Billing Management: #4 Negate Risk Free with Advances
In the last post, we explored how unbilled charges accumulate before being invoiced. But what happens when businesses need money before service begins?
Picture this: A construction company takes on a $500,000 commercial building project expected to last 12 months. The first step is sending the client a detailed quote. Once accepted, the builder requires a 20% advance before breaking ground. This advance payment doesn't represent complete work; it secures raw materials, labour, and permits to get the project moving. The client feels reassured that the project will start on schedule, while the builder gains the cash flow needed to set everything in motion.
This is the essence of advance billing. Unlike unbilled charges raised after usage or delivery, advance billing ensures businesses have funds available before or during service execution, reducing the risk and ensuring smooth operations.
This post will explore the nuances of advance billing and the best way to handle it.
Types of Advances
Across industries, businesses collect advances in different ways depending on their needs: Advance Invoices, Security Deposits or Retainers, Prepaid Subscriptions, Down Payments, Reservation or Booking Advances, and so on. Though these advances carry different names and practices, they all represent the same principle: to secure funds upfront before service fulfilment.
When do businesses need/use Advance Billing?
Businesses rely on advance billing in two situations:
Before a Project or Subscription Begins- Customers agree to pay in advance, securing their commitment and giving the business working capital.
Ahead of a Billing Cycle- Customers make payment before the cycle starts, allowing businesses to run smoothly with guaranteed funds.
Let's look at some real-time use cases where Advances becomes handy.
A corporate client plans a $50,000 retreat at a luxury resort six months in advance. To confirm the booking, reserve rooms, and coordinate vendors, the resort requires a 20% upfront payment. Without this, the business would risk blocking dates without certainty of the client's commitment. By collecting advance payment, the resort secures the funds and the assurance that the event will occur.
A consulting firm signs a $120,000 strategic engagement with a client. Before the project begins, the firm must dedicate senior consultants, purchase specialized research reports, and reshuffle schedules. Covering these costs and securing the client's commitment requires a 30% payment before the project process. This advance ensures the consulting team can jump into the work with resources ready rather than worrying about delayed payments or last-minute cancellations.
A SaaS platform charges $2000 per month for its enterprise plan. Instead of paying month by month, a client chooses to prepay the entire year for $24,000. This advance means guaranteed revenue and reduces churn risk for the SaaS provider. For the client, it simplifies budgeting and often comes with a cost benefit or a discount. The advance serves as a year-long commitment on both sides.
An education company launches a six-month course at $500 per month. Before the end of the month, the training institute sends a payment link to ensure that students pay ahead of the renewal cycle. This advance confirms students' continuity and allows the institute to plan the resources properly.
Beyond the four different businesses, advances or credits are vital in Construction and infrastructure, Professional services, Education and training, Healthcare, Travel agencies, and many more.
The first and second scenarios are one-time deliverable tasks: a one-time booking and a consulting project. They require an advance invoice to collect payment, which will be adjusted against the total amount. This invoice should not necessarily be part of the usual invoice, as it will be applied against the total when the service is delivered.
When you look at the other two scenarios, they are subscription-based and typically billed either ahead of the billing cycle or as an advance while the subscription is in progress.
Bail out with Zoho Billing
Across these cases, businesses face two recurring needs:
Sometimes advances must be invoiced upfront- for cases like consulting retainers or SaaS prepayments.
Sometimes, advances are commitment payments held as credits, such as event deposits, manufacturing down payments, or hospitality booking advances.
Zoho Billing's Advance Billing & Retainers are carefully built to handle:
- Retainer Invoice for One-time & Projects: Businesses can raise invoices for upfront retainers, record the payment, and apply it to the final bill.
- Advance Invoices: Businesses can raise a valid taxable invoice for upfront payment and track it until adjusted.
- Advance Payment Request: Businesses can collect money securely through a payment link as credits and apply it later to the final bill.
Zoho Billing stands out because retainers can be applied to an invoice anytime it is created. On the other hand, in a subscription-based ecosystem, advanced billing does not disrupt the regular billing cycle. Invoices are still raised on schedule, monthly, quarterly, or annually.
The difference lies in how payments are applied. Advances are automatically adjusted against invoices, ensuring that businesses always receive funds in advance while customers continue to receive their regular bills accordingly.
Adopting advanced billing allows businesses to create financial stability and secure customer commitment early on. This naturally sets the stage for usage-based billing, where charges depend on actual consumption. Unbilled charges, advance billing, and usage billing complete the billing spectrum for modern revenue management using Zoho Billing.
