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

    • Blocked due to VPN

      Hi My account outgoing mails and IMAP access have been blocked due to using a vpn being interpreted as suspicious logins. I’ve tried to mail support but not sure if this is also blocked. This is extremely frustrating as I’m using a vpn because I’m travelling

    • reset admin access.

      I am a user under the domain @lanutraceuticals.com. I do not have admin access. Kindly let me know the administrator contact or help me reset admin access.”

    • Unsubscripation booked domin

      Kindly Un subscription booked domain

    • How to change Super Admin

      Good Day, Can someone kindly guide me on how to change the super Administrator. I have tried many times but could not succeed.

    • Events disappearing in Calendar

      To reproduce the bug: 1.- Add a new event in Calendar 2.- Type any name for the Event 3.- Click "Create" 4.- The event appears 5.- Click on the event to open it 6.- Optional: Edit the event 7.- Click OK 8.- After two seconds, the event disappears Now, click on another day and then come back to the inserted event's day. The event appears.

    • Mail transfer to a contact with multiple accounts

      Hi, Since we can only associate one email for a Contact across Zoho, would it be a problem if we want to merge our mailbox in the future? For example, Mr. Jones is the main POC for 5 accounts, once we merge our mail where would the messages go-- is it

    • @mention not working in Mail

      Am I missing something? When trying to forward a message there is a hint you could do this also by "@mention" at the end of the message. When typing (for example) "@s.." there should appear addresses from my contacts, shouldn´t it? But nothing happens! So what can I do? Best regards and thanks for any help in advance! JH P.S.: Sorry for my bad English.

    • Enable Zia-Powered Deluge Assistance and AI Agent Without Mandatory OpenAI Integration

      Hi Zoho Creator Team, Hope you're doing well. We’d like to request a feature enhancement related to Zia's AI capabilities in Zoho Creator, particularly regarding Deluge Assistance and the AI Agent. Currently, as shown in your documentation (Generate Deluge

    • Zoho Sign community meetup series - India

      Hello everyone! Zoho Sign is a comprehensive digital signature application tailor-made for Indian businesses with unique features like Aadhaar eSign, eStamping, USB/PFX signing. We are now excited to announce our first meetup series for Zoho Sign in India,

    • Product Updates in Zoho Workplace applications | June 2025

      Hello Workplace Community, Let’s take a look at the new features and enhancements that went live across all Workplace applications this June. Zoho Mail Slideshow view for inline images in Notes View all your inline images added in a notes in a effortlessly

    • Assign multiple vendors to the same product

      Guys, My business often purchase the same product from several vendors (based on price and availability). Is it possible to assign more than one vendor to the same product? I saw this same question in this forum, from some time ago. Is this feature available or, at least, in Zoho's roadmap? If not, is there any trick to solve my problem? Without this feature, I simply cannot manage my company's inventory, limiting very much the use of Zoho CRM. Waiting for your reply. Leonardo Kuba Sao Paulo / Brazil

    • Is there as way to shut off the invitation when you set up a new user?

      Is there as way to shut off the invitation when you set up a new user?  I would like to get all my users in the system, my org structure set up and tested, etc, BEFORE I invite the users.  I did not see a way to shut of the automatic invitation email.  The only way to get around it is to set up the users with no Email ID.  However, when you do that - you get into the problem of not being able to update a user's Email ID (which makes NO sense whatsoever).  If I set up a user with an incorrect email

    • Manage Engine login issue

      App not available The app you're trying to access isn't yet available in the in data center region, where your account is present. To use ManageEngine, you can sign up for a new account in another data center region. Learn How Go to Zoho accounts Please

    • Zoho Creator - users "Name" Column

      Hi, When you add user to an application inside Zoho Creator, the system generate an account name for it. We don't have the  ability to change this name. According to Zoho creator Support (Case:11523656) : "The values displayed under 'Name' column of 'Users & permissions' section, is actually the respective account's username and not the actual name specified on the account. Usernames are system designated based on the account email address and cannot be modified from your end." We need to have the

    • Zoho Assist Unattended - devices disappearing

      Hello, I've recently introduced a new model of laptops into our environment (Lenovo Legion). We are experiencing an issue where only the latest installed agent - laptop is visible in Assist. This issue does not appear with our Dell inventory. Example:

    • Searchable email tab in Bigin

      Hi team, Could I please request a feature update, to be able to search emails within the email tab of Bigin. We have large correspondence with some agents and it would be very helpful if we are able to search from this section:

    • The silent force behind great customer service

      Customer service is known to be a demanding role. Customer service agents are expected to bring empathy, clarity, and human connection to every voice call, chat, and remote session, even if the situation requires some time for customers facing stressful,

    • New From Email in Zoho Desk

      Dear ZohoSupport, We are trying to establish a new From Address in Zoho Desk but we are facing difficulties. When trying to use the smtp.office365.com SMTP Server, after clicking the Save and Verify button, the Authentication Failed error pops up although,

    • Option in pipeline deal to select which hotel or branch or store if client has more than one local store

      Hi, I would like to know if there is an option in the deal pipeline to select which hotel, branch, or store a deal is related to—if the company has more than one location. For example, I have a client that owns several hotels under the same company, and

    • Aggregate SalesIQ Knowledge Base Interactions into Zoho Desk Knowledge Base Dashboard

      Hello Zoho Desk Team, We hope you're doing well. We’d like to request a feature enhancement related to the Zoho Desk Knowledge Base dashboard and its integration with Zoho SalesIQ. 🎯 Current Limitation When customers interact with knowledge base articles

