Enterprises of every shape and size receive bills from other organizations. Telecommunications companies exchange billing data with each other, reconciling the call minutes they trade within each monthly period. Governments and private industry companies receive bills from telecommunications companies, power, water and gas utilities. In many cases, these bills can be incorrect when an organization's total bill is a complex roll-up summary of many sub-components. ICBM is designed to reconcile complex billing exchanges between organizations.

In the telecommunications industry, the exchange of call minutes between telecommunications service provider organizations is performed by systems known as Carrier Access Billing Systems (CABS). ICBM is a modular Business-to-Business software application designed to provide revenue assurance. ICBM is comprised of two main functions: Data Management and Billing/Reconciliation. Each module provides various features that when combined, deliver comprehensive business solutions for inter-carrier CABS settlement. ICBM's modular approach is scalable to work for smaller companies with small reconciliation data volumes, up to the largest national and international carriers. Carrier Access Billing (CABS), Invoice Generation and Collection, Mediation, Storage, Summarization and Reporting are all supported.

ICBM provides the following functions:
 •  Carrier Billing System (CABS) including Customers, Products, Service  Elements and Rates
 •  Generation of Invoices for MOUs Previously Summarized
 •  Generation of Invoices for Circuit and Facility Records
 •  Collection, Mediation, Storage, Summarization and Reporting on  Large Volumes of Usage Data and Miscellaneous Data from Multiple  Sources
 •  Collection, Mediation and Storage of Circuit and Facilities Data
 •  Support for Automated Invoice Reconciliation
 •  Quality Control and Revenue Assurance
 •  Automated Data Management

 
Data Management

Data Management is a suite of modules and tools that collect, mediate,  store, and summarize interconnection data. This suite is a foundation for supporting other ICBM suites and external applications.
 •  The ICBM Core module provides automated data management and enables  a methodology for quality control and revenue assurance.
 •  The Usage modules provide tools for collecting, mediating, storing,  summarizing and reporting on large volumes of usage data. Usage data  can be utilized for many business areas including carrier billing  and reconciliation, subscriber billing, traffic management, fraud  management, and marketing analysis.
 •  The Access Modules provide tools for collecting, mediating and  storing circuit and facilities data. Circuit data can be utilized  for many business areas including carrier billing and reconciliation,  capacity management, and marketing analysis.
 •  The Miscellaneous modules provide tools for collecting, mediating  and storing various data from multiple sources. This miscellaneous data can be utilized for many business areas including carrier billing  and reconciliation and marketing analysis.

Billing/Reconciliation

Billing/Reconciliation is a suite of modules and tools that builds upon the functionality of the Data Management suite in order to provide Carrier-to-Carrier invoicing and reconciliation.
 •  The ICBM Billing Engine module provides the main components of the billing system including customers, products, service elements and rates
 •  The Usage modules provide tools necessary to generate invoices for MOUs previously summarized.
 •  The Access Billing modules provide tools necessary to generate invoices for circuit and facility records. The Miscellaneous Billing modules provide tools for generating invoices for other non-usage and non-circuit products.
 •  The Electronic Invoicing modules support electronic invoice records suitable for exchange with other applications.
 •  The Financial Systems Integration modules support reporting of debits and credits to A/R, A/P, and G/L systems.
•  The Automated Reconciliation modules support automated invoice reconciliation by comparison of two electronic invoices.