Billing Management: #8 Usage Billing in Logistics & Delivery Services

Billing Management: #8 Usage Billing in Logistics & Delivery Services

The logistics and delivery industry thrives on movement and precision. Every delivery completed, every kilometre driven, and every ton transported is a measurable activity. However, billing often lags behind. Many logistics companies still rely on fixed-rate or manual billing systems that don't account for fluctuating volumes, seasonal demands, or service variations.


As a result, businesses face challenges such as delayed invoicing, inconsistent revenue, and billing disputes with clients. In any industry where margins are thin and relationships depend on trust, these issues can significantly affect growth.

Zoho Billing brings automation and flexibility to the heart of logistics billing. Through usage-based billing, logistics providers can align their revenue directly with measurable usage, such as the number of deliveries, kilometres driven, or storage duration. This creates a fair, transparent, and scalable billing model for both service providers and clients.

The Traditional Billing Models 

Traditional billing methods in logistics rely heavily on static pricing structures. A flat monthly fee or a standard per-delivery charge may seem convenient, but they often fail to reflect operational reality. Shipment volumes can vary by 30-50% month over month, and manual reconciliation between dispatch data and invoice introduces errors and inefficiencies.

Common challenges include:

  • An invoice that doesn't reflect actual usage.

  • Lengthy reconciliation cycles.

  • Under-billing or over-billing due to manual error.

  • Disputes caused by a lack of billing transparency.

  • Difficulty scaling as the business grows.

 A static pricing model limits profitability and flexibility. Logistics businesses need billing systems that adapt dynamically to changing workloads, not the other way around.

What does usage billing mean for Logistics? 

Usage-based billing allows logistics companies to charge customers based on actual consumption rather than a fixed value. This aligns perfectly with logistics operations, where activities are measurable and variable.

Sample Metrics

Billing Basis

Sector

Number of Deliveries

per delivery completed

Courier and parcel services

Distance travelled

per km/mile

Long-haul transportation

Shipment weight

per kg/ton

Freight and bulk logistics

Value Added Services

per service event

Packaging services

 
With Zoho Billing, these metrics can be captured automatically from connected systems such as delivery tracking software, GPS devices or warehouse management tools. Each activity becomes a billable event, and invoices are generated automatically with complete transparency.

Let's look at two scenarios explaining how Zoho Billing helps logistics and delivery services based on consumption.


Scenario 1: 

A regional courier service manages shipments for multiple e-commerce clients. Shipment volumes vary drastically, ranging from 500 packages per month for small vendors to 3000 for enterprises. The company needs a flexible model that scales with customer growth while better rewarding higher-volume customers.

Pricing Tier

  • For 1-1000 deliveries: $2.80

  • For 1001-2000 deliveries: $2.50

  • For 2001 and above: $2.20

​If Client A completes 2300 deliveries a month. The billing will be as follows:

Item

Value

No of deliveries

2300

Rate per delivery:
Tier1: 1000x$2.80
Tier2: 1000x$2.50
Tier3: 300x$2.20


$2,800
$2,500
$660

Total Invoice Value

$5,960

 

​The service provider integrates the delivery tracking system with Zoho Billing using APIs. Zoho Billing automatically collects delivery data, calculates charges and generates an itemized invoice.
​
As a result, we get accurate, automated billing directly tied to usage. The invoice stays transparent and reduces administrative effort. Adopting a pure usage-based billing model along with a tier-based pricing model helps delivery businesses bill precisely for what is delivered, nothing more or nothing less.

Scenario 2:  
A nationwide carrier, services distributors and manufacturers. Clients have steady monthly shipment volumes but occasionally exceed their limit during high-demand periods. The service provider needs a pricing structure ensuring predictable revenue while capturing additional usage.
​
They offer a plan for $1,500 per month for up to 1000 shipments and an add-on usage cost of $1.20 per extra shipment beyond 1000.
​
If a company ships 1450 packages in a billing cycle. The billing will cover,

Item

Value

Base Plan Price (covers 1000 shipments)

$1,500

Additional Usage

450

Rate for additional shipment

$1.20/extra shipment

Total Invoice Value

$2,040

 
By integrating the dispatch management system with Zoho Billing using API, the additional shipments are tracked, the overage rate is applied, and a consolidated invoice is generated.