    • Add Prebuilt "Partner Finder" Template with Native Zoho CRM Integration in Zoho Sites To: Zoho Sites Product Team

      Hi Zoho Team, We hope you're doing well. We would like to request a prebuilt "Partner Finder" template for Zoho Sites, modeled after your excellent implementation here: 🔗 https://www.zoho.com/partners/find-partner-results.html ✅ Use Case: Our organization

    • Admin Visibility and Control Over Group Chats in Zoho Cliq

      Hello Zoho Cliq Team, We hope you're doing well. While we appreciate the current capabilities in Zoho Cliq — including the ability to restrict who can create group chats and configure user permissions — we would like to request several enhancements to

    • Update Regarding Zoho Finance Applications' Domains For API Users

      Hi users, Until now, both the Zoho Finance apps and their APIs shared a common domain. We've recently introduced separate domains for APIs. You can now start using the new domains for API calls. The old domains will not work for API users starting April

    • Ability for Agents to Initiate Voice Calls With Site Visitors Without Active Chat Session

      Dear Zoho SalesIQ Team, Greetings, We would like to request a feature enhancement related to the voice call functionality in Zoho SalesIQ. Current Limitation: At the moment, voice calls can only be initiated by agents after a chat session has been started

    • Add new Card

      How do you add a new credit card to a contact with Zoho API as can be done on web.  I am not able to find way to do this with Books API, CRM API or Subscriptions API.  This is an issue for our company as we do migration from a different system.  I can add card to a subscription through Subscriptions API, but some of our customers may not have a subscription, but only invoices set up in Zoho Books.  Is there any way in Zoho API to add new credit card to contact/customer?

    • Benchmark for Using Mail Merge in Service Order Scopes

      Hello, I was wondering if Zoho CRM has a benchmark or best practices for utilizing Mail Merge in service order scopes. Specifically, I'm looking for guidance on how to effectively integrate this feature for creating and managing service orders, especially

    • This user is not allowed to add in Zoho. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details

      Hello, Just signed up to ZOHO on a friend's recommendation. Got the TXT part (verified my domain), but whenever I try to add ANY user, I get the error: This user is not allowed to add in Zoho. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details I have emailed as well and writing here as well because when I searched, I saw many people faced the same issue and instead of email, they got a faster response here. My domain is: raisingreaderspk . com Hope this can be resolved.  Thank you

    • Why don't we have better integration with Mercado Pago or Pagseguro?

      Currently, the integration between Zoho Commerce and Mercado Pago for Brazil is very poor... Since it is old, it does not include the main payment method in Brazil today, which is PIX. Is there a date for this to finally be launched? There are numerous

    • two columns layout

      it's actually frustrating to not have this feature, I actually had to convince my employer to subscribe to zoho forms and integrate it with zoho crm, but because of this feature not beeing provided, our forms looks unnecessarly long and hideous. 

    • Sync Zoho Desk Help Center Category Icons to SalesIQ Articles

      Dear Zoho SalesIQ Team, Greetings, We are using the integration between Zoho SalesIQ and Zoho Desk to sync articles from our Zoho Desk Knowledge Base into SalesIQ. While this integration works well for syncing article content, we’ve noticed a visual inconsistency:

    • Company Name not pre-populating when using Quick Create: Contact

      Hi Devs, This has bugged me for a long time, and it's a simple UX design change to solve it. Problem: Users creating Contacts not linked to Companies/Accounts Cause: When a user creates an Opportunity where after browsing the Contacts they realise they

    • Spell Checker in Zoho desk

      Is there a way to set always check spelling before sending? Outlook does this and it is a handy tool to avoid typos

    • Enable Sync of SalesIQ Article Interactions to Zoho Analytics for Unified Knowledge Base Reporting

      Dear Zoho SalesIQ and Zoho Analytics Teams, Greetings, We’d like to formally request an enhancement to enable SalesIQ article interaction data to be synced with Zoho Analytics, so that we can obtain a unified view of our knowledge base performance metrics

    • How to enter membership share, sold or reimburse

      Hello, First, I am just begining taking care of the accounting of my organisation, and new also to Books. In Books, our accounting plan has an account #3900 - Share capital, that cumulates the share our member pay. How do I write a sale or a reimbursement

    • Ability for me to take the issued PDF certification on successful completion of a course then push to zoho sign in order that it is digitally certified

      How can I take the issued PDF certification on successful completion of a Zoho Learn course then trigger a workflow to push to Zoho Sign in order that it is digitally certified, hosted on the blockchain and then push to Zoho Workdrive to be hosted off

    • Candidates rejection process

      Is there a way to get ZOHORecruit to automatically send out an email to candidates that are rejected?

    • Multi file upload

      Hi, I just wonder if one could upload multiple files in one shot, say between one and three files, without adding multiple File Upload fields? Thanks, Alalbany

    • Passing the image/file uploaded in form to openai api

      I'm trying to use the OpenAI's new vision feature where we can send image through Api. What I want is the user to upload an image in the form and send this image to OpenAI. But I can't access this image properly in deluge script. There are also some constraints

    • Calendar Year View?

      Is there a way I can view the calendar in year view? Maybe create a page with a view like this?

    • ABN Amro

      Hi, We are trying to add Abn AMRO as a bank in Zoho Books. However we get the following error: Type of Error: User Action Required Description: The request cannot be completed because the site is no longer supported for data updates. Possible workaround: Please deactivate or remove the account. Suggested Action: The site will no longer be supported by Zoho Books and should be removed. Does that mean it's no longer supported? Thanks!

    • Next Page