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

    • Zoho Books API Creating Invoice and Address API

      I'm trying to create an invoice with zoho books api and i get the following error: Error creating invoice in Zoho Books: { message: 'Request failed with status code 400', details: { code: 15, message: 'Please ensure that the "billing_address" has less

    • Convert Multiple PO in 1 Bill

      Does anyone know how to convert multiple POs in 1 Bill? Thank you

    • merge the Multiple POs to single PO if Vendor of PO"s --in Zoho Inventory

      HI Merge the Multiple POs to single PO if Vendor of PO"s are Same ----in Zoho inventory Please provide any work around to achive this .

    • How to add categories to community

      In my Community, I would like to add several Categories but I don't readily see how this is accomplished. Currently, I have one category in my community with several forums. But I would like to add more categories. Thanks.

    • Knowledgeable Image Quality is very poor, any recommendations how to improve this?

      Hi All, We are looking at migrating our current knowledge base to Zoho so it can be kept in one location. Our current KB utilises a lot of images to try and make it easier for users and less wordy. Unfortunately, when I upload an image within an article,

    • Assistance Required: Displaying Dynamic HTML Table in Zoho Creator Dashboard Page

      I am currently stuck while creating a custom dashboard page in Zoho Creator. I want to display a designed HTML table showing Teacher Registration data with this condition: If Total Allowed Leaves < 10, display those teachers in the table. Page Scripts

    • Visibility of Custom Questions in the Question Pool

      A colleague is adding our own questions in the question pool for our Employee Engagement survey, but I can't see the questions she has entered, even after refreshing the webpage. Are the custom questions in the question pool only visible to the one who

    • campaigns contact lists not exporting

      I'm trying to export a specific lead source from my contract list in 'campaigns'. Every time I have to do this the contacts won't export. I have done a search and selected the specific contacts I want to export. The box appears to choose the file type,

    • Recipient Field on replies doesn't update with Contact change

      Some emails that come into our system come from an online form and the sender address is a noreply@whateverthedomainis.org So in order to reply to the original sender, we need to update/change the contact for the tickets. However, after we change the

    • Multicolumns fields for native forms

      It would be nice to be able to create forms with multiple columns. Currently, each field occupies a single column, which makes a fairly complex form seem too long.

    • Assign values to hidden fields in native forms

      It would be great to be able to assign values (static or dynamic) to hidden fields in a form. Currently, I can only assign a value via the URL. I currently have a form integrated with a webhook, but I don't have a way to send useful form data as parameters,

    • Migrating Email Content to a Shared Mailbox Address

      I am moving my email to Zoho Mail (currently hosted through GoDaddy). I have created a user (me) and I have also created a "Shared Mailbox" Group (through the admin panel) with an email address I will be using as an organization address. My personal email

    • Calendly One-way sync- Beta Access

      Hello Community, Many of our Zoho Calendar users have expressed their interests in Zoho Calendar and Calendly integration. We've been tightly working on with Calendly team to provide a two-way sync between Calendly and Zoho Calendar. However, there have

    • Live webinar: Mastering financial presentations with Zoho Show

      Hey there finance professionals! We know many of you are currently knee-deep in report creation mode to wrap up the fiscal year for your organization. Creating a presentation to communicate essential financial data isn’t simple, with all the calculations,

    • Zoho Desk Android app update: Accessing the guided conversation bots in the IM module

      Hello everyone! In the latest version(v2.9.8) of the Zoho Desk Android app update, we have brought in support for Guided conversation bots within the IM Module. These bots use predefined conversation flows to automate initial responses, handle routine

    • Zoho Analytics Embed - Zoomed Right In?

      Hey all, I am using the Zoho Show app on an android TV and cannot figure out why, but the Zoho Analytics embed is zoomed right in. When I preview on my laptop it looks fine, when I go in and edit the code, it looks zoomed? Then when it displays on the

    • Assistance with Image File Upload in Zoho Creator

      Hi , I'm building an application for storyboard creation using Zoho Creator, integrating Gemini AI for automated image generation. In the "Generate Frame" form, user inputs are collected to construct image prompts. Current Workflow: On Validation (Form

    • Migrating all email accounts from cpanel shared hosting and email boxes to zoho

      I have already read previous articles posted on this forum but none of them suit my needs.So i am currently working for a small company. The company website runs on cPanel shared hosting and the company page is a WordPress website. I recently redesigned

    • Domain Change from apkbark.com to apkbark.io – Do I Need to Setup Zoho Mail Again?

      I recently migrated my website from the old domain https://apkbark.com to the new domain https://apkbark.io. The Zoho Mail setup was previously configured and working perfectly on the old domain. Now I would like to know: Will my Zoho Mail setup automatically

    • How to add different type of revenue under sales ?

