptions and equipment charges come from the features on each account, on their own intervals and in advance or arrears. Partial periods are pro-rated when features start, stop or change.
What your team checks: Make sure service changes and cessations are recorded before the cutoff date.
Preview and Pre-Billing Report
The billing preview shows each customer expected in the run and their projected charges. When the run is marked Ready or Approved, the pre-billing report lists unallocated and unrated calls and highlights figures more than 15% away from recent months.
What your team checks: Review the report and confirm it has been checked; bill production cannot be requested until you do.
Bill Production
Requesting bills produces the invoices from your templates, with your branding and any invoice message for the run. The run fields lock at this point. A post-billing report summarises what was produced.
What your team checks: Check the post-billing report and sample invoices before sending.
Delivery and Portal Access
Invoices are emailed to customers under your brand, with delivery tracked, and are available in the customer portal to view and download.
What your team checks: Follow up any failed deliveries shown against the run.
Collection and Matching
On packages with payment collection, Direct Debit and card payments are created and submitted on working-day timings before each due date, or taken through a payment run. Each payment is recorded against its invoice.
What your team checks: Follow up failed payments, manually or through retries configured in SAFE CRM Credit Control.
Where the Time Goes Instead
Rating, recurring charges, invoice production, delivery and collection run from the records already in the platform, so routine accounts need no manual entry. Staff time moves to the items the platform cannot resolve on its own: unassigned numbers, missing tariffs, unusual movements in the pre-billing report and failed payments.
The billing run guide covers each stage in more detail, and the billing run documentation describes every screen and field.
Follow a Billing Cycle End to End
We can take a representative customer from CDR import and rating through invoice approval, delivery and payment.