Billing Management: #10 Solving Common Mistakes in Billing

Over the past few weeks, we have explored different facets of billing, from the simplicity of traditional one-time billing to the evolving landscape of subscriptions, retainers, and usage-based models. We've unpacked how billing isn't just about sending an invoice; it's about how a business communicates value, maintains trust, and keeps its financial rhythm steady.

As businesses grow, so does the complexity of billing. What once worked with a single invoice or payment can quickly become tangled when projects overlap, clients prepay, usage fluctuates, or charges go unbilled. While every business strives for precision in billing, even a small mistake can quietly cost time, money, and reputation.

In this final part of our Billing Management Series, let's step away from theory and get into the reality of businesses that struggle with billing errors, confusion, and missed revenue opportunities.

Missing Items 

Jessica runs a marketing agency. After wrapping up a major campaign, she sat down late into the night, manually typing the invoices. Halfway through, she realized she had missed adding a few minor tasks.

The client called the next morning. "Jessica, why is our invoice missing some items we agreed on?" they asked. Jessica could only apologize and rush to correct the total, feeling frustrated and embarrassed.

Zoho Billing keeps invoice creation error-free and straightforward. An invoice can be created and saved as a draft before it reaches the customer. This allows users like Jessica to double-check whether all the entries or items were added as agreed by the client. Once checked, the invoice can be sent, and through automatic reminders, follow-up can be done on the payment, leaving Jessica to focus on her campaigns instead of keeping it.

Invisible Hours 

Rakesh's firm was in the middle of a multiple-phase project. On Friday, he checked the milestone report and noticed something alarming.

"Wait, we logged 60 hours, right? Where are the extra 15?" he asked the team. They shrugged, looking sheepish. Some work had been done, but was never logged into the manual timesheets. Rakesh realized that the company might lose revenue without even knowing it.

Zoho Billing enables time logging from different devices and avenues to make it more accessible and reliable. It allows time logging in real time through the console, desktop version, mobile app (iOS and Android), and smartwatches. Once the time is logged, it automatically calculates the worked billable hours correctly and gives users confidence that the team's efforts were fully accounted for.

Subscription Chaos 

A fast-growing SaaS company had dozens of clients who upgraded and downgraded their plans each month. One afternoon, the finance team noticed a client's mid-cycle upgrade wasn't reflected correctly.

"Why does this invoice show the old plan?" demanded the client. "We upgraded last week!" yells the customer with frustration. Meanwhile, a failed payment had gone unnoticed, compounding the problem.

Zoho Billing automates subscriptions, handling plan changes, proration, and failed payment retries. Proration ensures that the customer is charged the precise additional amount required whenever they choose to upgrade their plan. Conversely, smart dunning assists the company by making three attempts before flagging it as unsuccessful. This also enables customers and users to receive notifications to ensure the renewal payments are successful.

Retainer Mystery 

At a law firm, partners argued over the amount of a client's retainer during a meeting. "Did we use $2500 or $3000 of this client's retainer?" one of the partners asked exasperatingly. Staff had been manually tracking prepayments, and this uncertainty delayed the issuance of the next invoice. Meanwhile, clients were called to verify balances, creating awkward back-and-forth conversations.

Zoho Billing promptly tracks advance payments under each customer record and applies them automatically to invoices. A comprehensive balance report provides precise information about the remaining retainer, ensuring alignment between partners and clients and minimizing internal misunderstandings.

Advance Invoice Dilemma 

A consulting firm must bill a client for a monthly strategy session. The finance team manually created the invoice, but accidentally issued a duplicate one. "Wait, did we just charge them twice?" someone asked with surprise. The client called, puzzled and frustrated, causing a tense back-and-forth over email before the error was resolved.

Zoho Billing automates advanced invoicing, tracking which invoices have been paid or applied. This ensures no duplicate invoices are sent to the client and keeps the renewal cycle intact. The clients receive clear, accurate bills for upcoming services.

Usage Puzzle 

A cloud storage company billed customers based on monthly data usage. Staff spent hours consolidating reports, calculating tiered charges, and applying discounts. Despite all this, the customer claimed, "We've double-counted somewhere."  He added, "Your invoice doesn't match my usage. Can you explain?" Hours were wasted checking logs and recalculating charges.

