Tip #8 : Implement metered billing with Google Sheet

Tip #8 : Implement metered billing with Google Sheet

Hello everyone,

We've been sharing a tip every week to address specific business scenarios which can be implemented for your subscription business. Last week, we shared a tip about integrating online form builders with Zoho Subscriptions. This week, we will be looking at how you can implement metered billing in Zoho Subscriptions with Google Sheet.

Business Scenario:
Metered Billing  is the concept of charging your customers based on their usage of a product of service. With Zoho Subscriptions, you can charge your customers for a base plan initially and then charge an additional fee based on their usage using metered billing.

Generally, when a business wants to automate the metered billing process, they should have a back-end server that handles the metered billing readings. Once the reading is recorded, the back-end server has to process the difference between the last recorded reading and the current closing reading. If the customer has exceeded the base limit, the back-end server makes an API request to Zoho Subscriptions to update the invoice and charge an additional fee.

Let's consider the following scenario to understand this better. Zylker Electro provides electricity services to residential areas. They have a meter installed in all the houses of the residential area to record the power consumption. Every month, a Zylker personnel visits the houses in the residential area to note down the meter reading. Then, the difference between last month's meter reading and the current month is calculated. If the customer has consumed more than 500 units of power, they will charge the customer an additional 12 cents per unit.

To automate the above process, Zylker has to build a back-end server that will:
  • store the meter readings;
  • calculate the power consumed for every month; and
  • charge the customers accordingly.
Instead of building a back-end server, you can automate the process using the Custom Functions in Zoho Subscriptions and Google Sheets. With the help of Google Sheets, you can note down all the metered readings every month. Later, you can use Google App Scripts to fetch the readings and update the pending invoice using the Custom Functions.

How can you do it?

You can use Google Sheets to note down the readings every month (similar to the image shown below).




Field
Description
Last Recorded Reading
The meter reading at the end of the previous month.
Closing Reading
The meter reading at the end of the current month.
Status
The field is used to specify whether the invoice for a customer has been updated in Zoho Subscriptions or not.
ID
Unique Ids that are used to map the customers between Google Sheets and Zoho Subscriptions.

Google allows us to access and edit the data in spreadsheet with the help of Google Scripts. Coming back to the scenario, every month a Zylker personnel will record the readings in the Google Sheet. With Zoho Subscriptions, you can configure a custom function to run for the invoices in the Pending status. You must configure the Custom Function in such a way that:
  1. it fetches the meter readings from Google Sheets using Google script;
  2. processes the data and adds an additional charge to the invoice, if needed (based on the consumption);
  3. updates the Status in Google Sheets as Updated; and
  4. updates the Last Recorded Reading with current month's closing reading.
Once the custom function executes successfully, the invoice will be updated with the additional charge. The value in the Status field of the Google sheet will also be updated.

Getting started with Google Apps Scripts:

 Google Apps Scripts provides you with feature-rich APIs that allow you to build you own web applications. For our scenario, we will be using the Spreadsheet APIs to fetch and edit the spreadsheet document. We will create two scripts:
  1. The first script will be used to fetch the last recorded reading and the closing reading of a customer.
  2. The second script for changing the Status field of the customer once the invoice is updated.
To create a script in Google App Scripts:
  1. Go to and click the New Script option on the top-left corner.
  2. Copy the scripts provided above and modify it to suit your needs.
  3. Once you are done, click the Publish option on the top and select the Deploy as web app option.
  4. Provide the project name.
  5. Choose Anyone, even anonymous in the Who has access to the app dropdown.
  6. Click the Deploy button.
  7. Save the Web app URL which will be displayed on the screen for future reference.
Once the Google app scripts are successfully deployed:
  1. Create a new Custom Function in Zoho Subscriptions.
  2. Choose the Module as Invoice and Predefined event as Invoice created.
  3. Copy the Custom function from this GitHub link and modify it as per your requirements.
  4. Save the Custom Function and you are good to go.
Found this useful? Try it out for your subscription business and let us know. If you have any queries, feel free to comment below. We are here to answer them.

Cheers,
Sasidaran K,
The Zoho Subscriptions Team.

