Billing Management: #1 Billing a Universal Business Routine

Billing Management: #1 Billing a Universal Business Routine

Hello,

As the saying goes, "Do the hardest job first." We started with the complex subject of finance and revenue management, which is considered the backbone of any business. Now, let's shift our focus and take a deep dive into this Billing Management, which is equally more challenging than revenue management. In short, billing is the practical side of how revenue actually flows.

Any business's main source of revenue lies in its sales. You may hail from any country, but selling a product or service doesn't really work without an invoice or a payment receipt. Billing is not merely a task during sales; it is proof of value exchanged and the starting point of reliable cash flow. In this opening post, we will look into the common methods of billing that prevail.

One-Time Billing 

One-time billing is the simplest model. In this model, a single payment is made for a product or a service, and the transaction ends there.

 Think of walking into an electronics store, buying a laptop, and paying for it at the counter. You leave the store with your purchase, and the deal is done.

Similarly, A freelance consultant might charge a flat fee for a two-hour training session.  

Once the product is sold or a service is delivered, payment is made, and neither side is expected to do anything else.

This model is widely seen across industries. In retail, every checkout is a one-time bill. In hospitality, booking a hotel room for a single night works the same way. You stay, you pay, and the transaction closes. It's quick, clear, and efficient, though it doesn't guarantee steady revenue unless the customer returns for repeated purchases.

Project-Based Billing 

Project billing works by linking payments to the milestones or deliverables rather than charging all at once.

 A web development company designing a new website might structure the payment in stages: 20% during design, 40% during development and the remaining 40$ upon launch.

Likewise, an IT service form might bill after migrating data, again after testing and finally after deployment.  

Industries like construction and engineering rely heavily on this model. A builder might charge after completing the foundation, again after raising the structure, and finally after finishing the interiors. This approach ensures the client pays as value is delivered while the service provider maintains healthy cash flow throughout the project duration.

Expense Billing 

Reimbursing the actual cost incurred on behalf of the client is all we do in expense billing.

 Imagine a law firm, for instance, adding court filing fees, travel expenses, and documentation charges to its professional fees.

A construction company also shows the client the real cost of cement, steel, or tiles, in addition to labour charges.  

Expense billing is also common in industries like consulting or advertising. An ad agency, for example, might charge its service fee separately but pass through the media buying cost directly to the client. This approach keeps things fair and open. Clients know exactly what they are paying for, and businesses avoid absorbing expenses that rightly belong to the project.

Recurring/Subscription Billing

Recurring billing charges customers at a regular interval, such as weekly, monthly, or annually, accounting for continuous access to a product or service.

 A Video streaming company charges your card every month, and as long as you keep paying, your streaming access continues without interruption.  

But the story changes when you upgrade mid-month to add more screens, downgrade to a cheaper plan, or cancel halfway through your cycle. Should you be charged full price, half, or something in between? That's where things get interesting.


There is no universal rule in subscription billing. A gym membership works differently from a SaaS license, which differs from a magazine subscription. The complexity even lies within the same industry type, as the demand varies from one subscriber to another.

In addition, other entities like trials, addons, pay-per-user, and mid-cycle changes all demand unique billing logic. That's why subscription businesses often rely on an API-driven billing system or a more automated method to manage these complexities dynamically.


Bill beyond boundaries
Each billing model serves a distinct purpose, and businesses are now ready to experiment with different billing methods by blending one-time with subscription-based, project-based with subscription, and so on. Hybrid billing is becoming the order of the day, and businesses should choose the right tool that stays flexible, powerful, and handles complexity.

Zoho Billing is empowered to deliver everything in one place. Whether one-time, project-based, expense-based, or subscription-based, Zoho Billing is the one-stop solution for all your billing requirements. It doesn't stop with just billing; it digests the complex workflow you propose and provides a hands-free solution through its automated billing approach.


Do you agree? Yes?

NotesIn the next post, let's examine the biggest challenge in subscription billing: Prorated Billing, which decides how to charge fairly when customers join, upgrade, downgrade, or cancel mid-term.

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

    • Experience effortless record management in CRM For Everyone with the all-new Grid View!

      Hello Everyone, Hope you are well! As part of our ongoing series of feature announcements for Zoho CRM For Everyone, we’re excited to bring you another type of module view : Grid View. In addition to Kanban view, List view, Canvas view, Chart view and

    • Zoho CRM - Potentials Tab

      Hi! When I create a Deal (Potentials tab) the header looks like this: After a refresh on the page it looks like this: What should I do so that it is displayed like in the second pic without refresh? Also I have a user that as of recently, cannot see this

    • Good news! Calendar in Zoho CRM gets a face lift

      Dear Customers, We are delighted to unveil the revamped calendar UI in Zoho CRM. With a complete visual overhaul aligned with CRM for Everyone, the calendar now offers a more intuitive and flexible scheduling experience. What’s new? Distinguish activities

    • How can I bold text on Zoho Forms submit buttons?

