Bill Generation
Organisations create a bill, or invoice, for goods and services that have been supplied to a customer.
They usually generate a group of bills at a scheduled time. This enables the user to effectively manage his or her time and results in less disruption to the main database.
Bill generation is not done immediately but as a group (batch transaction processing).
Household or business bills for electricity, telephones and so on will generally be for a fixed period of time, such as a monthly or quarterly.
These bills depend on the actual use of the service and therefore can only be calculated over the full period of time. Thus, the generation of the bill cannot be performed until the billing period is completed and the bill is then posted to the user with a time period (usually several weeks) allowed for payment.
Such bills could be generated online but this would be a waste since the whole period of time must elapse before the total can be calculated.
In these circumstances, batch processing is cheaper and effectively as fast.
Originally posted by HSC
what are the information processes involved in bill generation?
This should then give you the following idea(s):
Collecting - Gathering and tallying usage (figures/numbers) such as how many litres (water), how many kilowatt-hours (electricity) and so on.
Organising - Entering these figures into a spreadsheet or database where it can be represented in the information system (for example using the numbers data type for litres and kilowatt-hours and having dates in the correct dd/mm/yy format, or the day of the week using a drop-down menu or text data type)
Analysing - Without changing any data, the data is then transformed into information such as via the process of searching, sorting etc for a particular purpose. For example, to generate a report for a bill, given this month's usage, in comparison with "this time last year" as you will often find in electricity bills and water bills.
Storing and Retrieving - Saving the gathered, organised and analysed data into a database or spreadsheet, retrieving the figures/numbers when required (at the time of bill generation). Using magnetic disks, optical disks, tape and other storage devices for storage and retrieval.
Processing - Manipulating the figures so that you can calculate the required amount of payment. For example electricity can be charged at 11 or 12 cents per kilowatt-hour and so by processing the analysed data, you're able to work out how much money is to be paid (on the invoice/bill). So you'll be able to edit and update the data as the days/weeks/months go by, being able to generate reports, graphs and so on for the bill (a table is generally presented on a bill, along with a graph/statistics).
Transmitting and Receiving - Sending out the bills to each household/customer. This stage basically involves mailing out your bills to each household through the postal system.
Displaying - Permanent hard copy, printed on paper to be able to send the bill(s) generated, through the mail.
I hope that gives you some idea/guide.