# Overview

This section describes the billing function and gives the requirements for configuring the billing function. Billing reports are summarized in this section, but the Reports section has more complete information about them. Information covered in this section includes:

- Setting rates

- Gathering billing data

- Billing reports

- Configuration requirements

## About Billing

The billing function collects statistics about NuPoint Unified Messaging server usage and calculates charges for that usage. You can set a low-usage rate and a high-usage rate for each statistic. This rate-setting arrangement gives you the option to charge fixed rates, give volume discounts, or charge for heavy use. During day-to-day server operation, over 120 different statistics can be kept for each mailbox, grouped into these six categories:

- Mailbox access

- Base rates

- Connect time

- Disk usage

- Messages received

- Network rates

- Pager calls

You can configure the server to perform a gather of these statistics, then obtain billing reports generated by the server from the resulting information.

## Billing Reports

After the server performs a gather, the statistics and charges that are calculated go into four types of billing reports that the server can generate. Each report gives a breakdown of charges for individual mailboxes by statistics, then calculates the total amount that is due. Each report has a different purpose. Samples of these reports and explanations of their contents are contained in the Reports section.