​This results in predictable revenue through the base plan and scalable income during peak sessions. Clear, detailed billing that strengthens customer trust.
​
The hybrid model offers flexibility for the service provider and the client, ensuring stability in slow periods and scalability in busy ones.
​
Move on with Zoho Billing 
​Every delivery, kilometre, and warehouse movement represents the value your logistics business creates. With Zoho Billing, that value is captured and converted into accurate, transparent revenue.
​
By leveraging usage-based billing, logistics providers can modernize their financial operations, improve cash flow, and offer customers fair, data-backed pricing. Zoho Billing brings automation and intelligence to the heart of logistics billing, helping businesses deliver precision on roads and through invoices.


NotesAs we move from usage billing to logistics, our next service will be Usage Billing in IoTs. 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

        • Two factor authentication for helpdesk users

          The company i work for wants use the helpdesk site in Zoho desk, as a place for their distribution partners to ask question and look for information about our product. The things there is suppose to go up there is somewhat confidential between my company

        • I Need Help Verifying Ownership of My Zoho Help Desk on Google Search Console

          I added my Zoho desk portal to Google Search Console, but since i do not have access to the html code of my theme, i could not verify ownership of my portal on Google search console. I want you to help me place the html code given to me from Google search

        • Can I create a custom function for chart of accounts?

          I'm trying to add a custom function that should run whenever a record in the Chart of Accounts module is edited, but on the form for creating a new function, the module dropdown does not include the chart of accounts as an option.

        • Can I filter a Lookup field to only show related records from another Lookup in Zoho CRM?

          In our Leads module, we have two Lookup fields: Recruitment Agency – the agency that the lead came from Recruiter – the individual contact from that agency who sent us the lead Both fields link correctly to their respective records in CRM. However, our

        • billing

          hi, I am being billed $12/year, and I can't remember why. My User ID is 691273115 Thanks for your help, --Kitty Pearl

        • Automatic Matching from Bank Statements / Feeds

          Is it possible to have transactions from a feed or bank statement automatically match when certain criteria are met? My use case, which is pretty broadly applicable, is e-commerce transactions for merchant services accounts (clearing accounts). In these

        • Unable to confirm Super Admin assignment — confirmation button not working

          I’m trying to change the roles within my organization. I am currently a super admin and would like to add another user as a super admin. When I attempt to confirm the action, a screen appears asking for my password to verify my identity. However, when

        • Inactive Items - Make Less Prominent by Default

          Currently, when one marks an Item as "Inactive", it really doesn't do much of anything to hide it or get it out of the way. Search and reporting within Finance should, by default, hide inactive Items from standard reports, searches, etc. If one specifically

        • How to unlink a SAML user from the existing Zoho Desk user (domain change case)

          Hi everyone, I’m trying to understand how to handle a situation where a customer changes their company domain. In our setup, users authenticate via SAML, so when the domain changes, the SAML system treats them as a new user. However, in Zoho Desk, I’d

        • Enable Screen Recording in Zoho WorkDrive Mobile Apps (Android & iOS)

          Hi Zoho WorkDrive Team, How are you? We are enthusiastic Zoho One users and rely heavily on Zoho WorkDrive for internal collaboration and content sharing. The screen-recording feature in the WorkDrive web app (similar to Loom) is extremely useful- however,

        • Automation#36: Auto-create time-entry after performing the Blueprint transition

          Hello Everyone, This week’s edition focuses on configuring a custom function within Zoho Desk to streamline time tracking within the Blueprint. In this case, we create a custom field, and request the agent to enter the spending time within the single

        • Feature Request: Reviews

          Any chance we could get a "Reviews" element to put on sites? It should be extremely simple to do. Basically just take the comments box and add an option for a star rating. At the very least, it would be nice to have more customization options for the comment box so the text could be changed from "Comments" to "Reviews". I've looked at a bunch of embeddable review widgets but nothing meets my needs so this would be a great feature to have added to the site builder.