Zoho Billing integrates with your tracking system through APIs, promptly capturing usage data without any manual intervention. The usage is computed automatically according to the pricing configured, and it is visible on the invoices and in the customer portal.

Variable Usage Confusion 

An energy management company billed a commercial client based on electricity consumption. In a particular month, the client's usage spiked unexpectedly.

"I can't believe this is our invoice!  It's way higher than last month," the client exclaimed. Staff struggled to recalculate charges, delaying the invoice, and the frustrated client waited.

Zoho Billing automatically calculates variable usage charges according to the consumption rule. When usage data is added to the system, manually or by importing it, the corresponding charges will be applied and billed accurately with no room for errors while computing.

Compliance Headache 

Rio manages a mid-sized business with clients across multiple states and countries. Every month, he struggles with varying tax rules, be it GST or VAT calculation, and keeping his invoices compliant. "Did we apply the right tax for that international client?" he wonders, realizing a small mistake could result in penalties. The finance team spends hours cross-checking the invoices, often working late to ensure everything is accurate.

Zoho Billing offers edition-specific features that cater to different regions and compliance requirements. The editions starting from the USA, India, Australia, Canada, UAE, UK, and so on keep businesses covered in terms of taxable invoicing and compliance with local tax authorities. It automatically calculates applicable tax rates, applies local and international rules, and generates audit-ready invoices based on the country you choose. Zoho Billing ensures that every transaction is fully compliant, allowing Rio to move on without several hours of manual checks.

Precision in Billing Management 

Billing challenges encompass more than just numbers on a page; they also involve real people, their frustrations, and the risk of lost revenue. From missing line items to complex usage calculations, Zoho Billing automates various processes, ensures accuracy, and provides visibility across different levels.  Every invoice, advance request, or usage report is a professional touchpoint that strengthens clients' trust and allows businesses to focus on growth instead of chasing numbers. 

As we end this series on billing management, we are excited to make one extra post that will definitely excite everyone here. 

Hint: Zoho Billing now covers the Advanced Usage Billing Model. Keep guessing! 

• Topic Participants

• Hari Hara Sudhan. S

  

• 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

• Syncing with Google calendar, Tasks and Events

  Is it possible to sync Zoho CRM calendar, task and events with Google Calendar's tasks and events. With the increasing adoption by many major tool suppliers to sync seamlessly with Google's offerings (for instance I use the excellent Any.do task planning

• CRM x WorkDrive: We're rolling out the WorkDrive-powered file storage experience for existing users

  Release plan: Gradual rollout to customers without file storage add-ons, in this order: 1. Standalone CRM 2. CRM Plus and Zoho One DCs: All | Editions: All Available now for: - Standalone CRM accounts in Free and Standard editions without file storage

• How do I associate pricebooks to a customer?

  I setup a few pricebooks, that worked fine. But now the only thing I can do with it, when I enter a quote or sales order, I can select which pricebook to use, but I have to do this product by product every time I add one. Is there a way to connect a pricebook

• FOLDER DISAPPEARED

  Hello Zoho Community. I recently found a problem with no explanation: a folder in Zoho Analytics just disappeared, but the tables and SQL sentences still existed, the folder was not deleted. The solution for me in this case was to create a new folder,

• Zoho Tracking Image location

  So we've been having an issue with tracking email opens. Specifically in Gmail. Our emails are not that long either, maybe 4 sections of image/250 characters of text/button per section.  But all my test accounts I used via Gmail we're showing opens. But then come to find out the tracking image is at the very bottom of the email. So If the message is clipped (It always just clips our social icons on the bottom) and the user doesn't click the show more button it never tracks the open.  Looking at other

• New to automation - please help

  Hi there! We are new to automations in Zoho. We built out one automation campaign and it seems to be firing off for some people but others not. Please advise what's the best practice or if anything we should tweak. Thank you so much!

• Unable to Create Zoho Booking via the Book Appointment API

  Its giving the below error {     "response": {         "errormessage": "Error setting value for the variable:customer_details\n null",         "status": "Error"     } } Request: POST Url: https://www.zohoapis.in/bookings/v1/json/appointment attached Zoho-oauthtoken

• Task Details on task template

  When creating a task template in settings that task details seem to be missing. Is it not possible to set the details of a task, such as the priority, type, reminder settings, and custom field values?

