# Billing Parameters

The Billing Menu, reached from the Reports Menu, identifies several categories of system usage that you can configure for billing. The categories of Messages Received and Disk Usage contain fax fields:

## Messages Received

Messages Received contains fields both for faxes received and faxes sent. You can bill fax messages either on the number of messages or the number of pages. Additionally, you can bill retrieved fax messages in two categories: those for which the call was placed using the mailbox owner’s calling card (billed messages), or those that were dialed without using a calling card (non-billed messages). You can also place a rate on undelivered fax messages, which incur storage space while on the system.

For each of the fax fields in Messages Received Billing, you can set two rates: one for instances below a certain boundary (for example, the first ten faxes received each billing period), and another for each instance above the boundary (all faxes received after the first ten). You can also set the boundary between low and high usage.

## Fax Received Messages

This billing parameter allows you to bill mailbox owners based on the number of faxes that they receive during a billing period.

## Fax Sent Messages

This billing parameter allows you to bill mailbox owners based on the number of faxes that they make or give during a billing period. If a mailbox owner sends/gives a fax to a distribution list, each member of the distribution list counts as one fax message sent.

## Fax Retrieval Non-Billed Messages

This parameter bills mailbox owners for each successful outgoing fax call that the server makes using a non-billed access code. These calls may be local or long distance, depending on the configuration of access codes and the mailbox LCOS. Faxes that callers retrieve during a NuPoint Voice session are not counted in this billing parameter.

## Fax Retrieval Billed Messages

This parameter bills mailbox owners for each successful outgoing fax call that the server makes using a billed access code. These fax calls are made using the mailbox owner’s long-distance carrier and calling card, thus the server does not incur any toll charges for the calls. Faxes that callers retrieve during a NuPoint Voice session are not counted in this billing parameter.

## Fax Undelivered Messages

You can use this billing parameter to charge for fax messages that are received into a mailbox, but never delivered to a fax machine. These messages are eventually purged from the system due to age.

## Fax Pages Received Messages

This billing parameter allows you to charge mailbox owners based on the number of fax pages received, regardless of the total number of faxes. If you are trying to serve a lot of customers with few fax ports, it may work better to bill your customers for fax pages rather than total faxes (see “Fax Received Messages,” above), since a single fax that contains many pages can occupy a fax port for several minutes.

## Fax Pages Sent Messages

This billing parameter allows you to charge mailbox owners based on the number of fax pages sent, regardless of the total number of faxes. If you are trying to serve a lot of customers with few fax ports, it may work better to bill your customers for fax pages rather than total faxes (see “Fax Sent Messages,” above), since a single fax that contains many pages can occupy a fax port for several minutes.

## Fax Pages Retrieval Non-Billed Messages

This parameter bills mailbox owners for each page of successful outgoing fax calls that the server makes using a non-billed access code. These calls may be local or long distance, depending on the configuration of access codes and the mailbox LCOS. Faxes that callers retrieve during a NuPoint Voice session are not counted in this billing parameter.

## Fax Pages Retrieval Billed Messages

This parameter bills mailbox owners for each page of successful outgoing fax calls that the server makes using a billed access code. These fax calls are made using the mailbox owner’s long-distance carrier and calling card, thus the server does not incur any toll charges for the calls. Faxes that callers retrieve during a NuPoint Voice session are not counted in this billing parameter.

## Disk Usage

Disk Usage billing allows you to charge mailbox owners for the amount of storage used by their mailbox during a billing period. Fax messages, like voice messages, occupy space on the system’s hard disks. You can bill at different rates for voice messages and fax messages, if desired.

## Fax Disk Use Rates

Simply stated, this billing parameter sets a cost for fax storage on the system’s hard disk. Storage used during a billing period is the result of the size of each message times the length of time that the mailbox owner has it in his or her mailbox.

Because the density (amount of information) of a fax page varies, fax disk usage is not measured in units of pages or total faxes. Instead, fax disk usage is measured in units of comparable voice storage. In other words, if a fax message stored on the system’s hard disk takes up as much space as a two-minute message, it would be billed the same as a two-minute message. If a mailbox owner kept that fax message for five days before discarding it, the total usage would equal ten minutes of storage.

The average double-spaced fax page (8.5" x 11") requires the same amount of storage as about 12 seconds of voice recording. A very dense fax page can use the equivalent storage space as 40 or more seconds of voice recording.

As with the Messages Received parameters, you can set a low usage rate, high usage rate, and boundary for Fax Disk Use. The boundary is in units of equivalent voice storage minutes.

Parent topic: FAX Billing and Statistics