Getting Started

The first and most important step to getting started with Tenant Billing is to connect your Skyetel Account with Stripe:

Once your Skyetel account has been connected to Stripe, you will see the Tenant Billing view. From here you can create Billing Profiles

Tenant Billing Profiles

Billing Profiles are where you specify what you want to bill your end users, and under what conditions.

General

Each billing profile has 4 conditions that must be configured for you to schedule an invoice. 

Tenant - The tenant that this profile is linked to
Auto Charge - Option to automatically charge the end users credit card (if its saved to their stripe profile). Please read the "Auto Charging Credit Cards" section below"
Include Taxes - Option to include Taxes using data from CSI. We discuss that later in this article 
Billing Day - The day of the month the invoice should be sent  

Products

The Billing Profile has a massive product list that should encapsulate all of the services you could offer in the telecom world. 

Usage Charges

SIP Trunk Channel Utilization - The number of channels your tenant used the previous month
Per Minute Usage - Conversational Inbound Usage - the number of conversational inbound minutes your Tenant used in the previous month. 
Per Minute Usage - Conversational Usage Inbound Toll Free - the number of conversational inbound Toll Free minutes your Tenant used in the previous month. 
Per Minute Usage - Conversational Usage Outbound -the number of conversational outbound minutes your Tenant used in the previous month. 
Per Minute Usage - International Usage (Outbound) - the number of international outbound minutes your Tenant used in the previous month. 
Per Minute Usage - Short Duration Usage (Outbound) - the number of short duration outbound minutes your Tenant used in the previous month.

Monthly Charges

Inventory Items - Local Number Count - The number of local phone numbers your Tenant had in the previous month. It is not possible to pro-rate this item.
Inventory Items - Toll Free Number Count - The number of toll free phone numbers your Tenant had in the previous month. It is not possible to pro-rate this item.
E911 - E911 Numbers Enabled Count - The number of E911 registered numbers your Tenant had in the previous month. It is not possible to pro-rate this item.

SMS & MMS

SMS & MMS - SMS Enabled Number Count - The number of phone numbers that have SMS enabled for the previous month. It is not possible to pro-rate this item.
SMS & MMS - Sent SMS Count - The quantity of SMS messages sent by your Tenant in the previous month.
SMS & MMS - Received SMS Count - The quantity of SMS messages received by your Tenant in the previous month.
SMS & MMS - Sent MMS Count - The quantity of MMS messages sent by your Tenant in the previous month. 
SMS & MMS - Received MMS Count - The quantity of MMS messages your Tenant received in the previous month. 

Features

Features - Voicemail Transcriptions Count - The number of Voicemail Transcriptions your Tenant sent in the previous month.
Features - Call Recordings Count - The number of minutes your Tenant recorded for calling in the previous month. 
Features - Call Transcriptions Count - The number of minutes your Tenant Transcribed in the previous month. 
Features - Caller ID Lookups Count - The number of Caller ID lookups your Tenant performed in the previous month. 
Features - Spam Call Lookup Count - The number of Spam lookups your Tenant performed in the previous month
Features - vFax Count - The number of vFax minutes used by your Tenant in the previous month.

Misc

(Please note it is not possible to use the Statement Quantity for these items)
Hosted PBX Extensions/Seats - This item should be used if you are selling hosted PBX services by extension
Misc Telecom Service - This item should be used for other services you offer that are telecom in nature, but do not fit into our categories. A good example of a Misc Telecom Service would be a conference bridge.
Ongoing Support/Labor - If you charge ongoing support labor (monthly maintenance fees, or other labor charges, use this item. 
Installation Charge - If you charge labor for installation, use this item. Installation charges are taxed differently than ongoing support labor in some areas, so please be careful to make this distinction. 
Licenses and Software - If you charge your customer for Licenses (like a 3CX license or a Softphone LIcense) use this item. 
Telecom Equipment Leasing - If you are leasing equipment to your end user (like desk phones), use this item.
Late Fees - What it sounds like :)
Shipping & Handling Charges - Also what it sounds like!
Hardware Purchase - Use this product when you sell a piece of hardware (like a phone or headset).
Managed Technical Support Services - For Skyetel Customers who bill their VoIP services on the same invoice as their MSP services, you can use this line item for your MSP services.
Consulting Services - Use this item if you provide a one-time consulting service for your customer.
Regulatory Recovery Fees - Use this item to recoup the costs associated with remaining compliant.

Description 

When you select a billable product, by default the invoice will show that product as the description/line item. We understand that there are cases where that is not ideal. You can use the Description field to override what the end user sees on their invoice's line item. 

For example - if you sell your customer a Yealink T46s Desk Phone, you would select "Hardware Purchase" and set the Description to "Yealink T46s Desk Phone." That way, your customer is correctly taxed, and on the invoice it lists the Yealink as the line item instead of "Product - Hardware Purchase" 

Markup

There may be a situation where you do not want to assign a flat rate to a customer, and would prefer to simply markup your costs by a set percentage:

To do this, you would simply select the unit cost as "Markup" and set your percentage. We will then apply a markup to your Skyetel costs and put it on the Tenant's bill. 

We calculate the Markup percentage by converting your percentage to a fixed calculation. So a 75% markup, would cost your Tenant 1.75 of your total cost. Put another way, if your costs for International is $100, your Tenant would be charged $175 assuming your markup percentage was 75%. 

Advanced

Tax Exemption - Option to specify what taxes the end user should be exempt from
Stripe Customer ID - The customer ID this Tenant is using in Stripe. If you are already using Stripe, you may use this field to map a tenant to an existing customer. 

Auto Charging Credit Cards

When the Tenant Billing Profile is first created, we automatically import your Tenant's information into your Stripe account and create a Stripe "Customer." When the "Customer" is first created, it will not have your end user's credit card information, and therefore it will not be possible to automatically charge the end user's credit card. 

There are three ways to import your end user's credit card information into Stripe:

1. When the end user pays their first invoice, Stripe will automatically save their credit card information.
2. Manually input your end user's credit information into their Stripe customer profile. 
3. Import all of your end user's credit cards into stripe in a large migration.

You will need to do one of these options before you will be able to automatically charge an End User's credit card. If you turn on Auto Charge Credit Card without having a saved credit card on file for your end user, Stripe will not send them an invoice but will wait for you to provide that information into their Stripe Customer profile.

Once you have added your end user's credit card information to the Stripe Customer profile, we will automatically charge their credit card and send them a receipt of the transaction. 

Quantity: Statement Data 

This is where the magic happens. When this option is selected, we will automatically use the values provided in the Tenant Statement for the quantity. For example - if you bill your customers for their Toll Free usage separately, you can simply specify "Per Minute Usage - Conversational Usage Inbound Toll Free" as the product and "Statement" as the quantity and we will use the data from their most recent statement to generate the quantity.