Billing Management: #2 Fair way of Billing- Prorated Billing

Billing Management: #2 Fair way of Billing- Prorated Billing

Hello,

From speaking about the traditional ways of billing in the previous post, we are moving into the deep sea of billing. We are now in a zone to break out the most complex yet, I would call it the fairest way of billing, the Prorated Billing.

Prorated Billing ensures that customers pay only for the exact portion of a service they consume. Whether they join mid-cycle, switch plans, or cancel early, proration guarantees transparency and fairness. 

What is Prorated Billing?  
In short, prorated billing involves splitting charges according to the length of service used within a billing cycle. Instead of charging the customer for the entire month regardless of when they sign up or amend the subscription, businesses calculate charges accurately based on time or usage. This directly enhances customer trust and satisfaction and eliminates disputes over charges.
​
In this post, we will understand how proration works in different industries by examining the major industry types that need/must have proration in their billing strategy.

Scenario: SaaS  

A SaaS customer starts the month on the Basic plan, which costs $30/month. Midway through the billing cycle, on the 15th, they realise they need additional features and decide to upgrade to the Pro plan, which costs $60/month.

Without proration, businesses might charge the full $60 or keep them on Basic until the next cycle, which is unfair. With proration, this can be solved by splitting the bill into the part that will be used and the period that has elapsed.

In this scenario, part of the month is charged at the Basic plan cost, and the remaining is charged at the Pro plan cost. 

Old Plan

New Plan

Basic Plan: $30

Pro Plan: $60

Charges per day: $30/30=$1

Charges per day: $60/30=$2

No.of days remaining: 15

No.of days to be charged: 15

Credits Remaining: $1x15=$15

Amount to be charged: $2x15=$30

Net Payable: Amount to be charged- Credits Remaining: $30-$15= $15

The Final Invoice Amount must be charged on the 15th, and the customer's subscription will be moved to the Pro Plan.

Scenario: Telecom  

Imagine a customer activating a mobile plan costing $60 on the 20th of the month. The company has a standard billing cycle of 30 days. Some businesses might activate the plan for the full plan amount and allow it to be charged again on the set billing cycle. However, that's not the ideal approach.

With Proration, the days before the activation date are excluded, and charges are made only for the exact number of days used.

  • Plan Amount: $60

  • Charge per day: $60/30= $2

  • No.of days to be billed: 10

  • Final Payable Amount: $20

 The Final Payable Amount will be charged on the plan activation date, and the next charge will occur after 10 days, aligning with the billing cycle.

Scenario: Streaming Service  

A streaming subscriber who is active in the $120/month Premium plan decides to switch to the $60/month Standard plan after 10 days of usage in the current billing cycle.

Without proration, the customer might feel overcharged for unused Premium days. So, to balance the charges between the higher-priced plan and the lower one, credits will be added to the customer account, which can either be refunded or adjusted for the next invoice cycle.

Old Plan

New Plan

Premium Plan: $120

Standard Plan Cost: $60

Charges per day: $120/30= $4

Charges per day: $60/30= $2

No.of days used: 10

No.of days remaining: 20

Charges for used days: $4x10= $40

Amount to be charged: $2x20=$40

Remaining Credits: $80

 

Net Credit: Remaining Credits- Amount to be charged for 20 days: $80-$40= $40


The Net Credit will stay with the customer account and will be applied to the next invoice, or it can be refunded.

Proration Across Industries 

While SaaS, Telecom and Streaming services are the most common businesses where prorated billing happens quite often, other industries need this,

  • Logistics Companies operate with standard shipment charges. They might need proration when the volume of the consignment changes in the middle of the cycle.

  • Internet Service Providers use this when there is a change in plan within the billing cycle.

  • Fintech and Payment Apps prorate service fees when accounts are opened or closed in the middle of the billing cycle.

Zoho Billing has the finesse to handle these contract amendments effortlessly across industry types. Whether it's a mid-cycle upgrade, a partial cancellation, or a new customer subscribing during the middle of the billing cycle, Zoho Billing ensures invoices are adjusted seamlessly. Proration can be enabled in Zoho Billing with a simple toggle, and the application automatically takes care of all the math in the backend.

