Carrier Transactions
A carrier transaction is a single non-call charge from one of your carriers, landed as an individual row in the platform. Line rentals, broadband subscriptions, installation fees, hardware rental, cease charges, engineer visits: anything the carrier bills you for that isn’t a call. Each becomes its own carrier transaction when the fixed fee file is imported.
Carrier transactions are the bridge between the wholesale world and your customer-facing invoices. On one side, they carry the carrier’s own data: their product code, reference, description, status, and the cost they’re charging you. On the other side, they attach to the right customer, number, or feature so that a matching retail charge appears on the customer’s next invoice, priced by the applicable fixed fee tariff.
Most transactions arrive by import. You feed the carrier’s fixed fee file in (see Supply Files), the platform parses each line, creates a carrier transaction, and attempts to allocate it to a customer, number, or feature using the references in the file. Transactions that don’t match automatically can be allocated manually from the unallocated list. You can also create carrier transactions by hand for one-off wholesale costs that didn’t come through a file.
You’ll typically look at carrier transactions when:
- A customer disputes a line rental or subscription charge: trace the charge on the invoice back to its carrier transaction, and from there to the source file and line number, so you can show exactly what the carrier billed and when.
- Imported transactions are unallocated: review the unallocated list after each import, match anything the platform couldn’t auto-attach, and confirm the reference fields you’re sending the carrier are consistent.
- Reconciling carrier invoices: compare the sum of carrier transactions for a period against the carrier’s own invoice total.
- Investigating margins: the Suggested Retail Value field (when the suggested retail module is enabled) sits alongside the wholesale cost, making per-transaction margin visible on the record itself.
Once billing has run, the Transaction ID on a carrier transaction links to the internal billing transaction it produced, so you can follow any charge on a customer’s invoice all the way back to the original line in the carrier’s file.
What this page covers
Section titled “What this page covers”- A full field reference for every field on the carrier transaction record.
- How carrier transactions become invoice charges, from file import to the customer’s invoice.
- Signposts to related objects: carriers, carrier transaction types, and fixed fee tariffs.
Field Reference
Section titled “Field Reference”The tables below list every field on the carrier transaction record, grouped by the section they appear in on the add/edit form.
Carrier Details
Section titled “Carrier Details”This section contains information from the carrier about this transaction, including carrier product details, references, and status information.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Carrier | The carrier that generated this transaction |
| Carrier Product | Product code or identifier from the carrier |
| Carrier Description | Description of the service or transaction from the carrier |
| Carrier Reference | Carrier internal reference number for this transaction |
| Carrier Status | Status of the transaction as reported by the carrier |
| Customer Reference | Customer reference provided by the carrier |
| Number Reference | Number or service identifier from the carrier |
| Subaccount | Carrier subaccount or division for this transaction |
Attachment Details
Section titled “Attachment Details”This section defines which customer, number, or feature this carrier transaction should be attached to for billing purposes.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Customer | Customer this transaction should be billed to |
| Number | Number this transaction relates to |
| Feature | Feature this transaction should be allocated to |
Date Details
Section titled “Date Details”This section contains the various dates associated with this carrier transaction, including transaction date, billing date, and service period dates.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Carrier Transaction Date | Date the transaction occurred according to the carrier |
| Carrier Transaction Bill Date | Date the carrier billed for this transaction |
| Carrier Transaction Start Date | Start date of the service period for this transaction |
| Carrier Transaction End Date | End date of the service period for this transaction |
Charge Details
Section titled “Charge Details”This section defines the financial details of the carrier transaction, including the carrier costs, transaction type, and suggested retail values.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Transaction Type | Type of transaction for billing classification |
| Carrier Transaction Value | Cost charged by the carrier for this transaction |
| Carrier Feature Count | Number of features or units this transaction covers |
| Suggested Retail Value | Suggested retail price for this transaction |
Source Details
Section titled “Source Details”This section shows information about how this carrier transaction was imported into the system.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Fixed Fee File | File this transaction was imported from |
| Line Number | Line number within the import file |
| Allocated | How this transaction was allocated to a customer/number/feature |
System Information
Section titled “System Information”System-generated information about this carrier transaction.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Last Modified | Timestamp of the most recent modification to this carrier transaction |
| Created | Timestamp when this carrier transaction was created |
Identification
Section titled “Identification”Core identifiers for this carrier transaction.
No fields defined for this section.
Notes on key fields
Section titled “Notes on key fields”Carrier reference fields
Section titled “Carrier reference fields”The Carrier Product, Carrier Description, Carrier Reference, Carrier Status, Customer Reference, and Number Reference fields are all taken from the carrier’s own files. Maximum lengths vary (Carrier Description is 95 characters; the others are 65). The platform uses Customer Reference and Number Reference to match each transaction to the right customer, number, or feature during import.
Attachment dropdowns
Section titled “Attachment dropdowns”The Customer, Number, and Feature dropdowns cascade: selecting a customer filters the number list, and selecting a number filters the feature list. Selection controls where the resulting invoice charge lands.
Carrier Transaction Value and Suggested Retail Value
Section titled “Carrier Transaction Value and Suggested Retail Value”Money values are shown to three decimal places and are in pounds (£). Suggested Retail Value only appears when the suggested retail module is enabled.
Source fields
Section titled “Source fields”The Fixed Fee File, Line Number, and Allocated fields are read-only. Allocated shows how the transaction was matched (for example, automatically by reference matching or manually). Use these fields to trace an imported row back to the original file.
Transaction ID
Section titled “Transaction ID”Read-only. Links to the internal transaction record created from this carrier transaction once billing has run. Click it to view the resulting customer-facing transaction.
How Carrier Transactions Become Invoice Charges
Section titled “How Carrier Transactions Become Invoice Charges”Carrier transactions follow this path from file import to the customer’s invoice:
- File imported:a fixed fee file arrives from your carrier (by FTP, email or upload). See Supply Files.
- Carrier transactions created:the platform parses the file and creates a carrier transaction for each line
- Matched to a feature:each carrier transaction is matched to a customer, number or feature using the references in the file (number reference, customer reference, etc.). Unmatched transactions can be allocated manually.
- Fixed fee tariff applied:the platform looks up a fixed fee tariff to calculate the retail price. If a wholesale tariff is configured, it also records the carrier cost. The tariff is found through the standard lookup chain: feature → standard feature → number → service → customer.
- Billing transaction created:during the billing run, the platform creates a billing transaction on the customer’s invoice, with the values calculated by the tariff
The carrier transaction’s Transaction ID field links to the resulting billing transaction, so you can trace any invoice charge back to the original carrier file.
See Non-Usage Charges for how carrier-generated charges fit alongside one-off, recurring and manual charges.