N4 stores billable events in argo_chargeable_unit_events and argo_chargeable_unit_marine. Your billing application can update any column in these shared event tables. Entries in the events tables are NOT updated by N4 except in the case of a STORAGE and REEFER events, i.e. all non storage and non reefer events will cause the creation of a new row. For example, if you define a Re-Weigh event type as billable and some attributes of the container change within subsequent billable events, separate extracted events in the shared billing table will be created for each event with column values taken from the unit at the time of the extract. That is:
Container ABC is re-weighed
Container ABC changes outbound carrier (a non-billable event in this example)
Container ABC is re-weighed a second time
If an extract occurs after step 3, two separate records would be written, both entries with the changed new outbound carrier value.
If two extracts occurred, once after step 1 and once after step 3, the first extract would create a row with the old outbound carrier value. The second extract will create a row with the new outbound carrier value. However certain values such as from and to location are saved on the source event itself and the extracted billing event will reflect the value at the time of the source event. So even if the extract happens after the from and to location are changed multiple times, each row in the shared billable table will have the historic value at the time of the source event.
The shared unit event table contains two type of events:
extracted event: extracted either by a scheduled billing extract job or manually extracted by an end user and will have a batch id. These events are triggered by source events defined as billable in the Event Types table.
non-extracted event: Applies only to STORAGE and REEFER events which causes rows to be created in the shared billing table immediately in the system as they occur. Hence STORAGE and REEFER events do not have a batch id.
The following three fields have special meaning:
status: Extracted records are marked as "QUEUED" to indicate that it is yet to processed. It is the external billing application's responsibility to update the status field with an appropriate value to not process the record a subsequent time. Only for STORAGE and REEFER events, status will be marked as PAID or PARTIAL when the paid thru day is updated.
PAID-If the event date time (delivery of the container) is less than or equal to paid thru day then the status is updated as PAID.
PARTIAL- When the event date time is greater than the paid thru day, the status is updated as PARTIAL.
is_locked: This field is used to mark a record that must not be updated automatically through N4. This field only applies to STORAGE and REEFER events. The client system is responsible for setting this field.
paid_thru_day: This column is applicable only for STORAGE and REEFER event. External billing system updates the paid thru day via web service request to release the container. Depending on the event date time , N4 will mark the event as PAID or PARTIAL as described above.
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