      In the old theme builder, I could bold the text on a form's submit button. With the new theme builder, I can only change the text of the header or fields in the form, and not the button itself.

    • Zoho Commerce in multiple languages

      When will you be able to offer Zoho Commerce in more languages? We sell in multiple markets and want to be able to offer a local version of our webshop. What does the roadmap look like?

    • Outdated state in mexico

      Hello Zoho team, the drop down to add the state for customers, when they introduce their state in mexico has a city named “Distrito Federal” that name changed many years ago to “ciudad de mexico”. could you please update this so my clients can find the

    • Urgent Zoho Creator down!!!???

      Now my zoho creator faced this issue. Anyone has idea? Urgent!!!

    • Default Sorting on Related Lists

      Is it possible to set the default sorting options on the related lists. For example on the Contact Details view I have related lists for activities, emails, products cases, notes etc... currently: Activities 'created date' newest first Emails - 'created

    • Using IMAP configuration for shared email inboxes

      Our customer service team utilizes shared email boxes to allow multiple people to view and handle incoming customer requests. For example, the customer sends an email to info@xxxx.com and multiple people can view it and handle the request. How can I configure

    • The Social Wall: September 2025

      Hello everyone, As we step into the fall season, some major updates are on the horizon. Meanwhile, here are the exciting updates we rolled out this September. Approvals in iOS Managing approvals just got more seamless on mobile. With this update, the

    • Display Client Name in Zoho Creator Client Portal Dashboard

      Hello Zoho Creator Team, We hope you are doing well. Zoho Creator recently introduced the option to set a client’s display name in the Client Portal settings, which is very helpful for providing a personalized portal experience. However, there is currently

    • Introducing Detailed View for Candidates in Vendor Portal

      We’ve added a new Details sub-tab inside the Vendor Portal to help vendors easily view complete candidate information after submission. With this update, vendors can now access all candidate details, from personal information to associated job openings,

    • Zoho One Down

      Zoho Team, Checking if when the services up - currently Zoho One is down

    • Custom View of tickets created today

      How can I create a custom view that list all my ticked created in the current date? Currently, if I select the "Created Time" criteria, the "Current Time" option does not work as today. Actually, I don't know how it works this "Current Time".

    • Weekly Tips : Customize your Zoho Mail Notifications

      In a professional context, email communication remains one of the most crucial channels for staying connected and managing workflows. Keeping track of your emails, task updates, or important announcements can be overwhelming—especially if you are juggling

    • Tip of the Week - Conditional Formatting Chart

      Conditional formatting allows you to highlight your data series based on a pattern or a trend in your data. This makes it easy for you to identify when your data reaches certain values or when it deviates from the trend.  Zoho Analytics allows you to

    • How to Send Email from within a custom module (with or without an email template)

      It is possible to send an email from the Deals module. However, I can't find a way to send an email from any of our custom modules. I have tried adding an email field to the modules (even though we don't really want one or need it there). That doesn't

    • How can I track which zoho users are actively using Zoho CRM

      I have several licenses of Zoho CRM. We now need to add a new user. I could purchase a new license, but before I do, I would like to see if any of our existing users are not actively using the license assigned to them. How can I determine the activity

    • Access to Detail View From HTML Snippet

      Zoho Creator displays a detail view that slides out from the right onClick of a record in a report. Am I able to access that detail view from an html snippet, e.g. click a record in a list and display the detail view? The zc_LoadIn dialog is a bit clunky,

    • Option to Customize Career Site URL Without “/jobs/Careers”

      Dear Zoho Recruit Team, I hope you are doing well. We would like to request an enhancement to the Career Site URL structure in Zoho Recruit. In the old version of the career site, our URL was simply: 👉 https://jobs.domain.com However, after moving to

    • 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

    • 【開催間近 - 10/17】東京 ユーザー交流会 Vol.3 参加登録 受付中！(参加無料)

      ユーザーの皆さま、こんにちは。コミュニティチームの藤澤です。 10/17(金)に、東京・新橋で「東京 ユーザー交流会 Vol.3」を開催します！ ZOHOLICSよりも小規模なイベントですので、「リアル開催はちょっと緊張する…」という方も、安心してご参加いただけます✨ 当日は、初公開の事例を2つご紹介予定です！ なお、セッション映像のアーカイブ配信は予定していないため、会場にお越しいただいた方だけが、登壇者へ直接質問したり、リアルな声を聞いたりできる貴重な機会となっています。 ーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーー

    • Loading CSS Stylesheets into HTML Snippet

      Combining html/css into a single snippet can grow quite large for a UI that has a lot of functionality/styling. To keep things tidy, are we able to pull files into an html snippet using a <link> tag? If so, what are some best practices?