• Building Toppings #3 -Testing and publishing Bigin toppings

  Hey Biginners! In previous forum posts, we discussed what a Bigin topping is and explored the Bigin Developer Console's features. In this post, we're going to create a topping from scratch and discuss how to test and publish it. Our topping will automate

• markdown files?

  How can I import a markdown file into a note?

• Mail to Zoho Notebook

  In the Instuctiosn I faound as email add@notebook.app In my account I see add@eu.notebook.app What is correct please

• Auto-Invite Users to Portals in Zoho CRM based on Conditions

  Hello Everyone, You can now automate portal invitations in Zoho CRM with the new Auto-Invite users feature in Portal management. No more manually enabling portal access one by one. With this enhancement, you can automatically send invites for users to

• Growth You can Count On: Zoho Billing's 2025 Journey

  As we wrap up 2025, we’re reflecting on a year rooted in steady progress and meaningful growth for Zoho Billing. Every enhancement we have introduced was built to support scalable and reliable billing growth for your business. From launching the Enterprise

• Automating Employee Birthday Notifications in Zoho Cliq

  Have you ever missed a birthday and felt like the office Grinch? Fear not, the Cliq Developer Platform has got your back! With Zoho Cliq's Schedulers, you can be the office party-cipant who never forgets a single cake, balloon, or awkward rendition of

• Need help with creating workflow with Bigin and Clickup

  Can you please help me with this? I am trying to create a workflow in Zoho Flow wherein a bigin Pipeline deal moves to Decision Closing, it will create a task and subtasks in Clickup, under the condition/filter that the Deal name contains the word Social

• [Webinar] Automate generation of wills, trusts, POAs, and other estate planning documents with Zoho Writer

  Managing the lifecycle of the estate planning documents such as wills, trusts, and POAs, from client intake to final storage, can be complex and time-consuming. Join our live webinar to learn how Zoho Writer transforms this process by automating document

• Create / Update Rule in TeamInbox when record is updated in ZohoCRM using flow?

  I'm currently evaluating options and trying to work out if the possible scenario is possible; If a record in ZohoCRM is updated, take 2 of the fields from that - lets call them 'OrderRef' and 'OrderTo'. Using flow, if a record is added or updated, add

• Plans to allow more columns of monitoring, and monitoring not only your own channels?

  Are their any plans to allow more columns of monitoring, and monitoring not only your own channels? Here's why - I'm sure I'm not alone in that we sell other brands products, so not only am I interested in my own brand social channels, but also the social

• Unwrapping the best practices for the Zoho Desk mobile app: Part 1

  In focus: Empowering the field and frontline customer support representatives Imagine having to carry your computer everywhere to respond to customers, handle escalations, and update your process. This series presents you with efficient tips to handle

• dealing with post dated cheques

  Hi, can you help me please the best way to deal with this We sell an item of three months duration that is paid for with post dated cheques in monthly stages example - item is sold £3000 Cheque 1 is for £1000 due at time of sale (say Sept) cheque 2 is dated 25th of next month (Oct) cheque 3 is dated 25th of next month +1 (Nov) Now, with invoice number one it's simple - i send a standard invoice as usual But with the other two here's what i want zoho to do next month i want it to send an invoice on

• Is there a way to sell in a practical method multiple subscriptions of the same product? i.e. domain names

  In evaluating Zoho Billing, a hurdle to adopting it is that Zoho Billing does not seem designed to support businesses that sell multiple subscriptions of the same product. In our case, we need to sell and manage several domain names per client. Am I right

• Paid Support Plans with Automated Billing

  We (like many others, I'm sure) are designing or have paid support plans. Our design involves a given number of support hours in each plan. Here are my questions: 1) Are there any plans to add time-based plans in the Zoho Desk Support Plans feature? The

• Bug Report: "Name A-Z" sorting fails when Note titles start with an Emoji

  Hello, I recently migrated from Evernote (~2600 notes across 23 notebooks). I use emojis at the start of my note titles for visual organization. The Issue: When I set the view to Sort by: Name (A to Z), the sorting logic breaks for any note starting with

• Copy & Paste not working

  I could create and save 10 new documents but when I go to copy and paste content (just text) into them, only 1 of 10 would save the content. It would appear to save the content but when I go back into the documents, they are empty.