Proration Billing is not a burden but a gift wrapped in a hard cover. 

Offering fair charges based on usage during billing increases confidence and provides businesses with a reputation for being fair and transparent. But what about usage that happens before it hits the bill? Even with proration in place, there are scenarios where usage happens before it's billed. For instance, a customer may request an add-on, consume additional resources, or make a one-time transaction in the middle of the billing period. These often fall into the category of unbilled charges.
​
Notes
In the next post, we will explore how businesses manage these unbilled charges and why keeping them in check is critical for accurate billing.

Stay Tuned! 


    • Sticky Posts

    • Community Learning Series | Digest #5 — September 2020

      Dear customers, We're happy to bring you the September edition of our #CommunityDigest! Keep track of your subscription KPIs right from your smartphone: Last month, we enhanced our Android mobile app to help our customers get daily updates on their business health. We got to know from a lot of customers that this has made their job much more easier because they no longer have to keep a reminder to manually check on the previous day's revenue or activations. If you have not downloaded it yet, here's

    • Community Learning Series | Digest #4 - August 2020

      Dear customers, We hope you're staying safe and healthy. I'm happy to bring you the fourth edition of our #CommunityDigest with some brand-new updates from us. 1. Daily Business Updates (for Android users) The Zoho Subscriptions Android app has got a cool new update: You can now get a push notification to your smartphone that lets you know how many activations and cancellations have taken place, and what's the net revenue for the previous day. The best part is, you can tell the app when exactly you

    • Community Learning Series | Digest #3 - July 2020

      Dear customers, We hope you're staying safe and healthy. We're glad to bring you the July edition of our #CommunityDigest. New community members can view our previous newsletters here. This time, we have two major updates and three interesting topics for you: 1. Zoho Subscriptions Developer Community Since the inception of Zoho Subscriptions, our team believed that the recurring billing platform we provide should be able to offer an extensive API library that empowers businesses to automate most

    • Introducing: Community Learning Series | Digest #1 - May 2020

      Dear customers, We hope you are staying safe and healthy. Helping businesses manage their customer subscriptions more efficiently has always been, and always will be, our goal at Zoho Subscriptions. We strongly believe this is possible if we grow together as a community and share what we know with each other. To nurture this shared learning experience, here is our brand-new Community Learning Series! ​ Welcome to the first edition of our digest! Each edition of our community digest includes guides

    • Recent Topics

    • campaigns contact lists not exporting

      I'm trying to export a specific lead source from my contract list in 'campaigns'. Every time I have to do this the contacts won't export. I have done a search and selected the specific contacts I want to export. The box appears to choose the file type,

    • Recipient Field on replies doesn't update with Contact change

      Some emails that come into our system come from an online form and the sender address is a noreply@whateverthedomainis.org So in order to reply to the original sender, we need to update/change the contact for the tickets. However, after we change the

    • Multicolumns fields for native forms

      It would be nice to be able to create forms with multiple columns. Currently, each field occupies a single column, which makes a fairly complex form seem too long.

    • Assign values to hidden fields in native forms

      It would be great to be able to assign values (static or dynamic) to hidden fields in a form. Currently, I can only assign a value via the URL. I currently have a form integrated with a webhook, but I don't have a way to send useful form data as parameters,

    • Migrating Email Content to a Shared Mailbox Address

      I am moving my email to Zoho Mail (currently hosted through GoDaddy). I have created a user (me) and I have also created a "Shared Mailbox" Group (through the admin panel) with an email address I will be using as an organization address. My personal email

    • Calendly One-way sync- Beta Access

      Hello Community, Many of our Zoho Calendar users have expressed their interests in Zoho Calendar and Calendly integration. We've been tightly working on with Calendly team to provide a two-way sync between Calendly and Zoho Calendar. However, there have

    • Live webinar: Mastering financial presentations with Zoho Show

      Hey there finance professionals! We know many of you are currently knee-deep in report creation mode to wrap up the fiscal year for your organization. Creating a presentation to communicate essential financial data isn’t simple, with all the calculations,

    • Zoho Desk Android app update: Accessing the guided conversation bots in the IM module

      Hello everyone! In the latest version(v2.9.8) of the Zoho Desk Android app update, we have brought in support for Guided conversation bots within the IM Module. These bots use predefined conversation flows to automate initial responses, handle routine

    • Zoho Analytics Embed - Zoomed Right In?

