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Catalog & Folders

Folders & Configuration

Create folders to organise client services, add articles, configure billing dates, set up phone numbers for telecom rating, and activate folders for production.

What Is a Folder?

A folder is the central document in BlueRockTEL for managing and billing a client's services. Think of it as a traditional paper file that links together everything related to a project or contract: the articles being billed, the billing schedule, phone numbers for telecom rating, payment terms, and more.

Every active folder generates an invoice at each billing cycle. A single client can have multiple folders, for example, one for telephony services and another for IT support.

Creating a Folder

Folders are always created from a client record:

  1. Open the client record
  2. Click the dedicated Create folder button
  3. Optionally assign team member roles (sales rep, technician, account manager)
  4. Optionally enter a folder name: if you leave this blank, BlueRockTEL auto-generates an incremental number

Note: The folder name or number appears on invoices, so choose something meaningful if your clients have multiple folders. For example, "Telephony Q1-2025" or "IT Support Contract".

Folder Structure

Each folder is divided into billing sections, displayed from top to bottom:

  1. Technical section: folder metadata, status, team assignments
  2. Licence billing: licence-based recurring charges
  3. One-time billing (facturation ponctuelle), single-occurrence items such as setup fees, hardware, or one-off labour
  4. Recurring billing (facturation recurrente), subscriptions and telecom services, including CDR-based consumption calculations

Adding Articles to a Folder

  1. Click the "+" button in the desired billing section
  2. Start typing the first letters of the article name, suggestions appear as you type
  3. Select the article from the dropdown

Tip: If your catalog contains multiple articles with the same name (e.g. different price tiers), the dropdown shows the price next to each one so you can choose the correct version.

Once an article is added to a folder:

  • You can modify the designation directly in the folder without changing the catalog entry
  • Use the "Label" field to add additional descriptive text that will appear on quotes and invoices beneath the article name
  • Set a billing start date if you already know when the service begins (this is optional and can be configured later)

Bundles

If you frequently add the same group of articles together, create a bundle to save time.

Navigate to Configuration → Articles: Bundles to define bundles. A bundle groups multiple articles into a single package that can be added to a folder in one click, rather than adding each article individually.

Folder Templates

A folder template is a reusable configuration profile that is applied when creating a new folder. It does not pre-load articles — you still add those manually or via bundles. What it does is pre-fill the billing parameters, VoIP rates, team member assignments, and invoice text blocks that would otherwise require manual entry on every new folder.

What a template configures

  • VoIP pricing rates — land line, mobile, special numbers, fax, and international rates applied to CDR billing
  • Minimum call prices — floor prices per call type (land line, mobile, fax)
  • Call and usage limits — maximum national, land line, or mobile calls; threshold for charging calls over N minutes; usage-based charging rules
  • Telco pricing grid — link the folder to a specific operator's rate grid
  • Billing settings — billing frequency, currency, and payment method
  • Batch assignment — the folder is automatically placed in the right billing batch (e.g. "Telephony")
  • Team actor assignments — sales rep, technician, account manager, and other roles are attached automatically
  • Invoice texts — special conditions, text before/after the invoice, and custom text blocks with colour options
  • Internal notes — default notes visible only to your team
  • Auto-launch of a setup workflow — optionally trigger a setup template as soon as the folder is created

Creating a template

  1. Navigate to Configuration → Customer File Templates
  2. Click New template and give it a descriptive name (e.g. "Orange Business — VoIP", "SFR Pro", "New copier client")
  3. Fill in the rates, billing settings, actor assignments, and any text blocks you want pre-filled
  4. Mark it as default if you want it to be selected automatically every time a new folder is created
  5. Save the template

Applying a template

When creating a new folder from a client record, a modal prompts you to select a template. If one is marked as default it is pre-selected. After confirming, the folder is created with all the template's values applied. Every field remains editable — the template is a starting point, not a lock.