      How to add different type of revenue under sales ?

    • Types of Revenue

      i have different types of revenue , I want to see under sales in different categories , while preparing invoice I want to allocated if possible

    • Zoho books account recovery

      I had submitted a request to restore zohobooks account, but I am yet to get a feedback till now. The email addresses used to access the zohobooks can not access it again. I don't know what went wrong. I need quick attention to this. More details are provided

    • Payments calendar for receivables and liabilities by due dates

      Hello guys! What method can you recommend for tracking and planning future payments against expected income? We operate on the principle - we expect some income this month, then we look at what expenses are due this month and pay accordingly. I've seen

    • Email Search

      Has search stopped working for people? Searched on Zoho email content, I get nothing back. Signed out and back in, still same issues

    • Zoholics Europe 2025: Your Ultimate Data Analysis (Zoho Analytics) Workshop Experience

      Why should you attend? This year, Zoholics Europe 2025 is putting data analysis centre stage. With a dedicated workshop designed to answer all your data-related questions, you’ll gain practical skills, real-time solutions, and expert insights that you

    • how i can update client_secret or refresh_token in case if my was stolen?

      i want to know how i can protect my data on this case

    • [Webinar] CoCreator – Generative AI-Assisted Application Development in Zoho Creator

      Hello Creators! The Zoho Developer Community is hosting a webinar on CoCreator – Generative AI-Assisted Application Development to showcase our latest AI capabilities. What's this about? It's all about our latest AI capabilities in Zoho Creator. Instead

    • custom fields not populating from deluge script into invoice

      Hello, I've created some Deluge script that is meant to take a few inputted invoice custom fields and calculate a few others. I can see when I execute the function that my inputted custom fields are being passed, yet im still ending up with all "null"

    • Using English But Dropdowns in Thai

      We have selected English in Settings but all of the dropdown boxes are in Thai. How do i change this? The organization is based in Thailand and we are using the THB as our currency, but need the dropdowns to be in English. Please help! 🙏

    • Introducing Import Contract API

      We are excited to introduce the Import Contract API in Zoho Contracts. Here's a brief overview: Import Contract API The Import Contract API allows you to import contracts directly into Zoho Contracts in any of the following states: Draft Signed Active

    • Cambio de Plane

      Tenia un plan gratuito, hice una actualización a un plan de pago, salí por completo y entre nuevamente, pero no me deja corregir, pagar o modificar las facturas que había realizado en el modo de prueba. Me da el siguiente error: Factura de proveedor se

    • Better integration between Zoho CRM and Zoho Bookings

      I've noticed that when a meeting which was created in Zoho Bookings is updated by a sales person in Zoho CRM, the change is not reflected back into Zoho Bookings. I have raised this with support who advised that meetings created in Bookings need to be

    • Why is there a limit to JSONString of less 100 characters

      having this problem.

    • Enhanced crash reporting in Zoho Apptics

      All app crashes have the same sad ending: The app dies while the user still wants to use it. But the reason behind each crash? They vary every time. Identifying the root cause and fixing it is already hard work for your dev team. What makes it harder?

    • Description column in the "all expenses" overview page?

      Hi! I'm new to Zoho Books and accounting. I'm surprised there doesn't seem to have a proper "description" field for the expenses, only "notes", and that I can't have such a description visible on the overview page. So that I can quickly visualize my expenses...

    • Only Default Administrator Profile can Convert Estimates Zoho Finance

      In Zoho Finance Only the Default Administrator Profile can convert the Estimates A different Profile with the Admin level permission cannot convert the Estimate of someone else to a Sales Order, Only and only the default Administrator Profile Why is that

    • Zoho Notebook suddenly running very slow on long notes

      I have been a longtime user of Zoho Notebook. Historically, it has run quite well, but I've noticed over the last few days that it has begun to run unbearably slow when typing in large notes, to the point where I can type four words and have to wait for

    • Is there a way to pass the source of the chat from SalesIQ to the CRM lead creation?

      Currently when I update the values of the visitor and the lead is automatically generated in the CRM it says that the lead source is Chat, but in reality it was from either Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp. Is there a way to make sure that the correct

    • Imported tasks

      Good afternoon, I have recently setup a test instance of Zoho CRM and am currently working through a data migration from Hubspot usine the API migration tool. I needed to get a feel for how seamless this process was but I am running into an issue. It

    • Assigning Leads to Queues

      Do you support Queues as Lead Owner? This is a basic function in any CRM. Assign Lead to a Queue group where any member can take ownership by him self.

    • Next Page