        • Can we handle a support like (incident management) project in Zoho Projects?

          Hi, I have a new profile of a project whereby we provide "ticket" base support to a client. They have a request and ideally we would handle comms via a email exchange logged in Zoho. Today we use Zoho Projects for all out projects, which means that we

        • Trying to show the actual Terms & Conditions on PDF

          Hi, On Zoho forms I am trying to have the actual terms and conditions that the user needs to accept also show on the pdf that they receive after. Right now it only says "Agreed". Please help.

        • Installing EMAIL Setup in New Domain

          Respected Support team, I'm facing an issue with cloudflare in Pakistan, I want to setup Zoho Mail Setup but I Don't know how to enable Zoho mail setup without cloudflare. My Website https://stumbleguyzzapk.com/, https://fakservices.com/ is using CF,

        • Enhancements to Zoho Meeting Annotator

          Hello Zoho Meeting Team, Hope you are doing well. We would like to share a few improvement suggestions regarding the Zoho Meeting Annotator used during screen sharing. While the current version provides helpful annotation tools, there are several limitations

        • Cliq iOS can't see shared screen

          Hello, I had this morning a video call with a colleague. She is using Cliq Desktop MacOS and wanted to share her screen with me. I'm on iPad. I noticed, while she shared her screen, I could only see her video, but not the shared screen... Does Cliq iOS is able to display shared screen, or is it somewhere else to be found ? Regards

        • Triggering rules on lead conversion

          There is no field on the Rule list for rule conversion to trigger an alert on liead conversion to a potential. I assigned a rule to file on any creation or update of a lead. The lead was changed a lead to a potential but no rule was fired. Rajesh Bhadra

        • How to calculate separate totals for Product Line Items filtered by category in Quotes?

          Hello! I'm working with Quotes in Zoho CRM and need help calculating conditional totals for line items. Current setup: I have two tables in my Quote template (Zoho Writer), both displaying Quoted Line Items Table 1 (top): Shows all products where Product

        • Add "Fetch Composite Item" Action for Inventory

          I want to make a Flow that uses information returned in the GET call for Composite Items, and it's not currently available in Zoho Flow. Please consider adding this functionality.

        • Zoho Social/Marketing Plus - Addition to "Monitor" function

          It would be very helpful if the Monitor function would allow us to add a column to monitor hashtags in addition to pages and mentions. This is a common and very valuable function in other social listening tools.

        • Almacenamiento

          Hola, Quisiera saber como podría hacer para bajar el almacenamiento de 5gb a mis usuarios, en otras palabras los quiero ir limitando de la cuota real, y luego ir agregando poco a poco la cantidad hasta llegar a los 5gb que me dan en el plan free. 

        • Develop Zoho Meeting as a Full Native Application (Not a Browser Wrapper)

          Hello Zoho Meeting Team, Hope you are doing well. We would like to suggest an important improvement regarding the Zoho Meeting desktop application. At the moment, the Zoho Meeting app feels more like a mini browser window or an iframe that loads the web

        • Zoho Invoice Now Supports VeriFactu for Businesses in Spain

          Starting from January 1, 2026, Spain requires real-time invoice reporting for all B2B transactions. From July 2026, this requirement will extend to B2C transactions as well. All reporting must be carried out through the VeriFactu to AEAT (Agencia Estatal

        • Will I Get a Refund If I Downgrade Zoho Mail?

          Hello, We upgraded an email account for our new employee. However, the employee left after one month, and now I've reduced the number of Zoho Mail users from 7 to 6. Can we get a refund for the remaining portion of our annual payment?