      Hey all, I am using the Zoho Show app on an android TV and cannot figure out why, but the Zoho Analytics embed is zoomed right in. When I preview on my laptop it looks fine, when I go in and edit the code, it looks zoomed? Then when it displays on the

    • Assistance with Image File Upload in Zoho Creator

      Hi , I'm building an application for storyboard creation using Zoho Creator, integrating Gemini AI for automated image generation. In the "Generate Frame" form, user inputs are collected to construct image prompts. Current Workflow: On Validation (Form

    • Migrating all email accounts from cpanel shared hosting and email boxes to zoho

      I have already read previous articles posted on this forum but none of them suit my needs.So i am currently working for a small company. The company website runs on cPanel shared hosting and the company page is a WordPress website. I recently redesigned

    • Domain Change from apkbark.com to apkbark.io – Do I Need to Setup Zoho Mail Again?

      I recently migrated my website from the old domain https://apkbark.com to the new domain https://apkbark.io. The Zoho Mail setup was previously configured and working perfectly on the old domain. Now I would like to know: Will my Zoho Mail setup automatically

    • How to add different type of revenue under sales ?

      How to add different type of revenue under sales ?

    • Types of Revenue

      i have different types of revenue , I want to see under sales in different categories , while preparing invoice I want to allocated if possible

    • Zoho books account recovery

      I had submitted a request to restore zohobooks account, but I am yet to get a feedback till now. The email addresses used to access the zohobooks can not access it again. I don't know what went wrong. I need quick attention to this. More details are provided

    • Payments calendar for receivables and liabilities by due dates

      Hello guys! What method can you recommend for tracking and planning future payments against expected income? We operate on the principle - we expect some income this month, then we look at what expenses are due this month and pay accordingly. I've seen

    • Email Search

      Has search stopped working for people? Searched on Zoho email content, I get nothing back. Signed out and back in, still same issues

    • Zoholics Europe 2025: Your Ultimate Data Analysis (Zoho Analytics) Workshop Experience

      Why should you attend? This year, Zoholics Europe 2025 is putting data analysis centre stage. With a dedicated workshop designed to answer all your data-related questions, you’ll gain practical skills, real-time solutions, and expert insights that you

    • how i can update client_secret or refresh_token in case if my was stolen?

      i want to know how i can protect my data on this case

    • [Webinar] CoCreator – Generative AI-Assisted Application Development in Zoho Creator

      Hello Creators! The Zoho Developer Community is hosting a webinar on CoCreator – Generative AI-Assisted Application Development to showcase our latest AI capabilities. What's this about? It's all about our latest AI capabilities in Zoho Creator. Instead

    • custom fields not populating from deluge script into invoice

      Hello, I've created some Deluge script that is meant to take a few inputted invoice custom fields and calculate a few others. I can see when I execute the function that my inputted custom fields are being passed, yet im still ending up with all "null"

    • Using English But Dropdowns in Thai

      We have selected English in Settings but all of the dropdown boxes are in Thai. How do i change this? The organization is based in Thailand and we are using the THB as our currency, but need the dropdowns to be in English. Please help! 🙏

    • Introducing Import Contract API

      We are excited to introduce the Import Contract API in Zoho Contracts. Here's a brief overview: Import Contract API The Import Contract API allows you to import contracts directly into Zoho Contracts in any of the following states: Draft Signed Active

    • Cambio de Plane

      Tenia un plan gratuito, hice una actualización a un plan de pago, salí por completo y entre nuevamente, pero no me deja corregir, pagar o modificar las facturas que había realizado en el modo de prueba. Me da el siguiente error: Factura de proveedor se

    • Better integration between Zoho CRM and Zoho Bookings

      I've noticed that when a meeting which was created in Zoho Bookings is updated by a sales person in Zoho CRM, the change is not reflected back into Zoho Bookings. I have raised this with support who advised that meetings created in Bookings need to be

    • Why is there a limit to JSONString of less 100 characters

      having this problem.

