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 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 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.
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 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
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?
In 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!
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'sCommunity 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 youCommunity 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 mostIntroducing: 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
Field Dependency Not Working on Detail Page in Zoho Desk
Hi Support Team, I’ve created field dependencies between two fields in Zoho Desk, and they are working correctly on the Create and Edit layouts. However, on the Detail page, the fields are not displaying according to the dependencies I’ve set — they appearHow do the keyword critera work?
Hi, I'm working on automated assignment of tickets based on keywords. How does this feature work? Where does this criteria look for keywords - email address, subject, email body? Can you please clarify this as I want to avoid overlapping with criteriaError: Unsupported content type: text/html;charset=UTF-8 after tryeing to get the token for n8n automation
I am working on ZOHO Desk automation and need to get the ZOHO auth token for n8n I have created the app in ZOHO Desk API, got client id and client secret. Added all data required to get a token in n8n. After I sign in with my ZOHO credentials in ZOHOImproving Collaboration Features in Zoho Portal
Hello Zoho Community, I’ve recently started exploring Zoho services and I’m really impressed with the wide range of features. However, I feel there is still room for improvement in the collaboration area. For example, it would be really helpful if weAutomated Shopify Emails Not Being Delivered
I have an ecommerce store with Shopify. I recently set up my email to be served through Zoho. Since doing this, customers are not receiving some of our automated emails from Shopify itself. Our initial email that confirms their purchase goes through but our Shipping Notification that is automatically sent out upon fulfillment is not going through. Sometimes we get a notice that it's been classified as spam, sometimes nothing. I can send/receive email via Outlook on my desktop and I can send/receiveI can't log in to my account on Thunderbird
I've just had to rebuild my PC (calamitous mess from Microsoft with Win10/Win 11 'upgrade' - they confirmed I had to start with a new build). I have used Zoho mail for years via Mozilla Thunderbird, but now I've had to download the latest version of TBird,Send a campaign to one recipient.
Very often I speak to a customer and they say they didn't see my email (maybe it went in Junk, maybe they deleted it). Anyway, I just want to go into the Campaign and send it to one person. You already have a feature very close to this - when sending a Test. While developing a campaign, I can send tests to anyone. Why can't we have this AFTER the campaign has been sent? I know, there's a caveat, and that's in the use of merge tags. Most of the time I only use FNAME, but maybe you could check ifTry FSM again for our business
We already have our customers individual equipment in CRM with serial numbers, install dates, warranty length and importantly next service which is generally 2 years. a month before the service date is due we get get a report and send out service reminders.Use Zoho Books to bill for work done in Zoho Desk??
I'm trying to see if something is possible (and if yes, how). We use Zoho One to manage our business. We have a lot of clients that will put in a ticket (via portal) to have work done. Out techs will pick up the ticket, do the work, and then log the timeGet Cliq Meetings in my O365 calendar
Hi, we are currently evaluating to replace the Teams Messaging and Meetings with Cliq. We currently still have all our email and calendars in O365. What i want to achieve is, to create a (ZOHO) meeting from Cliq and have this meeting added to my Outlook/O365Issue with Zoho Help Portal – Tickets Missing or Not Answered
Hi, How are you? I think there may be an issue with the Zoho Help Portal. I opened a few tickets directly in the help portal a some time ago but never received any response I also opened ticket 148356451 by email. I did receive a reply to it, but theNo bank feeds from First National Bank South Africa since 12 September
I do not know how Zoho Books expects its customers to run a business like this. I have contacted Zoho books numerous times about this and the say it is solved - on email NO ONE ANSWERS THE SOUTH AFRICAN HELP LINE Come on Zoho Books, you cannot expectDUNS & Bradstreet and Credit risk monitoring integration with Zoho books
Small businesses not being paid by bigger clients and clients of all sizes is a huge problem. It will be nice if Zoho develops integration with DUNS & Bradstreet(D&B) and Credit risk monitoring integration with Zoho books. That have small businesses canZoho Forms - Form Rules based on attachment fields
Many businesses use forms to collect documents and images from customers. In many cases, you may want to trigger a notification or other automation based on whether or not an attachment was added. I've noticed that attachment fields do not appear in RulesHow to sync from Zoho Projects into an existing Sprint in Zoho Sprints?
