A method for charging for a service in a telecommunications/data network, in particular UMTS mobile radio network, transactions which relate to debits being transmitted to a debiting system on network elements which implement a debiting interface, by means of an adapted transmission protocol, a hot-billing protocol which supports a termination message of the debiting system being used as the transmission protocol, a network element which is involved in the debiting transaction transmitting a message to the debiting system both at the start and at the end of the service and the service being timed in the debiting system in parallel with the execution of the service and debiting being carried out in response to the measurement result.