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

    • Agent working hours

      Hi, I know it is possible to set company business hours but is it possible so that agents can have different ones? I.e. some agents cover later hours on specific weeks - can these be set so those agents that are "working" get notified about tickets etc. 

    • Disallow CLOSE if tags field is empty

      I want to introduce a mandatory condition that NEW tickets (not prior closed tickets) cannot enter the CLOSED state without first having an entry in the tags field. Is there a way I can do this?

    • Central de Ajuda - Restringir visualização de tickets

      Estou tentando configurar o Zoho Desk para que determinados usuários dentro de uma mesma conta consigam visualizar apenas os tickets criados por usuários específicos dessa conta — e não todos os tickets ou apenas os seus próprios. Até onde sei, existe

    • Business Hours with lunch break

      Our business hours are: mon - fri 08:30 - 13:00, 15:00 - 18:30. How can I handle the lunch break? If I use 8:30 - 18:30 it obviously breaks SLA. Thanks

    • Default/Private Departments in Zoho Desk

      1) How does one configure a department to be private? 2) Also, how does one change the default department? 1) On the list of my company's Zoho Departments, I see that we have a default department, but I am unable to choose which department should be default. 2) From the Zoho documentation I see that in order to create a private department, one should uncheck "Display in customer portal" on the Add Department screen. However, is there a way to change this setting after the department has been created?

    • Ask the Experts 21: Power up your support game with Zoho Desk Automation

      " In every business, there are tasks to automate, Zoho Desk helps with features that integrate Assignments to manage tickets and teams to align,Macros for quick actions and workflows to streamline Contracts and schedules to hold things tight, Plans run

    • If leads are assigned to a person before 4:00 PM and the stage is "Fresh Lead", then an email should be triggered at 4:00 PM to all assigned users. If leads are assigned after 4:00 PM and the stage is

      If leads are assigned to a person before 4:00 PM and the stage is "Fresh Lead", then an email should be triggered at 4:00 PM to all assigned users. If leads are assigned after 4:00 PM and the stage is "Fresh Lead", then the email should be triggered the

    • Multiselect lookup in subform

      It would be SO SO useful if subforms could support a multiselect look up field! Is this in the works??

    • Tasks as calendar events? What about a way to verify a meeting actually happened?

      I'm not sure how to best ask this, but i'm looking to add some guard-rails into zoho for the end-user. However for guardrails to be effective they can't really add extra steps for the end-user. i.e. every step that's added for the user, is another place

    • Attachments should sync between Zoho Finance in CRM and Zoho Books

      It would EXTREMELY helpful and practical if the attachments added to an invoice via Zoho Finance in CRM synced with the invoice updates in Zoho Books. Currently, attachments to an invoice updated in CRM DO NOT appear as attachments when viewing the same

    • Introducing a new home page view and UI enhancements for Dashboards

      Hello everyone,  In CRM, the home pages provide a quick view of the various happenings in a business with the help of dashboards. The home pages also help to organize one's and the team's day's work. There are three views in the home tab: Classic User's

    • Call result pop up on call when call ends

      I’d like to be able to create a pop up that appears after a call has finished that allows me to select the Call Result. I'm using RingCentral. I have seen from a previous, now locked, thread on Zoho Cares that this capability has been implemented, but

    • Data Template Amending

      Hi, is it possible to remove data templates once you have applied them in Workdrive? Also, once I have added a new field to a data template can I mass update multiple files who have already been allocated that template and amend just that one added

    • Zoho Flow y subformularios de Zoho CRM

      Buenas tardes, En mi empresa vamos a empezar a usar los subformularios de zoho crm pero estos los voy a tener que rellenar con zoho flow ya que va a ser el encargado de rellenar dichos campos del subformulario. El problema es que a la hora de intentar

    • Recurring Invoices

      We are looking at moving our invoices to ZOHO Billing, I have started the trial period and like that I can et up for four different companies. The one feature we need which is mentioned in the documentation is Recurring Invoices so we can send our Rent

    • Implement Meeting Polls in Zoho Bookings

      Dear Zoho Bookings Support Team, We'd like to propose a feature enhancement related to appointment scheduling within Zoho Bookings. Current Functionality: Zoho Bookings excels at streamlining individual appointment scheduling. Users can set availability

    • Zoho Projects App update: Arabic and Hebrew language support

      Hello everyone! In the latest version(v3.10) of the Zoho Projects iOS app update, we have brought in support to access the app in RTL(Right to Left) languages (Arabic and Hebrew). Note: RTL is yet to be supported on the Calendar and Gantt charts modules

    • I want to cancel @mention group in the notes in Zoho CRM

      Hi Everybody, I want to prevent people from mentioning a specific group in notes in Zoho CRM. We have one group called Team Sales, and although we've asked users not to mention groups, they still mention the group name. My workaround is to change the

    • Kaizen #193: Creating different fields in Zoho CRM through API

      🎊 Nearing 200th Kaizen Post – We want to hear from you! Do you have any questions, suggestions, or topics you would like us to cover in future posts? Your insights and suggestions help us shape future content and make this series better for everyone.

    • How to install node packages in Zoho Creator cloud functions

      I wanted to create some functions which requires node packages like axios, fetch, multer etc., How and where can i install the node packages in Zoho creator to use it in Zoho creator Nodejs function.

