Billing Management: #3 Billing Unbilled Charges Periodically

Billing Management: #3 Billing Unbilled Charges Periodically


We had a smooth sail into Prorated Billing, a practice that ensures fairness when customers join, upgrade, or downgrade a service at any point during the billing cycle. But what happens when a customer requests additional limits or features during the cycle? Sending out a new invoice for each change would disrupt the billing cycle and create unnecessary confusion.
​
This is where unbilled charges become a deal breaker. Unbilled charges record the value of service consumed or upgrades applied during the cycle without immediately invoicing the customer. Instead, these charges are a running balance that will be added to the customer's next scheduled invoice. This allows businesses to keep a clean and consistent billing cycle while ensuring all customer amendments are adequately captured.

As many industries rely on recurring or consumption-based billing models, unbilled charges are a vital mechanism for tracking ongoing usage. Let's explore how they play out across different sectors.

Telecom  
In telecommunication, services are consumed continuously, but billing happens over time. Most postpaid service bills follow this method of billing. For instance, a customer with a plan that includes 10 GB of data may exceed their allowance. If they use an additional 2GB at $5 per GB, that customer generates $10 in unbilled charges. These charges accumulate invisibly during the cycle and appear on the next invoice, alongside their monthly subscription. Similarly, charges like roaming, pay-per-view and international calls are all tracked as unbilled until the cycle closes.

Utilities 
Electricity, water, and gas are in a similar situation due to the lag between consumption and billing. These utilities are charged based on their consumption rate and the slab they belong to. Consider a household with an electricity rate of $0.12 per kWh. By mid-month, the household has consumed 250kWh, equating to $30 in unbilled charges, even though the official invoice won't arrive until the end of the month. The service provider records the consumption internally as unbilled revenue, ensuring no usage goes unaccounted for.

SaaS 
Unbilled charges often arise in Saas for usage-based or hybrid pricing models. The usage is tracked and added as unbilled charges periodically. A customer on a $100 per month base plan decides to upgrade to the $200 plan halfway through the billing cycle. The system calculates a prorated charge of $100 for the remainder of the cycle. Instead of sending out a separate invoice right away, the service provider decides to record this as unbilled. It remains pending until the end of the billing cycle, when it will be added to the customer's regular monthly invoices. By doing this, the company ensures the billing cycle remains intact, avoids confusing customers with multiple mid-cycle invoices, and protects its revenue.

Transportation & Logistics 
Transport companies, especially those serving large shipments, both in terms of quantity and quality, often consolidate usage into a single invoice. Imagine a company making 50 travel bookings monthly, each costing $20. The total $1000 in unbilled charges accumulates as the trips are completed. Instead of invoicing after each ride, the travel agency waits until the billing period ends, offering convenience for the customers and administrative efficiency for the company.

Advertising Platform 
Marketing agencies and Digital ads rely heavily on unbilled charges because campaigns run continuously. Suppose an advertiser runs a pay-per-click campaign at $1 per click, generating 500 clicks in a week, which equates to $500. These charges accrue daily but won't be billed until the advertiser hits a billing threshold, say $2000, or the monthly billing date arrives. This approach ensures uninterrupted campaign performance while keeping billing predictable.

Stretch Across with Zoho 
With the volume of transactions each of these businesses handles, manually tracking unbilled charges will be challenging. This is where a modern billing system like Zoho Billing adds value. Zoho Billing automatically computes unbilled charges based on the data provided, whether it's extra data, additional API calls or incremental ad spend. Businesses can decide whether to,
  • Invoice immediately by charging customers for accumulated unbilled charges at any point during the billing cycle.
  • Consolidate automatically by letting Zoho Billing roll all unbilled charges into the customer's next billing date.
 
For instance, if a SaaS customer exceeds their plan by generating $300 in API consumption, the service provider can either issue a one-off invoice on any given day or allow Zoho Billing to add the charge seamlessly to the upcoming monthly bill. This flexibility reduces revenue leakage, improves cash flow, and enhances transparency to the customers.

By automating unbilled charge invoicing, Zoho Billing ensures that no consumption unit is lost. At the same time, businesses retain the freedom to charge customers in real time or on their preferred billing schedule.

Up Next
​With prorated billing ensuring fairness and unbilled charges providing completeness, the next billing in line is Advance Billing. Unlike unbilled charges, where usage is billed after the fact, advance billing collects payment upfront before services are rendered, ensuring cash flow and reduced payment risk.

This model has advantages and challenges. Our upcoming post will examine how advanced billing works and the businesses that can adopt it.
 