• editing/applying online payments

  We have customers who pay part or all of an invoice and then cancel their service and want the payment as a credit to future work. It would be ideal if we could make it an excess payment and then void the invoice. I can't make it an excess payment because

• Contacts per department

  Hello, Is it possible to limit Contacts to a Department? Thanks

• This site can’t be reached mail.zoho.com took too long to respond

  In my office at any system, we couldnt able to login zoho email. it shows " This site can’t be reached mail.zoho.com took too long to respond". please fix it soon.

• Can send email from zoho mail, but can't receive any.

  Hi, My domain is sattvameditationresort.com. I've updated MX records with those of Zoho. But i can't send any mails to this email id from gmail. I have checked the MX status with MXTOOLS, its showing the correct entry either. The error is as shown below:

• My domain did not activate

  Hi, my domain (apsaindustrial.com.ar) did not activate, and the phone verification message never arrived. Please would you solve this problem? Thanks.

• Host not found?

  Howdy! So i'm trying to add my custom domain for with the mail server. I have 100% control of my DNS and have tried every single option (TXT, CNAME, and even HTML) multiple times, ensuring i did it properly, to no luck. I get the same error message every

• Emails are going to notification folder and not in inbox

  emails are going to notification folder and not into inbox

• Error AS101 when adding new email alias

  Hi, I am trying to add apple@(mydomain).com The error AS101 is shown while I try to add the alias.

• Report on opportunities showing only the last note added.

  Hi I need to create a report that shows the most recent note added to each opportunity. This is so management can see what the latest update is according to the assigned salesperson. One workaround is to use the status field but this implies added manual work and mistakes as the salesperson would have to copy the existing status to a note before adding the latest status... otherwise the activity history would be lost. My current workaround is a report on Notes with Opportunities as the related module.

• Please add Zelle as an online payment option

  Hello, I would like to request Zelle be added to the online payment service providers for Zoho Invoice. Considering how ubiquitous Zelle has become as a way to pay people via the major banking institutions, I feel like many freelancers would benefit from

• This user is not allowed to add in Zoho. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details

  Hello, Just signed up to ZOHO on a friend's recommendation. Got the TXT part (verified my domain), but whenever I try to add ANY user, I get the error: This user is not allowed to add in Zoho. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details I have emailed as well and writing here as well because when I searched, I saw many people faced the same issue and instead of email, they got a faster response here. My domain is: raisingreaderspk . com Hope this can be resolved.  Thank you

• Getting Project Template List using the REST API

  I am trying to confirm that I can use the REST API to create a project using a project template. The API documentation indicates this is possible by providing the Template ID, but it is not clear at all how to get a list of available Project Templates

• How to display the CONTACT ID in the Contact page

  Hi, I've seen this conversation below and it is exactly the same question I'm raising now, but unfortunately the last message is not solved https://help.zoho.com/portal/community/topic/show-contact-id-while-editing-contact-form I need to show the ContactId and I don't know how to do this. The last message included in the conversaton shows the way but not it is not completed. "I am sorry by default we do not have the option to show the record ID for the contacts in the field in a record. When you

• How to change margins in templates

  Hi, I'm new to Zoho Campaigns, and am trying to figure out how to adjust the margins within an email template.  The default margins make the text go all the way to the edges of the page.  Please advise.

• Create Canvas list view templates from images powered by Zia

  Currently available for all paid editions of Zoho CRM in the US, EU, IN, JP & CN DCs. Designing a personalized CRM interface just got even easier. In today’s fast-evolving digital landscape, AI is transforming the way we work by automating complex tasks

• Painfully Slow Zoho mail

  Since yesterday Zoho Mail seems to have starting functioning very slowly and having a few bugs. It's slow to open mails, slow to send, slow to change between email accounts. Sometimes clicking on a particular folder (eg Sent folder) stops working and

• Next Page