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

    • Is there a way to link an item to a liability account?

      I collect customer deposits for certain services and hold them in a liability account. However, Zoho Books doesn't let you create an item and assign it to a liability account so how do I create an invoice with an item that records it as a deposit into

    • Select a balance sheet account when creating an invoice

      Hi, it would be very helpfull to be able to select a balance sheet account when invoicing clients. We bill 30% of the job at signing and we would like to add to deferred revenues.  I have to create a transit revenue account and then tranfer to the right

    • How to work out commission in zoho commerce based on coupons

      HI There Is there any way to produce report based on coupon name in zoho commerce We need to pay commission to various channels who are helping us to increase the online sales so we have number dedicated coupons assigned to the above mentioned channels

    • Request for Subform Styling Feature in Zoho CRM Canvas

      Dear Zoho CRM Team, We have observed that in the Zoho CRM Canvas view, it is currently not possible to set presets or manage the styles of subform fields. Additionally, the ability to edit subform data directly within the Canvas view appears to be limited

    • How to Delete Old Tasks/Streams Assigned by Deactivated Users? 'Operation Not Permitted' Error

      Hello, I’m using Zoho Mail and have several old tasks assigned to me in Tasks and Streams. These tasks were created by former employees whose accounts are now deactivated. When I try to delete these tasks, I get an "Operation Not Permitted" error. These

    • Zoho Books - Sales Person Contact Details on Quotes

      Hi Zoho Books Team, I've had various clients ask me about showing the phone number and email of the sales person on Quotes to help eliminate any barriers to closing sales. When I tell them that it is not possible they are always surprised and say something

    • Related products category instead recommended products.

      Hi there, It is possible to show related products of the same category (as it works in the rest of the ecommerce) instead of showing recommended products.

    • Uploading PDF files

      How do I upload a PDF file to my ZOHO site?

    • How to send invoices to 2 emails?

      Hi! We are sending invoices to the "Customer email" field that is defined Zoho Books and is obtained/synced from a custom email field in Zoho CRM. But in some clientes, the invoices have to be sent to 2 emails and we are wondering how this could be accomplished.

    • It returns 1 record

      Var1= Tools_Request[Liability_Receipt == input.Liability_No]; for each rec in Var1.Tool_Request_Description { Var2= (ET_Inventory[SKU == rec.Tools_SKU].SKU).getAll(); } info call for Var2 It only fetch 1 record On record file

    • Narrative 5: The essential role of SLAs

      Behind the scenes of a successful ticketing system - BTS Series Narrative 5: The essential role of SLAs Every organization that interacts with customers establishes a timeframe within which agents should respond to queries as part of a service level agreement

    • Nextdoor Integration

      Does Zoho social work with Nextdoor? www.nextdoor.com? Are there any plans for an integration?

    • My email sending has beed blocked due to high bounce rate. NEED HELP

      User ID: 886739811 Dear Zoho Team, I hope this message finds you well. My account (User ID: 886739811) was blocked from sending emails last week due to an unusually high bounce rate. This spike was caused by a bot attack on our platform, which led to

    • Can Zoho CRM Emails be used in Zoho Analytics in any capacity?

      We're wanting to display details about Lead Activity in regular reports through Zoho Analytics but we're having difficulty integrating Emails at all. We'd like to be able to note when an email is received and when it is sent somewhere other than just

    • IF Statement in Zoho CRM Formula Field

      Hi, I am attempting to write a formula field that will give me one result if one statement AND another statement are true, then a different value if the first statement AND a different statement are true, else 0. Stated differently: if account = destination

    • Scheduled Maintenances

      Hi, Why is adding scheduled maintenance so arduous. It should be a simple process and take very little time for basically a recurring job. Creating 3 records with similar data seems crazy to me. Is there a easy way to do this? I have to create hundreds

    • Subform Fields for Form Rules & Subform Fields as a Condition with Form Fields as the Action

      Hi, The Subform in Field Rules is great, but it is missing completley from Form Rules and it lacks being able to have Subform Fields in the Condition while having Form Fields in the Action, it works the other way around. Thanks Dan

    • Power of Automation :: Implementing Deadline-Based Task Scoring with Custom Fields

      Hello Everyone, A custom function is a software code that can be used to automate a process and this allows you to automate a notification, call a webhook, or perform logic immediately after a workflow rule is triggered. This feature helps to automate

    • Zoho Forms - Subform Integration with Zoho CRM?

      I created a form in Zoho Forms that includes a sub-form for information that I want to integrate with the CONTACTS module. I am unable to find a way integrate/map the fields in the sub-form with the Contacts module in Zoho CRM. Is there a way to do this

    • Filter by user in Pivot Chart

      I have a Pivot chart where the data should be filtered by user. The user enters the system and should see only the data that correspond to it. Can anyone help me?