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
Separate Items & Services
Hi, please separate items and services into different categories. Thank youLog a call: Call Duration for Inbound is mandatory but inbound is optional
Hi Team Can you advise on why the call duration for the inbound call type is a mandatory field? We have a use case where we are manually logging a call but do not use the call duration field. The field does not have the option to make it non mandatoryZoho Sign 2025–2026: What's new and what's next
Hello! Every year at Zoho Sign, we work hard to make document signing and agreement execution easy for all users. This year we sat down with our head of product, Mr. Subramanian Thayumanasamy, to discuss what we delivered in 2025 and our goals for 2026.New Account, Setting up Domain Question
Hello, I recently set up a new account with a custom domain. But after paying and setting up my account, it says OpenSRS actually owns the domain, and I have to sign up with them to host my site. But OpenSRS wants to charge me $95, which is ridiculous.【開催報告】東京 Zoho ユーザー交流会 NEXUS vol.1 ～ データドリブン経営・少人数組織のCRM活用・AIエージェントの最前線 ～
ユーザーの皆さん、こんにちは。 コミュニティグループの中野です。 2026年3月27日（金）、東京・新橋にて「東京 Zoho ユーザー交流会 NEXUS vol.1」が開催されました。 今回は「マーケティング領域のZoho 活用法 × AI」をテーマに、ユーザーさん2名による事例セッション、Zoho 社員によるAIセッションなどを実施しました。 ご参加くださったユーザーの皆さま、ありがとうございました！ この投稿では、当日のセッションの様子や使用した資料を紹介しています。残念ながら当日お越しいただけなかった方も、ぜひチェックしてみてください。Monthly Webinar : Getting Started with Zoho LandingPage
Our monthly Getting Started with Zoho LandingPage webinar is back! If you're building your first page and want a little guidance, this is where to start. Learn how landing pages fit into your strategy, generate leads, and improve conversions. Here’s whatMass emails - Allow preview of which emails will receive the email based on the criteria
Feature request. Please allow us to view and confirm the exact recipients of the mass emails based on the criteria we've chosen before sending. It can be quite sensitive if you send the mass email to some wrong accounts accidently, so it would be greatLimitation in Dynamic Constant Sum Based on Previous Question Selections in Zoho Survey
Zoho Survey supports the Constant Sum question type, allowing respondents to distribute a fixed total (such as 100) across a set of options. However, it does not support dynamically populating these options based on selections made in a previous question.SAP Business One(B1) integration is now live in Zoho Flow
We’re excited to share that SAP Business One (B1) is now available in Zoho Flow! This means you can now build workflows that connect SAP B1 with other apps and automate routine processes without relying on custom code. Note: SAP Business One integrationsync two zoho crm
Hello everyone. Is it possible to sync 2 zoho crm? what would be the easiest way? I am thinking of Flow. I have a Custom Module that I would like to share with my client. We both use zoho crm. Regards.Showing the map along with mileage expense
When you use the GPS to track mileage, it shows you the map of the actual path travelled. It would be very useful and practical to save that map with the mileage expense, so that when the report is created, it provides a map of each mileage expense associatedImport MSG to Yandex Mail Account | Fast & Reliable Solution
If you are facing problem to import MSG files to Yandex Mail account can be challenging if done manually, especially when handling multiple files. A reliable solution is using the MacGater Mac MSG Converter, which simplifies the entire process with accuracyCopy all reports in a folder
I currently have a database that I need to create multiple charts filtered by market. All of the charts are identical, I just change to of the filters and then I have the next market's set of charts. The only way I've been able to copy charts (reports)OpenURL working Intermittently
Never had this issue before, everything was working fine up to a few days ago. We have a buttons on reports to open forms with pre-filled fields. Now, there are instances where it will throw and error and gives no feedback. What is really strange is notZoho Recruit mailserver get blocked by Microsoft!
Hi, We have experienced this issue twice now, where Zoho Recruit outbound IP addresses are being blocked by Microsoft. We are confident that Microsoft is the blocking party, as all outbound emails to candidates with @hotmail.com, @live.com, and @outlook.comCalculate Hours Minutes Sec in Zoho Creator Using Deluge
check_In = "8-Aug-2023 10:00:00".toDateTime().toLong(); checkout = "8-Aug-2023 18:00:00".toDateTime().toLong(); //difference = start.timeBetween(end); check_In = "8-Aug-2023 17:56:50".toDateTime().toLong(); checkout = "8-Aug-2023 18:00:00".toDateTime().toLong();Build Smarter Apps with AI in Zoho Creator
Build Smarter Apps with AI in Zoho Creator This is truly the era of AI, and businesses that adapt now will lead tomorrow. Zoho is already moving ahead in this direction, continuously evolving its platform with powerful AI capabilities. With Zoho Creator,Zia Dashboard Insights : turn your dashboard into decisions
When you look at a chart or KPI in a dashboard, you would possibly see something like: Revenue: $2.4M ↓ 18% vs last month. It can be a positive growth or a negative one, or a dip in revenue, a spike in deals, a slowdown in renewals—all you usually seeTickets without registration
Hi, would it be possible to give customers the opportunity to be able to read their tickets without registration?Zoho Desk Answer Bot vs. Zia Agents – Knowledge Base & Ticket Access
Hi everyone, I’m currently evaluating AI options in Zoho Desk and ran into some limitations with the Answer Bot: Answer Bot limitations Only uses Knowledge Base articles No access to tickets Limited control over sources: Either one Help Center or allComo estruturar automações eficientes no Zoho Creator
Como estruturar automações eficientes no Zoho Creator Introdução No contexto de aplicações empresariais, automação não é apenas uma conveniência, é um fator crítico para ganho de produtividade, redução de erros e escalabilidade operacional. O Zoho CreatorChanging the status of a work-order
Is there a way to change the status of a work-order?Online Payment Fees
We don't take many online credit card payments so the merchant service provider (PayPal) charges us the 2.9% fee for processing the amount. I would like the ability for the fee to be automatically added to the total amount for "ease of payment". We'dWhat is a realistic turnaround time for account review for ZeptoMail?
