Within Zero Friction, we work with Products that group specific billing items. A product can be applied to one contract or be used for multiple contracts that have the same billing plan.

Each product consists of different billing items that can be fixed costs that have a fixed price and variable costs that depend on consumptions (e.g. gas, heat, water...). The sum of all the billing items will be the total amount on the invoice. Grouping billing items together in a product for a certain type of contract makes work easier as a product can be used for several contracts that follow a particular billing plan.

Inside your products you can easily update prices and tariffs, per year or for a certain period in a year. Adjusting a product will automatically update all the contracts where it is used and as such the new prices will be automatically applied to them. There is no need to individually update each contract.

When creating a billing item there are 4 billing calculation types to choose from. We will discuss them below:

The billing item is calculated based on a certain consumption of a service (measurements) provided during the invoicing period.

The billing item will be calculated based on a parameter (attribute) that has been added on the serviced location. Attributes are already ready for use in Zero Friction and do not have to be created by the user. Possible attributes are surface area, a quota, a capacity, number of occupants or a property quota. Depending on the value that has been entered for the attribute a different price will be used for this billing item.

The billing item is calculated based on a self-defined consumption unit that has been added to the serviced location. An example could be the size of a boiler. The distinction with attributes is that a consumption unit has to be created by the user itself and can be anything depending on what you want to take into considaration for that location. After a consumption unit has been created, it can be added to a serviced location as parameter. If a certain value of the consumption unit is reached, a certain price will apply for that billing item.

It is possible to create custom properties for the following entities:

The property types are defined in Configuration > Custom entity properties. They are added to an entity on this entity's detail page.

Possible data types that can be selected are string, number, decimal, date or a yes/no field.

Two examples of usage are described below:

When exporting data from the listpages of these entities (customer, serviced location, meter, property group, contract), any custom properties will be exported in the Excel file. Each property will be in a separate column.

Custom entity properties will in the future replace the Attributes and Consumption Units fields.

The billing item is a fixed price and does not depend on consumptions or parameters. E.g. a rental price or a fixed subscription charge.

When adding tariffs for a billing item, you can choose different calculation types that determine how the tariff will be applied for the invoicing period of a product.

In Zero Friction it is possible to use a self-defined formula in order to calculate the billing item.

The user can use a fixed value (a number) in combination with arithmetic operators (/,+,-) and brackets to create a formula. It is also possible to work with input variables* that you have defined in the configuration settings under Products.

These input variables can be used as cost components which are defined each year. This way you only need to update the input variables and not each formula seperately that uses them.

A fixed price is used for the billing item. This is a defined unit price for a certain period.

The pricing of the billing item depends on its quantity. For example the higher the quantity, the lower the price will be. You are going to define tiers (price brackets) for each quantity level. Zero Friction will determine the price according to the quantity that has been reached during the invoice period and use the price of the corresponding tier.

For example:

When the volume is 15, then tier 2 will be applied and the amount will be calculated as 15*40.

The pricing of the billing item depends on its quantity. The difference with Tiered is that the price is selected that aligns with the quantity used. No multiplication is done.

For example:

When the volume is 20, then tier 2 will be applied and the amount will be 60. No multiplication.

The pricing of the billing item depends on its quantity but different prices will be used for each quantity reached for that defined price bracket.

For example:

If the consumed quantity is 15, tier 1 will be applied for the first 10 quantities. For the remaining quantities tier 2 applies. The billing item price will be (10 x 50) + (5 x 60)

Zero Friction allows to specify the periodicity of a billing item on the invoices. There are 5 options that we will explain below:

The billing item will appear on each invoice and the end note. It follows the regular

invoicing cycle as defined on the contract.

The billing item will only appear on the first invoice that is made after the move-in. After this, it will not appear on future invoices anymore.

The billing item will only appear on the final end-note when the contract has been terminated. On previous invoices it won't appear as a billed item.

The billing item will only appear on a fixed number of invoices for a contract. This number is defined by the user. After it has been reached, the item won't appear on any invoice afterwards.

The billing item is defined by a periodicity (day, month or year) and a number. For example if you define periodicity as monthly and number as 5, the billing item will only be shown on the first yearly invoice for a duration of 5 months. If the tariff is a yearly tariff it will be recalculated to its equivalent of 5 months.

During the creation of a product it is possible to override the default tariff of the billing items by modifying the tariff on product level. Product-specific tariffs allow the user to use an existing billing item and only modifying its price for that specific product and in this way save time. Tariffs specified on product level always take precedence on the default tariffs on the billing item.

It is possible to set a start and end date for which a billing item is active on a product. This way, period limiting of billing items is possible. For example: you want to add a certain billing item for three months only on the invoices of that product. After these three months, this billing item will not be billed anymore on the next invoices.