    • Sticky Posts

    • Tip #4 : Refer and Earn Workflow system for your Subscription Business

      Hello everyone, We've been coming up with a tip every week to address specific business scenarios which can be implemented for your business. In continuation to the previous post, this week we will be seeing about how you can implement the Refer and Earn Workflow system to acquire more customers. Why are Referrals important? Customer Acquisition is crucial for any business to sustain itself in a constantly evolving market. It involves persuading new consumers to purchase your products. Customers

    • Tip #2 - Cancellation of Offline Subscriptions based on the Expected Payment Date

      Hello everyone, As you all know, we are coming up with a custom function workflow every week to address specific business scenarios. In continuation of this previous blog, this week we will be seeing about Cancellation of Offline Subscriptions based on the Expected Payment Date. Business Scenario: In general, for any business, the customers make payments via online as well as offline. In case of subscription where the automatic collection of charge is enabled (aka online subscription), the customer's

    • Tip #3 : Send SMS Reminders for your Subscription Business

      Hello everyone, As you all know, we are coming up with a tip every week to address specific business scenarios. In continuation to the previous blog, this week we will be seeing how you can use SMS reminders for your Subscription Business. Using SMS messages for your Subscription Business: While managing your subscription business, more often than not, you need to keep your customers informed about upcoming renewals, payment reminders and cancellations. By keeping them informed in advance, you can

    • Tips And Tricks - Announcement

      Hello everyone, Every business is unique and each of them follows a specific workflow. While managing your customers' subscriptions with Zoho, you might have some needs unique to your business. Custom Functions helps you address such needs. This is a start to a series of posts, where we will be coming up with a custom function workflow every week that addresses specific business scenarios. Watch this space for further updates! Also, if you have any specific business scenario which needs to be addressed,

    • Tip #6 : Accessing external URLs from Zoho Subscriptions

      Hello everyone, We have been sharing a tip every week to address specific business scenarios which you can implement for your subscription business. Last week, we shared a tip about implementing the Approval Workflow system. This week, let's look at how you can access external URLs with the help of Custom Link. Business Scenario: Every business functions differently and has its unique requirements. At times, businesses might want to access other websites or applications by appending specific information

    • Recent Topics

    • Customer Address Not on Standard Invoice when Address is on Contact Record

      Hi,  I entered the customer billing and shipping address in Zoho CRM. I created an invoice in Zoho Books with the same customer contact. The contact is correctly in Zoho Books with the billing and shipping address. The invoice for the customer does not

    • Apply partial payments to invoices from the Banking Module

      We need this! Why is this not possible?

    • Welcome to the Zoho Show Community Forums page!

      Hello everyone, The Zoho Show community is a place for you to discuss and share anything and everything related to Zoho Show Presentations, our online presentation software. It includes users from all over the globe and all walks of life. Our community helps answer your Zoho Show questions with responses from other knowledgeable community members to give you the best experience creating and designing exciting presentations. Along the way, you'll meet recognized experts from our software team and

    • How can I convert an existing contact into a lead?

      I imported many contacts into ZOHO CRM. In order to select a few of them as leads, I want to mark or convert a few hundred as Leads. Who can I do that?

    • Introducing Dedicated Modules for Plans, Addons, and Coupons in Zoho Billing

      We’ve enhanced the way you manage Plans, Addons, and Coupons in Zoho Billing. Previously, all three grouped together under Subscription Items. Now, each one has its own dedicated module, giving you a cleaner and more intuitive experience. This update

    • Price book functionality enhancement

      A common use of price books is to create a price book for a given customer level or contract with a specific company. Given that this is done at a company/customer level it would be great to see a way to associate a price book to a given customer and

    • Contact data removes Account data when creating a quote

      Hi, Our customer has address fields in their quote layout which should be the address of the Account. They prefill the information, adding the account name - the address data is populated as per what is in the account - great. However when they then add

    • Can we have 24x7 live support for Zohobooks ?

      Can we have 24x7 live support for Zohobooks ?