On signing up it said 2-3 business days. I am on business-day 6 and have had zero contact of any kind. No follow-up questions, no approval or decline. Attempts to "leave a message" or use the "Contact Us" form have just vanished without a trace. It stillZia Agents in Zoho CRM: a better way to set up digital employees
Hello everyone, If you've been using Zia Agents in Zoho CRM, so far using Connections was the only deployment method you're familiar with. You create an agent in Zia Agents (define its objective, write instructions, use tools, add knowledge base) andBank Feeds
Since Friday my bank feeds wont work. I have refreshed feeds, deactivate and reactivate and nothing is workingLogged out
Hi, just been working on a sheet when a pop up box appeared telling me I'm going to be logged out in x number of seconds and if I reload I may lose any edits, or words to that effect. It did indeed log me out and I did indeed lose my last edits. Any ideaZoho API
I have little experience with API. I'm trying to get a Custom API working with Zoho creator. I have created a Custom API and created an Endpoint URL, but i get a 9400 error code "The provided HTTP method is not valid for this custom API". Based off the#157127950
Where did my initial question go?Zoho writer unable to merge documents to PDF with basic fonts in Hebrew or fonts from my computer
I created several forms that will be merged into PDF files through Zoho Writer and I am unable to receive the PDF in the basic fonts of the Hebrew language or in the fonts I have on my computer. The writer exports to PDF an exchange font that looks veryHow I Implemented Subscription-Based Access Control and Expiry Handling in Zoho Creator
I recently worked on a use case where users come into the application to request a service, but they should only be able to continue the process after completing a subscription. The challenge was not just controlling access, but also making sure thatZoho Forms API
Is there any way to get all form entry list using API? Looking forward to hear from youZoho Projects : Task should auto-update to 'In Progress' if timer started
Namaskaram. Right now, if a Task's timer is started, the Task stays in 'Not Started' status. One has to manually update it to 'In Progress'. From a #uxdesign standpoint, it is an unnecessarily two step process to start working on a task. It would be better that, if I start the timer on a task, it should automatically change to 'In Progress' status. Crafted with ❤️ Zoho Gurus | Zoho One Practice Team @ CubeYogi Zoho Authorised Partner | 7+ Yrs | 200+ Projects | 100+ CustomersLaatste facturen en betalingen niet zichtbaar in mijn account
Wij gebruiken ZOHO invoice al jaren, maar sinds afgelopen week is mijn laatst verzonden factuur niet zichtbaar in mijn account, en tevens de laatst betaalde facturen zie ik niet. Hoe kan dit? Ik heb de pagina al diverse keren gerefreshed.Undelivered Mail uncategorized-bounce errors when sending invoices
Recently we have been getting Undelivered Mail bounce notification when sending invoices. Reason: uncategorized-bounce Some go through no problem some bounce back. We recently sent 10 invoices, 6 received bounce notifications. After reaching out to theCan I import MSG files into Microsoft 365 without Outlook?
Yes, absolutely. You do not need Outlook installed to import MSG files into Microsoft 365. Aryson MSG file Converter is a dedicated tool that eliminates the Outlook dependency entirely, making the migration process simple and efficient for all users.Feature Request - A Way To Search Item Groups
Hi Inventory Team, I can't find any way to filter or search by fields of Item Groups. It would be great to see that functionality added. I have a use case where a single product might come from 5 or more suppliers and each supplier's item is an Item inZoho Books/Inventory - Update Marketplace Sales Order via API
Hi everyone, Does anyone know if there is a way to update Sales Orders created from a marketplace intigration (Shopify in this case) via API? I'm trying to cover a scenario where an order is changed on the Shopify end and the changes must be reflectedTicket id issues
When I reply a ticket from desktop, it doesn't have ticket id in the subject and it's great. When I reply a ticket from Zoho desk mobile, Zoho adds ticket id in the subject and I don't want that. Please help in this matter.Advanced email configuration - agent's name vs. department name
We currently have all four Advanced Configuration options turned ON at the Global-level (Channels > Email > Advanced Configuration) - including the "Show Agent name in Ticket replies and outgoing emails" option. We also had that same option turned ONNext Page