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

    • Work Order Creation Issue

      Dear Team, I would like to inquire about the daily limit for Work Order creation in Zoho FSM. Yesterday (02/05/2025) at around 6:30 PM GST, I attempted to create a Work Order, but I have been unable to do so since then. Please find the attached image

    • Accessing shared mailboxes through Trident (Windows)

      Hi, I have a created a couple of shared mailboxes. The mailboxes are showing up on the browser based Zoho workplace, but I cannot seem to figure out how to access my shared inboxes through Trident (Windows). Am I missing something or is this feature not

    • URGENT: ChatGPT Extension Failing With “gpt-3 Access Error” (Priority Support)

      Appreciate support reviewing this urgently. I am a Priority Support member and need immediate clarification on a recurring issue involving the ChatGPT extensions inside Zoho Desk. Both extensions — including the version created and published by Zoho —

    • Zoho Desk iOS update: Custom buttons, follow/ unfollow option on tickets

      Hello everyone! In the most recent Zoho Desk iOS app update, we have brought in support to access the custom buttons configured on web app(desk.zoho.com). Using custom buttons you can seamlessly execute predefined actions directly from their mobile devices,

    • Zoho pdf suit

      Pl. design products with following feature: 1. Please add all features given in Ilovepdf website to work on pdf files. It is mandatory to use pdf in court work. 2. Courts have prescribed New Times Roman, pl. add this font as well 3. Indexing, signature

    • Zoho Not Working

      Today Zoho not wokring

    • Dynamically autofill fields with URL parameters

      I have a zoho form embedded in my organization's WP website. Our users find their account with a search tool, and then can select to open this page with the embedded form. The URL of the page holds the parameter that I need, but I cannot figure out how

    • User Automation: User based workflow rules & webhooks

      User management is an undeniable part of project management and requires adequate monitoring. As teams grow and projects multiply, manual coordination for updating users & permissions becomes difficult and can give way to errors. User automation in Zoho

    • Integrate Projects for Desk KB article release tasks

      Could you please look into the possibility of integrating project tasks for Zoho Desk article release processes? We are looking for an internal integration between Zoho Projects and Zoho Desk's KB article drafting, reviewing and releasing tasks. We could

    • Issue in Annual Leave

      We created a policy to credit 21 days at the Start of the Year An employee has taken 16 days of leaves thought the year, so we expect to see 5 Leaves remaining right? But Zoho People is Showing 12 Days of Leave Balance Available If we check the Leave

    • Use the searchBy parameter to find user by email address

      I'm trying to find a user is Zoho Desk via the Api. In the documentation I see that there is the possibility to add a searchBy parameter in the request. But I can't find how the search values should be formatted. I've tried multiple things and get either

    • Zoho CRM Community Digest - September 2025 | Part 2

      Hello Everyone! Mid-September vibes: fresh tips, smart hacks, and practical Zoho CRM updates all in one place. Let’s dive in. Product Updates: The All-New Address Field! The new Address field type makes it easier to capture complete addresses in one structured

    • Zoho Vault API: Create new Secrets

      Hello, I attempt to Post Secrets to the vault, since the encrypted entries are almost impossible to decrypt, since there is no documentation on how to decrypt them. Like with the lack of documentation on how to descrypt, there are missing information regarding on how to create new secrets/post secrets. Source: https://www.zoho.com/vault/api/#create-a-new-secret When I try to send JSON Informationen as a POST-Request I only receive the error message: {     "operation": {         "result": {             "error_code": "",

    • CRM and Finance Tab - Add Invoice "Subject " Column

      When On a contact in CRM, and you click the Zoho Finace tab, how can I put in the invoice subject line? Or even a custom field for this.  We need to see what that invoice is for, without opening it.   If we have tons of invoices we need a way to quick

    • Collections Management: #4 Before, During & After Payment Processing

      "Mark, I think the payment link isn't working. Can you send it again?" Staring at a message, Mark got on his phone. This was the third time the same customer had asked him that week. A few minutes later, another message came, "Hey, the invoice total seems

    • Account name not populating when importing contacts

      When importing a csv file to add contacts the account name is blank? Every other filed gets mapped and imported correctly, i.e contact name, phone number. However not the account name which I have mapped to "company" field in my csv file

    • Suggestion to improve zoho writer

      I am using your product, I believe it is very useful, however, i was writing a note and I needed to draw an arrow in different angles to explain a point and I couldn't. it would be helpful, to add draw functions to the zoho writer. thanks

    • webhook basic authentication

      II want to use a webhook to send out a SMS. Unfortunately Twilio does not use an authToken but basic authentication. I created the webhook as POST and get this url: https://{username}:{password}@api.twilio.com/2010-04-01/Accounts/{account}/Messages?body=<BODY>&to=+155555555&from=+1555555555

    • Managing functions

      Can someone let me know if there are any plans to improve the features for managing functions in CRM? I have lots of functions and finding them is hard. The search only works on the function name and the filter only works on function type. I have created