        • Zoho Billing Now Supports VeriFactu for Businesses in Spain

          Starting from January 1, 2026, Spain requires real-time invoice reporting for all B2B transactions. From July 2026, this requirement will extend to B2C transactions as well. All reporting must be carried out through the VeriFactu to AEAT (Agencia Estatal

        • Introducing the revamped What's New page

          Hello everyone! We're happy to announce that Zoho Campaigns' What's New page has undergone a complete revamp. We've bid the old page adieu after a long time and have introduced a new, sleeker-looking page. Without further ado, let's dive into the main

        • Zoho Books - France

          L’équipe de Zoho France reçoit régulièrement des questions sur la conformité de ses applications de finances (Zoho Books/ Zoho Invoice) pour le marché français. Voici quelques points pour clarifier la question : Zoho Books est un logiciel de comptabilité

        • Name autocomplete

          Hi, During searching emails the web tool does not always propose the auto-completion of the saved emails. As a result I either have to go to contacts and look up the exact email, or the exact full name including the middle name and any dots, which is very annoying. For example I have a contact that I emailed in the past that has "First M. Last" <email@email.com> type of contact. When I start typing 'First' the email may or may not pop up in the autocomplete menu. Then if I start typing "first last"

        • Using a CRM Client Script Button to create a Books Invoice

          Hello, I need help handling error messages returned to my client script from a function. The scenario I have setup a client script button which is available from each Deal. This CS executes a crm function, which in turn creates an invoice based on the

        • Why Format section gets disabled when we create Merge Template over PDF

          I need some assistance I have a Client who is going to give certificates to users who passes his exam. So, I am using mail merge but in ZOHO writer after I upload the PDF and create merge Template over PDF the format Section gets disabled. My problem

        • Possible to connect Zoho CRM's Sandbox with Zoho Creator's Sandbox?

          We are making some big changes on our CRM so we are testing it out in CRM's Sandbox. We also have a Zoho Creator app that we need to test. Is it possible to connect Zoho CRM's Sandbox to Zoho Creator's Sandbox so that I can perform those tests?

        • How do i follow up my email campaign in-thread

          Is there a way to follow up the email campaign so that it is in-thread using zoho campaigns? eg customer gets original email with subject line "hello" then 5 days later follow up would be with subject line "RE: hello".

        • Announcing new features in Trident for Mac (1.29.0)

          Hello everyone! Trident for macOS (v1.29.0) is here with new features and enhancements to enhance your business communication. Let's take a quick look at them. Access shared mailboxes. You can now view and access shared mailboxes in Trident, which are

        • Books is extremely slow again today !

          Everything is running slowly even with 500mb connection speed

        • Cyclic dependencies in many-to-many relationships...

          I have an application which includes a form for companies, and a form for contacts. Each company can be assigned 1 technical and 1 administrative contact. I have this working okay so far, but I want to copy the scripts used so far to a new empty application. When I import the scripts it fails with a message that says: Problem encountered while creating the application Error in resolving form dependency:Cyclic dependency among the forms:[Company, Contact] What can I do to resolve this? After all,

        • Zoho Workdrive for Office, "vsto runtime not found"

          Hi all, I have been trying to get ZohoWorkdrive_MS-addin_1.4.exe installed, but I keep getting the error "VSTO Runtime Not Found!" - even though I have installed it ... Anyone else hear had problems with the MS addin?  FYI, I am using O365 on A Dell laptop running Win 10 Home - fully patched and up-to-date.  I have tried compatibility modes and running explicitly as Administrator - the usual steps. Any advice would be appreciated.

        • Zoho API to create ticket

          I'm developing an integration to create tickets via API, but, locally it works (send and recieve requests). In production it also works sending requests, but, my file don't recieve any response data. My URL is available in Zoho API Console and I have

        • Automate Timesheet Approvals with Multi-level Approval Rules

          Introducing Approval Rules for Timesheets in Zoho Projects. With this automation, teams can manage how timesheets are reviewed and approved by setting up rules with criteria and assigning approvers to handle submissions. Timesheet, when associated to

        • Zia’s AI Assist now helps you write clearer notes — in seconds

          After helping recruiters craft job descriptions, emails, and assessments, Zia’s AI Assist is now stepping in to make note-taking effortless too. Whether you’re recording feedback after an interview or sharing quick updates with your team, you can now

        • Next Page