As of SP04, SAP Convergent Charging 4.0 features the allowance that is a provider contract data allowing an end customer to consume one or several customer services limited in quantity or in time. An allowance refers to an allowance plan in the pricing catalog of the service provider..
Allowances in contracts allow you to model:
A credit bucket, which is a credit given to a customer or bought by a customer to use one or several services. A credit bucket is expressed as a monetary or non-monetary amount and is valid for a period of time; for example, 3GB of GPRS data valid for 30 days
A spending limit, which is the right for a customer to use a service or a group of services limited in quantity or in time. The customer usually defines the limits that are expressed as monetary or non-monetary amounts; for example, 100 SMS at maximum per day.
A promotion, which is a rule to extend the capacity for using a service. Promotions can be limited in quantity or in time; for example, 15% discount on national voice calls (valid for 2 weeks).
As a provider contract data, an allowance is first created (inactive state) in the refill or charge plans, and then activated (active state) by a scheduler of SAP CC. The allowance can be used through the charging or refilling processes triggered internally or by an external system. Each allowance has a validity period. An allowance expires if the current date is after its validity end date (expired state). SAP CC then allows you to purge expired allowances from the system. The retention period is the period during which expired allowances are kept in the system until they are purged.
In the previous illustration, the validity period of an allowance is defined by a start date (t1) and an end date (t2). By convention, the start date is included in the validity period and the end date is excluded from the validity period.
You can set the start date and the end date of the validity period of an allowance when configuring the creation of the allowances in the allowance logic.
When the allowance has been activated by SAP CC, you can extend the validity period of the allowance through the Allowance Validity Period component (click Components on the Help menu of the main window).
The system creates allowances through a Create Allowance Operator component in a charge plan or a refill plan. This component allows you to configure the creation of allowances by selecting a released allowance plan and defining the validity period of the allowance (see the Create Allowance component for more information: Click Components on the Help menu of the main window).
You can view the allowances of a provider contract by:
Clicking the icon 
on the main window toolbar
Selecting View allowances in the Action menu
For more information, see the related topics:
Allowances, Allowance Management, and Allowance Purge Mechanism (consult the SAP CC Library (Application Help))
Data configuration step by step (for setting up allowances)