    • 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

    • Custom function return type

      Hi, How do I create a custom deluge function in Zoho CRM that returns a string? e.g. Setup->Workflow->Custom Functions->Configure->Write own During create or edit of the function I don't see a way to change the default 'void' to anything else. Adding

    • Issue with Hour Calculation in Zoho People Attendance Module

      I have noticed an issue in the attendance regularization feature of Zoho People. When trying to regularize past dates, the total working hours are not calculated correctly. For example, if I enter a check-in and check-out time for a previous day, the

    • Free webinar alert on November 19 - Email driven strategies - Master personality based styles

      Hello Zoho Community! Want to make email management easier, smarter, and more you? We’ve got just the session for you! Join our interactive, game-based webinar to discover how Zoho Mail adapts to your personality and work style. Learn practical hacks,

    • Push Notification for New Bookings in Zoho Bookings App

      when a someone schedules an appointment through the booking page, is there any option to receive a push notification in the mobile app?

    • Automation in Zoho Sprints

      Hi. I have a Sprints board with the following statuses: ToDo, InProgress, CodeReview, Testing, Preprod, Live When a ticket is moved from e.g. Testing to Preprod, the following tags should be modified: remove 'tested OK' remove 'ready for Preprod' add

    • Export Purchase orders as Excel

      Is it possible to export purchase orders as excel rather than PDF? Our suppliers don't want orders made in PDF, they need it to be excel

    • Cliq iOS can't see shared screen

      Hello, I had this morning a video call with a colleague. She is using Cliq Desktop MacOS and wanted to share her screen with me. I'm on iPad. I noticed, while she shared her screen, I could only see her video, but not the shared screen... Does Cliq iOS is able to display shared screen, or is it somewhere else to be found ? Regards

    • Draft & Schedule Emails Directly in Bigin

      Greetings, I hope all of you are doing well. We're happy to announce a few recent enhancements we've made to email in Bigin. We'll go over each one in detail, but here's a quick overview: Previously, you couldn't draft or schedule emails in Bigin, but

    • Create CRM Deal from Books Quote and Auto Update Deal Stage

      I want to set up an automation where, whenever a Quote is created in Zoho Books, a Deal is automatically created in Zoho CRM with the Quote amount, customer details, and some custom fields from Zoho Books. Additionally, when the Sales Order is converted

    • Send email template "permission denied to access the api"

      Hello, Per the title, I'm trying to send a Zoho CRM Email template based on the advice given here: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/community/topic/specify-an-email-template-when-sending-emails-in-custom-functions (I'd prefer to send right from Deluge

    • Zia’s AI Assist now helps you write clearer notes — in seconds

      After helping recruiters craft job descriptions, emails, and assessments, Zia’s AI Assist is now stepping in to make note-taking effortless too. Whether you’re recording feedback after an interview or sharing quick updates with your team, you can now

    • Shortcut to fill a range of cells

      Good evening: I'm writing because I haven't been able to find a feature that allows you to select a range of cells, type in one of them, and then use a key combination to type in all of them. In Excel, the keyboard shortcut is Ctrl+Enter. I haven't found

    • Introducing Dark Mode / Light Mode : A New Look For Your CRM

      Hello Users, We are excited to announce a highly anticipated feature - the launch of Day, Night and Auto Mode implementation in Zoho CRM's NextGen user interface! This feature is designed to provide a visually appealing and comfortable experience for

    • Object required error

      Hi, I am getting an 'Object required' error on the line Call HideColumnsOutsideRange(ws, startOfWeek, endOfWeek) when I run the ShowCurrentWeek macro but not when I run the ShowCurrentMonth macro. Any ideas? Regards, GW Option Explicit Sub HideColumnsOutsideRange(ws

    • Zoho CRM - Rename "Estimates" in CRM Finance Suite Integration to "Quotes"

      I'm not sure if it's been 2 or 3 years now since Zoho Books renamed Estimates to Quotes. I still see "Estimates" in the Zoho CRM integration. Could this be added to Translation settings so that some customisation could be made on an account by account

    • Its 2022, can our customers log into CRM on their mobiles? Zoho Response: Maybe Later

      I am a long time Zoho CRM user. I have just started using the client portal feature. On the plus side I have found it very fast and very easy (for someone used to the CRM config) to set up a subset of module views that make a potentially extremely useful

    • 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

    • New Series Announcement - Ecommerce Marketing Tips

      Running an online business is more than just having a website. It’s about getting the right customers to discover you, trust you, and keep coming back. To support your growth journey, we’re launching a weekly Marketing Tips series right here on Zoho Commerce

    • Marketing Tip #7: Add a blog to your online store

      A blog is more than content. It’s a magnet for new customers. Sharing product guides, styling tips, or industry insights through blog posts builds trust and helps you rank higher on search engines. Try this today: Write one blog post answering a common

    • Kanban view on Zoho CRM mobile app!

      What is Kanban? The name doesn't sound English, right? Yes, Kanban is a Japanese word which means 'Card you can see'. As per the meaning, Kanban in CRM is a type of list view in which the records will be displayed in cards and categorized under the given

    • Next Page