    • Important update about notification security in Business Messaging SDK

      As part of our ongoing effort to strengthen the security of notification data, we have enhanced how notifications are processed and protected in our applications. These improvements ensure that all notification related data follows the most up-to-date

    • 年内最後のユーザー向けイベント：5名限定！ 課題解決型ワークショップイベント Zoho ワークアウト開催のお知らせ (12/18)

      ユーザーの皆さま、こんにちは。コミュニティチームの中野です。 12月開催のZoho ワークアウトについてお知らせします。 今回はZoomにて、オンライン開催します。 参加登録はこちら（無料） https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/QHn6kJAcRs-znJ1l5jk0ww ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Zoho ワークアウトとは？ Zoho ユーザー同士で交流しながら、サービスに関する疑問や不明点の解消を目的とした「Zoho ワークアウト」を開催します。

    • Sync Zoho Marketing Automation with Zoho Forms

      I can't find a section where the integration between Zoho Marketing Automation and Zoho form is explained. And how form subscription works with opt-in and consents.

    • What is the difference between Zoho Campaigns and marketing hub?

      Zoho Campaigns is a permission-based email marketing tool for sending marketing emails and mass emails. Marketing Automation is a multichannel marketing automation tool that caters to organizations looking for tools to engage their users across multiple

    • Webhook not firing.

      I created a webhook using the Web UI, it looks very nice and the testing worked without an issue, but when i save/ update a ticket, the webhook is not firing. Here are the details of the web-hook i get from using the API "modifiedTime": "2019-10-22T09:23:37.380Z",

    • Duplicate customers being created in Desk

      Hi I've trying to work out why I've getting duplicated customers being created in my desk. I have an external booking system that generates an email when I get a customer booking a job. A booking email gets sent to Desk where I manage the booking and

    • Creating a custom CSV file using deluge script/

      I have an application I have developed and the client wants us to place an export file in csv onto an ftp server daily. Now I don't see au options in creator to change the separator to anything else. The client wants the separator to be the pipe symbol "|"  I think i would be able to create schedule with some code to create the appropriate data in a string using deluge script but I haven't seen any functionality that would allow me to deposit that data as a file anywhere or attach it to an email

    • Can we add custom fields to portal community profiles?

      How do we add custom fields to our profile pages in our portal community? If we have the ability to add custom fields, will we be able to access those fields via API? We want to use our Desk community in our help portal as our primary community and would

    • Customer ticket creation via Microsoft Teams

      Hi all, I'm looking to see if someone could point me in the right direction. I'd love to make it so my customers/ end users can make tickets, see responses and respond within microsoft teams. As Admin and an Agent i've installed the zoho assist app within

    • E-Invoicing in Belgium with Zoho Billing

      Starting January 1, 2026, Belgium is introducing mandatory electronic invoices (e-invoicing) for all B2B transactions between VAT-registered businesses. Invoices and credits notes must be exchanged in a prescribed digital format. How E-Invoicing works

    • delayed: host mx2.zoho.com (136.143.183.44): Network error: Unexpectedly disconnected (STARTTLS)

      Hi Team, I'm not receiving any email. Seems to be an issue. Sender sent me the error message they received: "delayed: host mx2.zoho.com (136.143.183.44): Network error: Unexpectedly disconnected (STARTTLS)" Please advise.

    • Interview booked through Invite but no Notifications

      We have a workflow that was developed through a developer/partner that was tested and worked. Today, we pushed a candidate through the process and invited them to an in-office interview. They were sent the booking link (as usual and as tested before successfully)

    • Additional Address - Company Name

      It would be very helpful to have a "Company Name" field in the Additional Address shipping section.  In a situation where you drop-ship orders to a different address or different company entirely, it may be necessary to list the company name of the receiver. I understand that the Attention field can be used for that purpose, but that's not really the intended purpose of that field.

    • Incorrect Email Notifications for Product Reviews

      Dear Zoho Commerce Support Team, I am writing to report a technical issue that occurs frequently on our platform. Problem Description: We regularly receive email notifications informing us of new product reviews awaiting approval. However, when we access

    • In App Auto Refresh/Update Features

      Hi,    I am trying to use Zoho Creator for Restaurant management. While using the android apps, I reliased the apps would not auto refresh if there is new entries i.e new kitchen order ticket (KOT) from other users.   The apps does received notification but would not auto refresh, users required to refresh the apps manually in order to see the new KOT in the apps.    I am wondering why this features is not implemented? Or is this feature being considered to be implemented in the future? With the

    • How to Rank Tables by Row Count in Descending Order

      I am trying to understand the consume of lines that grow up so fast in the last week. Is there any way to create a pivot table or query to get TABLE NAME LINES in descending order?