You can also re-apply a template to existing folders in bulk from the template's page. BlueRockTEL calculates a diff and only updates fields that have actually changed, and logs every modification for audit purposes.

Example — Telecom provider template: Create a template called "Orange Business VoIP" with Orange's specific land line rate (e.g. ×1.05), mobile rate (×1.10), and international rates, and link it to the Orange pricing grid. Every new folder for an Orange Business client inherits the correct rates without manual entry, eliminating transcription errors.

Example — Actor assignment template: If a specific technician always handles IPBX deployments, create an "IPBX Deployment" template that automatically assigns that technician as technical manager. Combine this with the correct batch and billing frequency and the folder is operationally ready as soon as it is created.

Configuring Service Dates

Service dates control when billing starts, ends, and how prorata is calculated. There are two approaches:

Method 1: Folder-level dates

Set dates for the entire folder at once:

  1. Open the folder and click Edit
  2. Scroll to the "Payment and balance" section
  3. Configure:
    • Service start date: when billing begins
    • Service end date: when billing stops (leave blank for open-ended contracts)
    • "Date-to-date billing" checkbox, enables prorata calculation when the start date does not fall on the first of the month

BlueRockTEL calculates prorata automatically based on the difference between the start date and the billing cycle boundary.

Method 2: Article-level dates (recommended)

For more precise control, leave the folder-level dates empty and configure billing dates on each article individually. This is the recommended approach when different services within the same folder start or end on different dates.

Tip: The "Real" date field on an article stores the original contract signature date for your reference. It does not affect billing calculations, it is purely informational.

Phone Number Configuration

For telecom services that rely on CDR rating, you need to tell BlueRockTEL which phone numbers belong to each article:

  • Enter extensions or SDA numbers in the phone number field
  • Format country prefixes as "0033" (not "+33")
  • Separate multiple numbers with a comma (no space): 0033123456789,0033123456790
  • Use a hyphen for consecutive number ranges (no space): 0033123456789-0033123456799

Important: Correct phone number configuration is essential for accurate CDR rating. If a number is missing or formatted incorrectly, its consumption will not be billed.

Payment Method

Each folder can have its own payment method:

  1. Open the folder and click Edit
  2. Go to the "Payment and balance" section
  3. Select the payment method

If you use SEPA direct debit, select "Direct debit" (prelevement bancaire). Only folders with this payment method will be included when you generate SEPA collection files.

Note: Folders set to other payment methods (bank transfer, cheque, etc.) will not appear in SEPA remittance preparation, this is by design, not an error.

Suspending Billing

You can temporarily stop billing for any individual article within a folder:

  1. Open the article in the folder
  2. Check the "Suspend billing for this service" checkbox
  3. The article is marked in red as "inactive" in the folder view

Suspended articles produce no charges at the next billing cycle. You also have the option to hide services with zero consumption from the invoice entirely.

Activating a Folder

A newly created folder starts in an inactive state. To include it in the next billing cycle:

  1. Return to the technical section at the top of the folder
  2. Click Edit
  3. Change the folder status to "Active"

Once active, the folder will be picked up by the next pre-production or production run.

Important: Don't forget this step. A folder that remains inactive will never generate invoices, no matter how many articles it contains.

The Batch System

By default, all folders are billed together in a single production run. The batch system lets you split billing into multiple tranches, for example, billing telephony services on the 1st and IT services on the 15th.

To configure batches:

  1. Navigate to Configuration → Batches
  2. Create the batches you need (e.g. "Telephony", "IT Services", "Equipment")
  3. Assign each folder to the appropriate batch via the folder's edit page

When you run pre-production or production, you select which batch to process. This gives you full control over billing timing and lets you separate different service types for operational clarity.

Tip: Batches are also useful when different service types need different validation workflows before invoices go out.

Next Steps

With your folders configured and activated, you are ready to run billing. See Billing Overview to understand the full billing cycle from CDR collection to invoice delivery.

Next Bundles