    • Is ZeptoMail Still Supported? No Response to API Query in Over a Week

      Is ZeptoMail Still Supported? No Response to API Query in Over a Week I’m posting here to express my growing frustration and concern over the lack of professionalism I’ve experienced with Zoho's ZeptoMail support. On July 21st, I received a response asking

    • Add ID to the recycling bin page

      Feature request to add the ID to the recycling bin page. This would be helpful for reference when trying to recover things. This is the long zoho ID for each item. - ticket ID - contact ID - account ID - etc.

    • Remove System Defined Ticket Layout

      Hi ZohoDesk, I have created a new Ticket Layout and made it the default and I want to remove the original default one so there is only one to choose from. It won't allow me to do this, or go into the options and take the tick out of the show in Help Center.

    • ZOHOLICS Japan 2025 開催のお知らせ

      ユーザーの皆さま こんにちは、Zoho コミュニティチームの中野です。 年に一度の自社最大イベント、「ZOHOLICS Japan 2025」（ゾーホリクス）の開催が決定しましたので、こちらでお知らせします。 今年の開催回は、特別ゲストやZoho のエキスパートが、 最新のDX事情や皆さまのビジネスプロセス改善、業績アップのヒントとなる情報をお届けします。 Zoho コミュニティからは、Zoho Championの西尾さん（@西尾　真言）、 コミュニティアンバサダープログラム（ZCAP）メンバーの箕輪さんにご登壇いただき、

    • Unable to connect Zoho Learn to other Zoho Tools

      Hello Zoho, Can you work on Zoho Learn. I am unable to connect it with other Zoho tools like Zoho people or even Zoho SalesiQ. This is needed, especially if I am connect Ai to my systems. Please work on connecting your applications better, especially

    • Chatbot for Urdu language

      Hello, I have successfully set up Zoho Desk and integrated it with Moodle using ASAP. I am now looking for a chatbot that supports the Urdu language to enhance student support. My goal is to enable the chatbot within ASAP so that students can ask questions,

    • Multi Level Hierarchical Query

      Hi guys I have a situation where i am trying to extract the descendants of a particular entry. So long story short, i have the Account table with Agency (A) id = 1, and that has child Agency (B) id = 2. This child agency (B) has a child agency (C) id

    • AI-Powered Grouping and Tagging of Related Issues and Tasks in Zoho Projects

      Dear Zoho Projects Team, Greetings, We would like to suggest a feature that would greatly enhance how we manage feature requests and bug reports submitted through the Zoho Desk to Zoho Projects integration. Use Case: Our support agents handle customer

    • How to change side bar from dark mode to light mode?

      The side bar on the left side in workdrive doesn't appear to have a way to fix it from dark mode - is there a way to? I can't read in dark mode without excessive headaches, and I would really like to be able to see while I have workdrive open, as workdrive

    • How to see history on Bulk send of Customer Statements

      Hi, We bulk send statements to customers every month via Books - every month we have customers emailing requesting a statement. Currently I have no visibility on if a customer was sent the statement or not and if our process is being followed or overlooked

    • 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 add buttons elements in the Header

      I am trying to add CTA (Call to Action) buttons in the right side of the main navigation menu. This is a common practice for sites but I can't seem to figure this out for Zoho Sites. Is there a custom workflow that could be shared with me? 

    • Automatic back up - Zoho Recruit, books, people,crm, analytics

      Hello, Has anyone found a good way of automatically backing up Zoho (CRM, expense, recruit, people, books, analytics).? I have found with tool that does, but it doesn't include recruit or analytics It's a bit annoying and time consuming having to go to

    • delete departments on zoho desk

      I created test departments on zoho desk. how can i delete them now?

    • Validation, checking if a file has been attached to the ticket

      A very useful option would be to allow checking, under specific conditions, whether the user has attached a file to the application, e.g., a bug report. Some applications require files to be attached, and the system could enforce this after the system

    • AI & Zoho Recruit

      Hello, I guess we all are using AI in our personal and professional lives. Now, let's imagine. Recruitment is just a succession of stages and steps. For which step would you like to see AI implemented into Zoho Recruit ? I'll start : - Automatic translation

    • Zoho Flow not handling Boolean properly

      Hi, I have a checkbox in one system that I'm trying to sync with a checkbox in Zoho CRM. The value from the source system comes in as blank (unticked) or 1 (ticked). I've written the following custom function to convert the output to either boolean false

    • Quotes Module - import data

      Hello Zoho, is it possible to import Quotes records? I was trying and i have no results. Raport shows no data imported. Could you help me please how to do it?

    • Balance Sheet - Zoho Analytics

      Hi Team, I’m looking to implement a feature that captures the conversion rate based on the filters applied. By default, it should fetch the most recent conversion rate, and when a filter (such as a timeline filter) is applied, it should return the conversion

    • files sent will not open for recipient

      work files (done in writer) which previously opened will not open for the recipient

    • Next Page