    • Can we do Image swatches for color variants?

      We want to do something like the attached screenshot on our new zoho store. We need image swatches instead of normal text selection. We want to user to select an image as color option. Is this doable? I don't see any option on zoho backend. Please h

    • annualy customer report

      we need a report per customer that looks like this invoic number cleaning laundry repair management 01 january xxx euro xx euro xx euro xxx euro 02 february xxx euro xxx euro x euro xxxx euro and so on the years 12 months is that possible to make and

    • Export your notes from Notebook!

      Dear users, The long awaited feature is now live. Yes, you can now export your notes from Notebook app in bulk. But the feature has just started with web app alone for now. You can try the export feature as mentioned below: Go to our web app, https://notebook.zoho.com Go to 'Settings' > 'Export' Now, select the format: You can select either ZNote or HTML Once done, you can use the same to import or can have this a local backup of your notes. Note: Export for other platforms are in development and

    • our customers have difficult to understand the Statements

      our costumers have big problems to understand Zohos Statements. we need a text box after the payment number to explain what the payments are for. Is it possible to develop a version of the Statement with that kind of box and if so whu can do it

    • Canva Integration

      Hello! As many marketing departments are streamlining their teams, many have begun utilizing Canva for all design mockups and approvals prior to its integration into Marketing automation software. While Zoho Social has this integration already accomplished,

    • Transfer between two customers (Peters Rental account to Peters Private account)

      we are a Property Management company. Our customers have to accounts (registered as two customers - Peter Rental and Peter Private On the rental account all income and costs fron rental activities are noted. On the private account all private are noted

    • Prepopulating Fields

      Hello, I have a form (Assets) with 2 lookup fields: Client (from Clients) Site (from Client Sites) I modified the code (highlighted in red below), so the Site dropdown shows the list of sites related to the Client. must have Client_Site ( type = picklist

    • CRM x WorkDrive: File storage for new CRM signups is now powered by WorkDrive

      Availability Editions: All DCs: All Release plan: Released for new signups in all DCs. It will be enabled for existing users in a phased manner in the upcoming months. Help documentation: Documents in Zoho CRM Manage folders in Documents tab Manage files

    • REPORT THAT SHOWS SOH FOR ITEMS THAT HAVE ZERO SALES

      When we started Zoho we imported a lot of inventory lines directly off our suppliers price list and have never ordered / sold. I want to clean up our data base and remove all these lines. What reeport will show me what lines have zero sales as well as

    • Automation series : Close all tasks once the project is completed

      When a project is marked as Completed, it might still have open tasks such as recurring tasks that were not marked as complete, tasks that are no longer relevant, or tasks that no longer need attention after closure. To ensure the project reflects its

    • Direct Feed (Bank)

      Is Direct feed integration for AlRajhi and ADCB bank supported by Zoho Books in GCC/Saudi

    • Converting Sales Order to Purchase Order

      Hi All, Firstly, this code works to convert a sales order(SO) to a purchase order (PO) via a button, however I am running into an issue when I convert the SO where the values from the line items are not pulled across from the SO to the PO. The ones in

    • All new Address Field in Zoho CRM: maintain structured and accurate address inputs

      The address field will be available exclusively for IN DC users. We'll keep you updated on the DC-specific rollout soon. It's currently available for all new sign-ups and for existing Zoho CRM orgs which are in the Professional edition. Latest update

    • Horrible Connectivity!

      I have used Meetings several times, but most of the time the connection is horrible. The video freezes, the audio freezes, and we end up cancelling the meeting. I am on a high speed internet connection, and Zoom works fine, so I know it's not a problem

    • Is it really true that I can't set the default 'deposit to' account in 2025?

      I've been using Books for 7 years and the default account has never been a problem. I usually manually reconcile invoices and have never had a thought about which account. It has always been my account. However, I recently noticed that for the past 4

    • Zoho DataPrep switching Date Format

      When using a pipeline that is importing Zoho Analytics data into Zoho DataPrep, the month and day of date fields are switched for some columns. For example, a Zoho Analytics record of "Nov. 8, 2025" will appear in Zoho DataPrep as "2025/08/11" in "yyyy/MM/dd"

    • Next Page