Rates of the call shop are usually defined by the administrator, but the rate plans are managed in the main database of the billing system. All the rates are dependent on the charging policy; in case of a destination based billing rates are specified according to the area codes in the supported destinations.
There are times when rates can be simple, flat per minute billing, nonetheless sometimes the rates can be complex depending on peak or off peak times, there can be some special rates to certain destinations or on certain holidays.
An issue related to rates is rounding off. Sometime the rates can be rounded off by the first second or by the sixth second or one minute. The other thing that should be considered is the minimum duration to charge for. In order to provide reliable and accurate billing, a billing system has to be capable of managing the rounding issues effectively.
There has to be a centralized control that is able to keep control of all the calls, which were originated from different call shops and also the system has to generate Call Detail Records (CDR) accordingly in order to manage all the call shops accurately. CDRs present the runtime information regarding the duration of the call, caller, call time, QoS and Termination Cause.
In order to specify the rates accordingly to requirements the billing system has to be installed on the computer at a Call Shop.