    • Session "Ask Me Anything" Zoho France - Le 26 Juin 2025 14h à 17h (en Français

      Chers Utilisateurs, Vous cherchez à mieux comprendre Zoho CRM ou Zoho Desk ? Nos experts seront disponibles pour répondre à toutes vos questions lors de notre session Ask Me Anything. Rejoignez-nous ici pour en discuter en ligne. Pendant trois heures,

    • Option to Crop Existing Agent Image in Zoho One Directory

      Hello Zoho Team, We hope you're all doing well. We would like to request a small but useful enhancement to the Zoho One Directory. 🎯 Current Limitation At present, the system allows cropping an agent image only during the initial upload of an agent's

    • Introducing Sub-Accounts in Zoho Books!

      Hello Everyone, Sub-Accounts is LIVE! Yes, you read it right. The much needed and most requested feature is now live in Zoho Books. The sub-accounts feature in Zoho Books will help you to classify your accounts further which will give you a more detailed view of your accounts while running reports. You can create sub-accounts for the below Accounts: Asset Cost of Goods Sold Expense Liability Fixed Asset Other Asset Other Current Asset Long Term Liability Other Current Liability Other Liability Other

    • Sesión "Ask me anything" Zoho en Español - 26 de junio de 2025, de 14:00 a 17:00 (en español)

      ¡Hola Comunidad! ¿Quieres entender mejor Zoho CRM o Zoho Desk? Nuestros expertos estarán disponibles para responder a todas tus preguntas durante nuestra sesión "Ask me anything". Puedes comentar este artículo y durante tres horas, nuestro equipo estará

    • UI Update: We've Reorganized Invoice Settings

      Dear users, We’ve reorganized invoice settings to offer you a streamlined and intuitive experience when managing your subscriptions. Starting from 2 July 2025, subscription-related invoice settings will be accessible from a new page called Billing Preferences

    • Marketer’s Space – Automate Subscription Management for CRM Contacts Using Workflows in Zoho Campaigns

      Hello, marketers! Welcome back to Marketer’s Space. In this week’s post, we’ll look at how to simplify subscription management using Workflows for contacts synced from Zoho CRM in Zoho Campaigns. There are multiple ways to assign topics to your contacts:

    • 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

    • WhatsApp to shift to per-message billing from July 1, 2025

      Greetings Recruiters, If you’re using WhatsApp to connect with candidates through Zoho Recruit, there’s an important pricing change coming up that you’ll want to plan for. What’s changing? Starting July 1, 2025, WhatsApp is moving away from conversation-based

    • Implement full RTL support in Zoho Cliq, including text alignment and character positioning, regardless of the interface language.

      Dear Zoho Cliq Support Team, We are writing to request a significant enhancement to the current RTL language support within Zoho Cliq. Currently, while Zoho Cliq allows users to input text in RTL languages, the text alignment remains LTR, resulting in

    • Email Alerts with Affected Flow Details When Deprecating Modules in Zoho Flow

      Dear Zoho Flow Team, We would like to request an enhancement to the module deprecation process in Zoho Flow. 🧩 Current Limitation: Currently, when a module is deprecated by the Flow team: No email notifications are sent. There is no automated way to

    • are there Url parameters to group records in the report/view?

      There are URL parameters to filter records in target report.  Is there any way to group records in report by certain field, using URL parameters or embed report parameters? Or any other workaround, apart from creating second report for dofferent grouping?  Aim: I want to provide user a quick link to re-group embed report by different fields.

    • Setvalue() client script not working

      I have created a client script on the load the record(detail view page). I wanted to populate some default information in the single line field. for that I created the client script. below is the script: var field_obj = ZDK.Page.getField( 'Designation'

    • Power of Automation :: Automate Deal Status Update in Zoho CRM upon Project Completion.

      Hello Everyone, A Custom function is a user-written set of code to achieve a specific requirement. Set the required conditions needed as when to trigger using the Workflow rules (be it Tasks / Project) and associate the custom function to it. Requirement:

    • Leverage the power of Zia (AI) to create Marketing Projects in Zoho Marketing Plus

      Hey everyone, Zoho's advanced AI assistant, Zia, now works with OpenAI to offer personalized marketing activity suggestions for your marketing projects in Brand Studio. With information such as your campaign's objective, duration, marketing channel types,

    • Use Zoho Flow to Supercharge your Zoho FSM Integrations

      We are thrilled to announce that Zoho FSM is now included in Zoho Flow - Zoho’s powerful no-code integration platform. With this, you can connect Zoho FSM with your most-used applications—without requiring technical expertise. What does this offer? Zoho

    • Zoho Flow triggers not working

      Hi , I have set up a flow which triggers when a new record is created in a Zoho Creator app. This flow works great when I initiate the flow with  "test and debug". However the flow does not trigger in live mode.  I have tested all the connections used

    • Can you sync your Apple Calendar with Bigin Activities/calendar?

      I've searched everything I can find and nothing is coming up... I've got a number of things in my calendar for the future, and it would be easiest if I can sync between them to update my availability for my booking page (also syncing the other way would

    • How to track salesiq on google analytics without GTM

      Hello! We had to move the installation of the SalesIQ widget from GTM to directly do it in our wordpress site. The SalesIQ widget was being blocked by Adblockers which caused a lot of our visitors to not be able to see it. This issue was fixed from deleting

    • Custom Module Count

      We are on Zoho One. CRM says that the three modules which support Zoho Sign integration are "custom modules." Do these count against the 200 custom modules permitted by the One access to "enterprise-level" CRM features?

    • Marketer's Space: Bookmarks by Zoho Campaigns

      Hello Marketers, In this week's Marketer's Space, we'll look at a simple yet powerful feature that makes a big difference in your workflow: Bookmarks. Bookmarks is a built-in feature in Zoho Campaigns that enables you to create a personalized library

    • Next Page