To create a bill at any time, use the Bill Now feature in Billing Care or Customer Center. Bill Now generates a bill that includes all pending items for a bill unit. Bill Now adds the previous total amount to the current total. For example, for an account that has a previous total of $20, and a current total of $10, when Bill Now is run, the account is billed for $30. Bill Now works with both open item and balance forward accounting types.

• When an account has multiple bill units, only one parent bill unit can be processed at a time. If you run Bill Now on a parent bill unit, a bill is created that contains a total of the items from both the parent and any nonpaying bill unit objects.

• If you run Bill Now on a nonpaying bill unit, a bill is created for the parent bill unit that includes only the nonpaying bill unit items.

• You can choose to bill all pending items or select specific items. When a bill is generated for specific items, it does not include the cycle arrears and cycle forward arrears fees.

• Bill Now ignores the CycleTaxInterval business parameter, which specifies whether deferred taxes are calculated separately for the parent and each nonpaying child bill unit or are consolidated into a single item for the parent. When you run Bill Now on a parent bill unit that includes nonpaying child bill units, rolls activities for each nonpaying child bill unit into the parent bill unit and calculates taxes for the parent only. The single tax item for the parent includes taxes from both the parent and the nonpaying child bill units.

• You can run Bill Now on a child bill unit to calculate its taxes.

  To calculate taxes for the child bill unit:

  1. Run the pin_bus_params utility to change the GenerateBillForChildBillNow business parameter to enabled. For more information, see "Generating Bills for a Non-Paying Child Account When Using Bill Now".

  2. Run the pin_bus_params utility to set the CycleTaxInterval business parameter to accounting. For more information, see "Deferred Taxation Limitations for Hierarchical Bill Units" in BRM Designing and Generating Invoices.

  3. Run Bill Now on the child bill unit for which you want to calculate taxes.

To apply discounts with Bill Now to closed accounts, you must ensure that BRM does not delete canceled discounts. For information about deleting canceled discounts, see "Deleting Canceled Discount Offers" in BRM Managing Customers.

To turn off automatic deletion of canceled discounts:

1. Go to BRM_home/sys/data/config.

2. Use the following command to create an editable XML file from the subscription instance of the /config/business_params object:

   pin_bus_params -r BusParamsSubscription bus_params_subscription.xml

   This command creates an XML file named bus_params_subscription.xml.out in your current directory. If you do not want this file in your current directory, specify the path as part of the file name.

3. In bus_params_subscription.xml.out, set KeepCancelledProductsOrDiscounts to enabled:

   <KeepCancelledProductsOrDiscounts>enabled</KeepCancelledProductsOrDiscounts>

   This is the default value.

   Caution:

   BRM uses the XML in this file to overwrite the existing instance of the /config/business_params object. If you delete or modify any other parameters in the file, these changes affect the associated aspects of the BRM configuration.

4. Save and exit the file.

5. Rename the bus_params_subscription.xml.out file to bus_params_subscription.xml.

6. Use the following command to load your changes into the /config/business_params object:

   pin_bus_params bus_params_subscription.xml

   You should run this command from the BRM_home/sys/data/config directory, which includes support files used by the utility. To run it from a different directory, see "pin_bus_params" in BRM Developer's Guide.

7. Read the object with the testnap utility or the Object Browser to verify that all fields are correct.

   For general instructions on using testnap, see "Using the testnap Utility to Test BRM" in BRM Developer's Guide. For information on how to use Object Browser, see "Reading Objects" in BRM Developer's Guide.

8. Stop and restart the Connection Manager (CM).

   For more information, see "Starting and Stopping the BRM System" in BRM System Administrator's Guide.

By default, when you use Bill Now, cycle arrears charges and cycle forward arrears charges are not prorated.

You can specify to prorate cycle arrears charges and cycle forward arrears charges for Bill Now by running the pin_bus_params utility to change the ApplyCycleFeeForBillNow business parameter. For information about this utility, see BRM Developer's Guide.

To prorate cycle forward arrears charges when you use Bill Now:

1. Go to BRM_home/sys/data/config.

2. Create an XML file from the /config/business_params object:

   pin_bus_params -r BusParamsBilling bus_params_billing.xml 
   

3. In the XML file, change disabled to enabled:

   <ApplyCycleFeeForBillNow>enabled</ApplyCycleFeeForBillNow>
   

4. Save the file as bus_params_billing.xml.

5. Load the XML file into the BRM database:

   pin_bus_params bus_params_billing.xml
   

6. Stop and restart the CM.

By default, generating two bills with Bill Now during the delayed billing period is disabled in BRM.

To enable this feature, run the pin_bus_params utility to change the CreateTwoBillNowBillsInDelay business parameter. For information about this utility, see BRM Developer's Guide.

Delayed billing must already be set up before enabling this feature. If you have not already set up delayed billing, see "Setting Up Delayed Billing".

To enable Bill Now during the delayed period:

1. Go to BRM_home/sys/data/config.

2. Create an XML file from the /config/business_params object:

   pin_bus_params -r BusParamsBilling bus_params_billing.xml
   

3. In the XML file, change disabled to enabled:

   <CreateTwoBillNowBillsInDelay>enabled</CreateTwoBillNowBillsInDelay>
   

4. Save the file as bus_params_billing.xml.

5. Load the XML file into the BRM database:

   pin_bus_paramsbus_params_billing.xml
   

6. Stop and restart the CM.

To calculate tax and generate bills at the child level using Bill Now, you must enable bill generation for non-paying child accounts.