Hi I have managed to integrate Zoho Projects with Zoho Sprints and I can see that the integration works as a project was created in Zoho Sprints. But, what I would like to do is to sync into an existing Zoho Sprints project. Is there a way to make thatAdd multiple users to a task
When I´m assigning a task it is almost always related to more than one person. Practical situation: When a client request some improvement the related department opens the task with the situation and people related to it as the client itself, the salesmanCan't open draft email for editing
Last night I started composing an email and I let it save in drafts. This morning I want to continue working on the email. It is in my Drafts folder but it will not open. The only option there is to delete it. This is not the first time it has happened. On previous occasions I have just deleted the draft and started afresh, but I really want this one back. Windows 10 with Pale Moon 28.10.0 browser.Failing to generate Access and Refresh Token
Hello. I have two problems: First one when generating Access and Refresh Token I get this response: As per the guide here : https://www.zoho.com/books/api/v3/#oauth (using server based application) I'm following all the steps. I have managed to getOpen filtered deals from campaign
Do you think a feature like this would be feasible? Say you are seeing campaign "XYZ" in CRM. The campaign has a related list of deals. If you want to see the related deals in a deal view, you should navigate to the Deals module, open the campaign filter,Change scheduling emails time
When sending an individual email there is a great feature to schedule them to send later. I could only use the one time that is suggested. Is there a way to select another time? Regards, GlennZoho CRM: how can I control which contacts to sync with Outlook?
I was just playing around syncing contacts from Zoho to MS Outlook (MS365 account.) The problem is our firm has hundreds of thousands of contacts and I don't want to bury my contacts list in outlook. Any help with this is greatly appreciated.How to overcome limitations in meetings
As a company, one of our deliverables is a meeting between two other companies, where we act as facilitators. So, if we recorded this meeting in Zoho CRM, it should be connected to 2 accounts, 2 contacts, and 1 campaign (a campaign, in our use, is theDifferent MRP / Pricing for same product but different batches
We often face the following situations where MRP of a particular product changes on every purchase and hence we have to charge the customer accordingly. This can't be solved by Batch tracking as of now so far as I understand Zoho. How do you manage it as of now?Add a 'Log a Call' link to three dot icon in Canvas
Hi, There's a three dot element when creating a canvas called 'More'. I would like to modify this to add a link that says 'Log a Call' in order to quickly record the details of a cellphone call. I'd also like this to be a simple 'contact' selection andSyncing Zoho Forms with Bigin - Embedding issue?
Hello everyone, I created a Zoho Form for a page on my GoDaddy website to collect leads, which then transfers the data to Bigin. However, I'm facing an issue where it doesn't seem to work properly. I've integrated Zoho Forms with Bigin and tried embeddingCan not add fields to a Section
I feel like I'm missing something obvious: I can add new Sections to my form but I can not add fields to the Sections. I've tried fields already on the form as well as dragging and dropping new fields into the Section but nothing will go into it. WhatRecord Logged in User while using CRM lookup field
Is it possible, while using the Zoho CRM lookup field, to automatically use the user account logged into Zoho CRM in a hidden field? I was hoping to add employee accounts to my current plan. But would like a record on the Form submission of who submittedForm Rules for Suburb Categories to alternate landing pages or Making a Fields Contents ALL CAPS
I need to send differentform submissions to two to three different thank-you URLs (for Meta/Google pixels) depending on which suburb a user selects in a form. I have ~400 suburbs split into two categories (A and B, based on business value). Current challenges:Collaps Notes
There are times when long/large notes are added to a record i.e. Accounts or Deals etc. Currently, the full note is displayed in the notes related list section. It would be great if by default only 5 to 10 rows of the note are displayed when the noteZoho Down
I have a drop in my Zoho One services.Runing RPA Agents on Headless Windows 11 Machines
Has anyone tried this? Anything to be aware of regarding screen resolution?Problem for EU users connecting Zoho CRM through Google Ads for Enhanced conversions
Has anyone else experienced this problem when trying to connect Zoho CRM through Google Ads interface to setup enhanced conversions? Did you guys get it fixed somehow? The Problem: The current Google Ads integration is hardcoded to use Zoho's US authenticationWhy am I getting event Pop-up Notification for events that have been cancelled?
Why is Calendar Notification still popping up for events that have been cancelled or changed? Each time events are cancelled or changed, I have observed that I am still getting notifications for them. Below is a sample pop-up notification for one of theWhatsapp Limitation Questions
Good day, I would like to find out about the functionality or possibility of all the below points within the Zoho/WhatsApp integration. Will WhatsApp buttons ever be possible in the future? Will WhatsApp Re-directs to different users be possible basedCreate a draft in reply to an email via Emails API
Hi, I’d like to use the outgoing webhook to automatically create a draft reply to incoming mail. How can I use the Emails API to create a draft reply that is linked to an existing email thread? I couldn’t find the relevant method in the documentation.India Tech Support
Is there no phone tech support number for India? And no chat facility either?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,Show/ hide specific field based on user
Can someone please help me with a client script to achieve the following? I've already tried a couple of different scripts I've found on here (updating to match my details etc...) but none of them seem to work. No errors flagged in the codes, it justWhat is a a valid JavaScript Domain URI when creating a client-based application using the Zoho API console?
No idea what this is. Can't see what it is explained anywhere.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 (9/25)
ユーザーの皆さま、こんにちは。Zoho ユーザーコミュニティチームの藤澤です。 9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。 諸事情につき、今月の開催回は中止となりました。 次回は10/31（金）14時からの開催を予定しています。 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 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。 ZohoNext Page