 

    • 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

    • Limited review (/questions) for Bookings 2.0

      Hi all, I'm writing this review of Bookings 2.0 for two reasons: 1) it may be of interest to others, and 2) I'd like to be corrected if I'm wrong on any points. It's a very limited review, i.e. the things that have stood out as relevant, and particularly

    • Zoho Bookings - Reserve with Google

      Does Zoho Bookings plan to to integrate with Reserve with Google?

    • Tip #3: How to change your booking page language

      Displaying your booking page in your target audience's language can greatly increase customer satisfaction. By speaking their language, you will help customers feel more comfortable scheduling with you and create a stronger connection with them. Let's

    • Bigin Android app update: Alerts while creating tasks outside of working days, conflicting events and calls.

      Hello everyone! In the most recent version of the Bigin Android app, we have brought in support to display an alert if task is being scheduled outside of the working days. Also, when scheduling an event or call in the Activities module, a conflict alert

    • Bigin update: Link email messages to pipeline records.

      Hello everyone! In the latest version of the Bigin iOS(v1.11.9) and macOS(1.8.9) app, we have brought in support for an option to link email to pipeline records. This helps you to view emails specific to a deal, especially when a contact is associated

    • Bigin Android app update: Custom buttons and widgets

      Hello everyone! We are excited to introduce custom buttons and widgets on the Bigin Android app. Widgets: A widget is a customizable UI component in Bigin that improves efficiency and user experience. It lets businesses embed components, streamline interactions,

    • Zoho Sheet for Desktop

      Does Zoho plans to develop a Desktop version of Sheet that installs on the computer like was done with Writer?

    • Zoho Sheet - Desktop App or Offline

      Since Zoho Docs is now available as a desktop app and offline, when is a realistic ETA for Sheet to have the same functionality?I am surprised this was not laucned at the same time as Docs.

    • Collective-booking event not added to all staff calendars

      We assign two staff to certain events. When the client books this event, it adds it to one staff calendar (the 'organiser') but not the other. How can I ensure all staff assigned to a collective booking get the event in their calendar? (A side note: it

    • Project Management Bulletin: October, 2025

      Every need leads to innovation. Project Management tools were developed out of sheer necessity to drive large projects. With wide usage, the specifications grew precise, and so did the refinement. Over years we’ve crafted one of the best project management

    • Zoho Sheets saying locked when not locked

      Zoho Sheets won't let me add more rows to sheet because it's saying the sheet is locked, but the sheet is not locked. I tried using a different browser but I still have the same issue.

    • Identifying and Merging Accounts with Similar (Non-Exact) Names

      Hello everyone, I’m aware of the built-in deduplication feature in Zoho CRM that allows merging records with exactly matching values for selected fields. However, I’m running into a situation where our migrated data contains multiple variations of the

    • Option for super admin to recover the deleted chats in Zoho Cliq

      Currently, in Zoho Cliq, if a user accidentally deletes their chats, there is no option for the Super Admin to recover or view those deleted messages. I believe it would be helpful if Super Admins had a recovery option, perhaps within a certain time frame,

    • Zoho CRM iOS app updates: the Homepage, Zoho Survey integration, and support for multiple file uploads in subform

      Hello everyone! The Zoho CRM mobile app continues to evolve to bring you a smoother and more powerful CRM-on-the-go experience. We're excited to share some important updates now available in the iOS app. Here's what's new: Homepage support Zoho Survey

    • I am trying to integrate my module in sandbox environment to add data via API

      I went through the documents and tried to setup the API for adding the module via the api but the problem is the token setup is done on "https://accounts.zoho.in/oauth/v2/token" domain and the bulk write is done on "https://content.zohoapis.com/crm/v8/upload"

    • Setting up primary mobile number.

      Hi Sir Earlier I joined IIFL team and got an organizational email of zoho services. Later i quit and now my account is deactivated with IIFL but i am unable to link my mobile number to my own email id with zoho.

    • Tables for Europe Datacenter customers?

      It's been over a year now for the launch of Zoho Tables - and still not available für EU DC customers. When will it be available?

    • Guided Conversations - Ticket Creation

      Hi there, Using Guided Conversations to Take Customer Data and apply it into a Support Ticket for internal use, Is there a way to take multiple Textual Variables Inputs (A series of questions), and have the answers all appear in the Description of the

    • How to send certain invoices for Approval based on condition?

      To streamline operations, I need the invoices to go for approval when certain conditions are met. For example, if my staff gives a discount of x amount, it must go for approval. If there is no discount, then the invoice will be approved automatically.

    • Unable to continue payment

      Hi, I want to make a payment for my email subscription, but I cannot proceed with the payment because my NITKU is invalid. In Indonesia, the NITKU consists of 22 digits, but Zoho only provides 20 digits, causing my NITKU to be invalid. Please help me

    • Is there a way to show contact emails in the Account?