    • Enhanced crash reporting in Zoho Apptics

      All app crashes have the same sad ending: The app dies while the user still wants to use it. But the reason behind each crash? They vary every time. Identifying the root cause and fixing it is already hard work for your dev team. What makes it harder?

    • Description column in the "all expenses" overview page?

      Hi! I'm new to Zoho Books and accounting. I'm surprised there doesn't seem to have a proper "description" field for the expenses, only "notes", and that I can't have such a description visible on the overview page. So that I can quickly visualize my expenses...

    • Only Default Administrator Profile can Convert Estimates Zoho Finance

      In Zoho Finance Only the Default Administrator Profile can convert the Estimates A different Profile with the Admin level permission cannot convert the Estimate of someone else to a Sales Order, Only and only the default Administrator Profile Why is that

    • Zoho Notebook suddenly running very slow on long notes

      I have been a longtime user of Zoho Notebook. Historically, it has run quite well, but I've noticed over the last few days that it has begun to run unbearably slow when typing in large notes, to the point where I can type four words and have to wait for

    • Is there a way to pass the source of the chat from SalesIQ to the CRM lead creation?

      Currently when I update the values of the visitor and the lead is automatically generated in the CRM it says that the lead source is Chat, but in reality it was from either Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp. Is there a way to make sure that the correct

    • Imported tasks

      Good afternoon, I have recently setup a test instance of Zoho CRM and am currently working through a data migration from Hubspot usine the API migration tool. I needed to get a feel for how seamless this process was but I am running into an issue. It

    • Assigning Leads to Queues

      Do you support Queues as Lead Owner? This is a basic function in any CRM. Assign Lead to a Queue group where any member can take ownership by him self.

    • Migration of emails from Yandex to Zoho

      I am trying to migrate an yandex mail account to zoho mail account. I am confused with all the related articles/informations in the net. Could someone please outline the process to do it, just thinking about me as a novice with limited knowledge or experience. A couple of questions from the knowledge gained. 1. I believe we have to delete the yandex current MX from the website records and add Zoho MX. What happens to the emails as we remove the mail exchange record. Yandex stops updating emails and

    • Celebrating 200 posts of Kaizen! Share your ideas for the milestone post

      Hello Developers, We launched the Kaizen series in 2019 to share helpful content to support your Zoho CRM development journey. Staying true to its spirit—Kaizen Series: Continuous Improvement for Developer Experience—we've shared everything from FAQs

    • Zoho Sheets working offline

      Hi, I am looking for the ability to work offline in Zoho Sheets, but currently I cannot find the process to complete this. Does someone have any ideas or steps I might have missed? Also does Zoho Sheets have the "Format as Tables" function as is currently

    • Fetching whole month availability via API

      We are currently building a custom calendar component that books directly into our client's Zoho Bookings instance. The challenge we are facing is that your API only allows fetching availability one day at a time, which is problematic. Our second workaround

    • reCAPTCHA

      Is the Bookings form protected by reCAPTCHA, or some mechanism to ensure submission of the appointment request form is made by a human vs. bot?

    • Recent enhancements to Bigin's workflows and Associated Products

      Greetings, I hope all of you are doing well! We're happy to announce a few recent enhancements we've made to Bigin. Let's go over each one in detail. Enhancement to workflows Trigger workflows when specific fields are modified to specific values Previously,

    • Zoho Survey Goes to Junk Folder

      Hello, My company is wanting to use Zoho Survey to send out a customer satisfaction survey, and we were wondering if Zoho Campaigns allows the emails to not go into their junk folder. We sent out a test email campaign to our team and for some people it went to their inbox and for others it went to their junk folder. Is there a way to eliminate this from happening? Hope to hear from you soon! Thanks!

    • Next Page