Billing Top-Up Processes

Owned by Tom Cavey
Last updated: Jul 10, 2020
3 min read


This article describes how the VoIP Innovations' Billing Top-up process works and provides detail on how to change the settings on your account.
***Please note that this information applies to Prepaid accounts with a credit card on file in the system that is set to automatically be charged. ***

VoIP Innovations' believes in giving customers control and simplifying processes to enhance customer experience. We have developed a 'two-setting' Top-Up process that accomplishes this goal for customers with Prepaid accounts. The first setting is the Prepaid Target Balance and its purpose is to allow customers to choose the maximum dollar amount of credit they wish to have on their account at any time. For example, if you set your Prepaid Target Balance at $200, this means you are authorizing your credit card to be charged to bring your account balance up to this amount but not over. Your card would never be charged more than an amount that would put the balance over $200. The system will only ever calculate the difference between the current account balance and the Prepaid Target Balance and charge the credit card on file that amount.

The second setting in this two-step top-up process is the Prepaid Replenish Trigger (also known as the Threshold). This setting is used to determine the circumstances in which the system should charge your credit card on file. If for example, if the Prepaid Replenish Trigger is set for $100, when your account balance hits less than $100, the system will automatically charge the card on file to bring your account balance back up to the Prepaid Target Balance.

Prepaid Target Balance and Prepaid Replenish Trigger settings can both be accessed by clicking the Billing tab in the Back Office and then clicking Recurring Payment.

Here is an example scenario that illustrates how this will work. Consider ABC Company has their Prepaid Target Balance set to $200. This means any top up procedures that occur will always attempt to bring the account balance to that amount and no higher. This company also set a Prepaid Replenish Trigger at $100. Assume that ABC company has various usage charges and their balance is reduced to $108 as a result. Furthermore, the customer submits an LNP request and the $8 fee is charge. The account balance for ABC Company is now reduced to $100. At this point the threshold has not been reached as the Prepaid Replenish Trigger is not less than $100. Next assume that ABC company purchases a DID from the Back Office. The activation fee of $1 would now reduce the balance on the account to below the threshold (to $99) thus triggering the replenishing functionality to kick in. The system would therefore attempt to charge the credit card on file $101 to bring the account balance back up to the $200 which is the dollar amount set as the Prepaid Target Balance by ABC Company.

($200 - $99 = $101)