Billing hierarchies

Abstract

The invention relates to a usage tracking and billing system that includes a hierarchy system made up of hierarchies containing entities representing the accountables, services, and service locations associated with usage data. In an example embodiment, the hierarchies are: (1) Organizational Hierarchy representing service users, service providers, and billed and billing parties, (2) Service Hierarchy representing services, and (3) Location Hierarchy representing the locations where services are used or provided. The hierarchies allow for correlation of service usage among the user(s), the service being used, and the location of where the services were consumed as well as provided. The end user may set the desired organizational structure, specify the locations (grouped by continent, etc. within a multinational organization), and provide an application view of what service usage is to be billed for and at what rate for the various groups and locations within the organization. The hierarchies are used to resolve service/system usage each day and the results are applied to the desired rate plan. In this fashion, the end user may build hierarchies that permit any number of rules to be applied to best mimic real world cost structures and conditions.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.