Patent ID: 7509281

Claim:
A method in a computer system for providing a customer billing statement for a plurality of different communications services, the method comprising the steps of: (a) using a computer system to perform an act of formatting a customer billing statement to create a formatted billing statement form, the act of formatting consisting of comprising the steps of: (i) creating a plurality of statement presentation codes, each statement presentation code comprising one or more attributes for dictating the presentation of transaction information on a customer billing statement, wherein said attributes comprise: (1) a section code, (2) a summary line, (3) a sorting indication, and (4) a statement presentation section, (ii) creating a plurality of user-selected sections, each section having at least one of said statement presentation codes being selected by a user, (iii) creating a plurality of segments, each segment having at least one of said sections, (iv) assigning at least one statement presentation code from said plurality of statement presentation codes to at least one section from said plurality of sections, and (v) assigning at least one section from said plurality of sections to each one of said plurality of segments; (b) entering billing information relating to a plurality of communications services provided to a customer into said formatted billing statement form in accordance with said segments, said sections, and said statement presentation codes to create a completed billing statement; (c) providing said completed billing statement to said customer; and (d) allowing a provider of said plurality of communications services to determine a format for customer billing statements relating to said plurality of communications services provided by said communications service provider, wherein the formatting is conducted in accordance with said format.