<p>Copyright TM Forum 2006-2008<br/></p><p><br/></p><p><b>Extended Description</b><br/></p><p><br/></p><p>The billing events management processes encompass the functions required to guide, distribute, mediate, summarize, accumulate, and analyze billing event records. These processes may occur in real-time, near real-time, or may be executed on a periodic basis.<br/></p><p><br/></p><p>Billing event records include records produced by network elements (service events), records that indicate the need for periodic billing of a reoccurring product rate, and records that indicate the need for billing of a non-reoccurring rate.<br/></p><p><br/></p><p>The guiding processes ensures that the event records used in the billing processes are appropriately related to the correct customer billing account and products. <br/></p><p><br/></p><p>The billing event records are edited and if necessary reformatted (mediated) to meet the needs of subsequent processes. The billing event records may also be enriched with additional data during this process.<br/></p>