      I know I can see the emails I have sent and received on a Contact detail view, but I want to be able to see all the emails that have been sent and received between all an Accounts Contacts on the Account Detail view. That way when I see the Account detail

    • Massive spam pretending to come from our address – is this a Zoho security issue?

      Hi, We’ve been receiving more and more suspicious emails lately — many of them clearly look like scams. But yesterday, we got an email that appeared to be sent from our own address, which was very concerning. We're starting to wonder if this might be

    • Cant recieve mails

      I’m having an issue with my external IMAP account not fetching any emails into Zoho Mail, even though the connection test says “Success”. I can send, if someone sends an email to me. my original directory (home.pl host) recieves it in their portal but

    • Zoho Sheet Autofit Data

      While using Autofit Data function in Zoho Sheets with Devnagri Maratji or Hindi Fonts, a word or a number, it keeps couple of characters outside the right side border.

    • Enhancements to finance suite integrations

      Update on the migration (October 28, 2025): Starting this week (October 29 tentatively), we’ll begin migrating Zoho CRM users to Zoho Books as integration users. This means actions will now run under each user’s own Zoho Books access, instead of the admin’s.

    • Edit 'my' Notes only

      The permissions around Notes should be more granular, and allow to user to be able to edit the notes he created only. The edit Notes permission is useful as it allows the user to correct any mistakes or add information as needed. However, with this same

    • Job Alerts for Candidates

      hi All, I have 2 questions relating to sharing job details with candidates. 1. is there a way to notify candidates that meet certain criteria of current jobs available? eg. I run a candidate search, and identify 50 candidates that might be suitable. Can

    • Add 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 salesman

    • Enhancing Task Accuracy: Automatically notify the owners upon Task duplication.

      Hello Everyone, A Custom function is a user-written set of code to achieve a specific requirement. Set the required conditions needed as when to trigger using the Workflow rules (be it Tasks / Project) and associate the custom function to it. The requirement

    • Nodemailer not working with Zoho

      Hi All, I'm having issues with Zoho working with Nodemailer. It works as expected when using gmail as the service. Below is the code I get when using zoho. Error sending email: Error: connect ECONNREFUSED 127.0.0.1:587 at TCPConnectWrap.afterConnect [as

    • desktop app for TODO

      Is there a desktop app for Zoho TODO?

    • 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 just

    • Where are Kanban swimlanes

      So i've been playing with Zoho Projects Kanban view a bit more. It appears that task lists are being used as the Kanban columns, which makes sense from the implementation point of view but not the logical one.  Kanban columns are statuses that a task can flow through, while a task list has been a logical way to organize related tasks and relate them to a mislestone. In other words a task in a particular task can go through several stages while remaining in the same task list. After doing some research

    • Tip 19: How to display images in Pages using ZML snippets

      Hi folks, We're back with another tip on how to use Zoho Markup Language (ZML) to create interactive pages in Zoho Creator. You can use ZML snippets to add various kinds of components to your pages and structure them in meaningful ways. That's not all, though—using ZML you can ensure your application is automatically compatible with all kinds of devices without any inconsistencies. We often get questions from users about how to invoke Deluge scripts within ZML code. Here's a simple use case for adding

    • Can zoho swign format block text spacing automatically when prefilled from zoho crm?

      I'm sending zoho sign template from zoho crm, so that zoho crm pre-populates most fields. I have existing pdf documents that i am having signed. I have no ability to change the pdf documents, they are standardized government forms. The problem I am facing

    • Zoho Inventory / Finance Suite - Add feature to prevent duplicate values in Item Unit field

      I've noticed that a client has 2 values the same in the Unit field on edit/create Items. This surprised me as why would you have 2 units with the same name. Please consider adding a feature which prevents this as it seems to serve no purpose.

    • Reference lookup field values in Client script

      hello all, I'm using a "ZDK.Apps.CRM.Products.searchByCriteria" function call, which is returning the matching records correctly; however, one of the fields is a lookup field which I need the associated data. I believe there is a way to get this data

    • 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

    • Every time an event is updated, all participants receive an update email. How can I deactivate this?

      Every time an event is updated in Zoho CRM (e.g. change description, link to Lead) every participant of this meeting gets an update email. Another customer noticed this problem years ago in the Japanese community: https://help.zoho.com/portal/ja/community/topic/any-time-an-event-is-updated-on-zohocrm-calendar-it-sends-multiple-invites-to-the-participants-how-do-i-stop-that-from-happening

    • How can I filter a field integration?

      Hi,  I have a field integration from CRM "Products" in a form, and I have three product Categories in CRM. I only need to see Products of a category. Thanks for you answers.

    • Next Page