    • Notes Attachments

      Two things it would be nice to have the attachment size the same as the attachments sections and it would be nice to be able to attach links like you can in the attachments section. Thank you

    • Canvas: empty images

      Hello. If I add an image field like contact photo in a Canvas design, and the field is empty, there is an ugly placeholder in its place. This doesn't happen in the standard view. In the standard view, if the contact photo is empty, nothing appears in

    • Google enhanced conversions not working

      Hi guys, I've connected Zoho CRM through Google Ads interface with the goal to setup the enhanced conversion tracking in Google Ads. I have to Zoho related conversion goals which you can see in the images below: For the conversion goal above I've setup

    • MS Teams Meeting to Zoho CRM

      Has anyone figured out a good way to push MS Teams meeting info on a trigger of "meeting end" to Zoho CRM? We're looking for a way to take attendees of a meeting and meeting duration and push it into Zoho CRM after the meeting has ended. If I can just

    • Microsoft Teams now available as an online meeting provider

      Hello everyone, We're pleased to announce that Zoho CRM now supports Microsoft Teams as an online meeting provider—alongside the other providers already available. Admins can enable Microsoft Teams directly from the Preferences tab under the Meetings

    • Font Size 11 - Zoho CRM Email Templates

      Our company communicates with our vendors exclusively using Calibri Font Size 11, as this is the standard formatting for professional emails. Since the CRM only allows for the selection of font sizes 10 & 12, we have been unable to utilize the CRM email

    • Introducing Zoho Creator's 2025 Release Projection 2

      Hello Creators! I'm Prakash, from the Creator product management team, and today I'm delighted to unveil our next set of features as part of Release Projection 2 for 2025. With thoughtful analysis and planning, we've curated powerful new capabilities

    • Calling Function via REST API with API Key gives 401 using Zoho Developer

      Hi, I created a couple of functions using the one month trial of Enterprise edition, which I was able to call using the API Key method from Postman and from an external site. Now that my trial has expired, I have created the same functions in the Developer

    • 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

    • Feature Request: Tag, Search, and Report on Individual Private Comments

      Zoho Desk Team, First, I want to say that we are extensive users of Zoho Desk and it is a core part of our support operations. We rely heavily on the private comments feature for internal communication, knowledge sharing, and maintaining a clear history

    • New portal SAML authentication error: User not found

      Dears, Has anyone else been experiencing this lately? I am creating a new portal authenticated by SAML (Entra ID). I followed the same process as I did with other portals, but any new portal created after this always encounters this error. I’ve been reporting

    • In arattai received message can't be deleted

      The issue has been noticed in following: arattai app (Android) arattai app (Window) arattai web While the message posted by me may be deleted, the ones received from others can't be. The item <Delete> change to <Report> when the message is a received

    • Zoho Forms - Improved Sub-Forms

      Hi Forms team, I'm helping a client move from JotForms to Zoho Forms and I've found another opportunity for improvement. In the below screenshot, JotForm left and Zoho Forms right. The Zoho Forms Sub-Form is quite a poor visually. There is no way to make

    • Zoho Forms - Print Button on Forms

      Hi Forms team, I'm replicating a form for a client which is currently based on JotForm. I noticed that at the end of the form there is a button to print the completed form. I thought this would be something worth sharing and a nice to have in Zoho Forms.

    • How do I move a section or element from one page to another in the NEW Zoho Sites UI

      I have a section on my home page with numerous elements within it and I'd like to move the entire section to a different page on my site so I don't have to recreate it from scratch.  Is there a way for me to do that easily? I could use a quick answer on this please.

    • Elevate your CX delivery using CommandCenter 2.0: Simplified builder; seamless orchestration

      Most businesses want to create memorable customer experiences—but they often find it hard to keep them smooth, especially as they grow. To achieve a state of flow across their processes, teams often stitch together a series of automations using Workflow

    • Creator Change History: Ways to improve

      Hi Everyone, Recently been working in developing this change history(an idea from Zoho Forms) - unlike forms that you can this with a click but using Creator, we can use "old" keyword. The concept I come up with is to put the result in a table however,

    • Next Page