Billing and Reporting Automation

1
Billing and Reporting Automation

• Status of FISD Research
• Bill Mangan
• December 12, 2001

2
What Members Want

• Eliminate paper
• Simplify processes
• Automate common functions
• Eliminate manual comparisons
• Common set of data

• Common reference identifiers
• Electronic ordering and order tracking
• Electronic reports and invoices
• Re-deployment of market data resources

3
What Users Want

• Simplify and automate invoice reconciliation
• Better inventory management tools including links
  to contracts
• Electronic bills that match inventory
• Elimination of partial month billing
• Electronic ordering and order tracking
• Better information on data usage
• Normalization of product catalogues

4
What Vendors Want

• Simple and rational reporting requirements
  (minimal detail)
• Separate invoice process from reconciliation
  process
• Relief from minutia of billing reconciliation
• Timely payment

5
What Exchanges Want

• Timely and accurate information from reporting
  entities
• Standard customer identifiers for automated
  database mapping
• Ability for vendors to report using multiple
  reporting mechanisms

6
Billing Process Flowchart

• Identification of data capture requirements
• Definition of how data moves through systems
• Determination of how data is used to generate a
  bill
• Definition of processes associated with
  validation and payment

7
(No Transcript)
8
Two Sides of the Equation

• Process-Related Areas
• Reporting requirements, timing cycles
• Electronic reporting, billing and payment
  mechanisms
• Standards-Related Areas
• Product identification standards
• Customer identification standards
• Billing and reporting data element standards

9
Level of Detail Required

• Transactional detail not required to produce a
  bill (summary totals only)
• Partial month reconciliation is resource
  intensive and (most say) unnecessary
• Non-uniform timing cycles for data capture
  contribute to reconciliation problems
• Timing gaps between order processing and
  implementation add to complexity

10
Product Identification Standards

• Normalization of product catalogues within a
  single vendor
• And among multiple vendors delivering the same
  product
• FISD/Waters RTFI in discussions on building
  product catalogue and assigning/maintaining
  product codes
• User firms want product ID code carried on
  invoices and in inventory systems

11
Customer Identification Standards

• Standard customer identifiers are needed for
  automated database mapping
• Customer ID standards could help reconcile
  multiple access fee issue
• FISD is exploring the use of bank identifier
  codes (BIC) as partial solution

12
Data Element Standards

• Common format and glossary of billing and
  reporting data elements (XML for billing and
  reporting)
• Whats needed for new orders, additional
  services, new services, new users, new data uses
  and cancellation
• Starting point product ID, device ID, location
  ID, vendor ID, billing address, proposed uses,
  start/end date, quantity, price, purchase
  reference numbers

13
Next Steps

• Industry participants working on various
  initiatives
• Four potential FISD initiatives
• Process simplification implementation
• Product identification/service codes
• Customer identifiers using ISO standards
• XML format and glossary for billing