Importance

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Abstract

An improved system is realized with an arrangement which takes advantage of affiliations that allow concentration of billing. In situations where a party is willing to serve as a financial surrogate for some subscribers of a services provider, savings can be realized by sending the bills for charges accrued by those subscribers ('affiliated subscribers') directly to such a surrogate. The surrogate pays the bills of the affiliated subscribers and may make its own arrangement with the affiliated subscribers to be appropriately compensated. The disclosed method and arrangement employs an affiliation database file to provide information as to who is a financial surrogate for others. Data which affiliates particular subscribers to particular financial surrogates may be under control of the services provider or under control of the financial surrogates. The billing process utilizes the information that identifies financial surrogates and the information about the affiliations of affiliated subscribers. Illustratively, the billing process may begin by first processing the bills for the financial surrogates and thereafter addressing the remaining bills.

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First Claim