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

    • 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

    • I need a custom AI Chatbot to be integrated with ChatGPT to Handle Customers inquiries

      I need a custom AI Chatbot to be integrated with ChatGPT to handle Customer inquiries, and save the data to Zoho CRM as a Leads, Also to schedule a demo with clients and more options

    • User Management > Agents request

      I have a few suggestions for the Agent page: 1) Please add a way to filter Full agents. The list currently shows Light agents as an option but sometimes it would be helpful to view only the full agent licenses or non-light agent. 2) Add the ability to

    • Mandate Assessments in Zoho Recruit's Candidate Application Form

      We're excited to announce the Include Assessment option for the Candidate Application Form, which lets you display the pre-screening assessment associated with the job opening along with the application form fields. This ensures that every candidate applying

    • Sending an email from contacts does not display the recipient's name correctly

      When I select a contact or group of contacts and then click the envelope to send mail, the contacts are added to the To section of a new email. Unfortunately, their First and last names are not displayed. The part of the email address before the @ sign

    • Writing SQL Queries - After Comma Auto Suggesting Column

      When writing SQL Queries, does anyone else get super annoyed that after you type a comma and try to return to a new line it is automatically suggest a new column, so hitting return just inputs this suggested column instead of going to a new line? Anyone

    • Stop adding Default ID column to xls exports

      When anything is exported to xls, Zoho adds a column with an ID. WE DO NOT WANT THIS COLUMN. We use an automated report to a team. We have our own tracking number. 1. This makes the report messy, it just pushes OUR data off to the right. 2. We have to

    • communication distribution

      Hello community! Request for help - how to resolve the issue of subscribing to specific content. I use ZOHO CRM and ZOHO CAMPAIGNS to send email communications to my customers. I only purchased ZOHO CAMPAIGNS after using the CRM for some time and I have

    • Truesync for Linux

      Is Truesync available on linux ?

    • Web access blocked

      Hello, My account (chris@thewebprojects.com) has been blocked due to security reasons. Please see attached. Can you kindly please help me. Thank you in advanced

    • How to determine ZohoCreator organization ID

      I am trying to setup an API to interface with my ZohoCreator app by following the self-client credential flow here https://www.zoho.com/accounts/protocol/oauth/self-client/client-credentials-flow.html However, it requires me to input my organization ID.

    • Autofill Zoho form with Zoho campaign data

      Hello, I send campaigns and we have set a button called "Demo" in that campaign. This button leads to a form. Since we have the data in Zoho Campaign, would it be possible that some fields of the form (first+last name, email, company) are automatically filled when our readers click on this button? If yes, how could I do that? Thanks Aurélie Leyendecker

    • Need to be Amount Adjusted with same Group Comany

      Dear Sir/ Madam, Good Day, Example wise i write my quire Below A B C & D E F Bothe are Same Group Companies We Paid 50000 AED to ABC Company but we received Invoice 48000 AED worth of material Balance 2000 AED invoice i received from D E F. I Need to

    • Transfer between 2 accounts in forein currency

      Hello, While abroad, I have exchanged some money in a money exchange service from a foreign currency (MYR) to another foreign currency (USD) without passing through my base currency (CHF). How do I record this transaction in Zoho Books? When I try to

    • Zoho Books Webhook in Custom Module doesn't work

      I have a custom module "Purchase Request" in Zoho Books in which we're trying to convert status of the PRs to Draft and Pending Approval. We've explored different applications and custom functions but found that the status is not "writable". However,

    • Issue with Missing Scope for Creating Service Report via Zoho FSM API

      Hello @Latha Velu , I am currently working on creating a connection to create a Service Report in Zoho FSM using the API. However, while configuring the required scopes, I noticed that the scope ZohoFSM.modules.ServiceReports.CREATE which

    • Imap Support?

      Does Zoho Books support IMAP? I have enabled outlook integration from settings in Zoho Books Yet the emails I send from Zoho Books for example if I email a purchase order or an invoice I dont see them in it in my sent box in outlook Is there a problem

    • ADDING FUEL SURCHARGE & HST

      Hello I need to invoice the customer showing both Fuel Surcharge & ON HST separately. The FSC should be 20% of the subtotal. The HST should be applied to sum of Subtotal + FSC So it should be like: SUBTOTAL: 100.00 FSC (20%): 20.00 HST (13%): $15.60 How

    • Zoho Project API search?

      Good day, i would like to search our entire portal for a task using the API. We have over 20k tasks so I dont to search for all tasks and then do a for each as it would take way to long and also would need to go over the limit of 200 records per query.

    • Handling Deposits to Vendors and how to book this

      Our scenario: 1. We rent equipment from a renting company for a project (Vendor "Eurorent") 2. We receive an order confirmation with a request to pay a deposit of € 1500. (this is not a Bill) 3. We pay a deposit of € 1500 for the equipment. 4. After using

    • Tip of the Week #61– 5 easy ways to declutter your inbox!

      Managing a shared inbox is easier than you think. With the right tools and a smart approach, your team can stay on top of every conversation, collaborate more effectively, and deliver timely responses without any unnecessary back-and-forth. Here are 5

    • Vertical Solution Zoho One

      Hello, is it possible to create a vertical solution for Zoho One? Just like it is possible for Zoho CRM?

    • Multiple workspaces with in Bigin CRM

      As a freelancer working as a sales representative for two companies, each with its own email address, I would like to know if it’s possible to have two separate workspaces in Bigin. This way, I could manage each company and its contacts independently,

    • Allowing subqueries in FROM clause

      When building a Query table in Zoho Reports, I encountered an error when attempting to put a subquery in the "FROM" clause of my statement.  Why isn't this currently supported?  Is there a plan to implement this functionality in the future?

    • CRM for Everyone - More Actions Option to Create Record

      Please consider the option create a new record for the module from the More Actions menu. I know there is an "Add New" icon further down the menu to create a record for any module, but this just seems more intuitive and could reduce the need for the "Add

    • Zoho books partners: Transferwise, Resolut

      Can anyone tell me if Transferwise and/or Resolut (payment systems) are in integrated?  I know PayPal and Google are, but in Europe we like Transferwise and Resolut is an up and coming multi-currency app. Xero and Transferwise are fully compatible. Thanks

    • Getting oauth errors on bigin

      Hi Support, I'm getting oauth errors on bigin even though it works fine with CRM. I created a self client which will add contacts. I gave every permission you could and it still didn't work. What should I do. I might just switch to the standard CRM since

    • Assessment Field in Custom View

      Zoho recruit finally added the ability to filter Job Applications by Assessment Answers This is a very valuable addition to the Recruit But this is currently missing from the custom view This should be added to the custom view as well

    • Name Change and Delete Email ID and Alias

      Hello please i require urgent assistance, 1.) I would also like to change the name that appears when people receive my emails. I have an info@spacetraiders.com but when people receive my email its say Ronma Adedeji instead of either Info or Space Traiders..

    • Feature Requests and enhancements: Subform

      By The Grace of G-D. Hi, It would make it much easier to use if we could have some more features in subforms: More Columns/Fields Set the size of a column Show the subform in Full Page Width Sorting By Column Please consider The above suggestions. T

    • Unapplied AP Credits not showing up on AP Detail Aging

      I am new to using Zoho Books. I was reconciling some accounts and found differences from the GL balance and AP Aging and it came down to unapplied vendor credits. Is there an option to include that on the report, so I can pull a matching AP Aging to the

    • Add Entry and Subform Record from Deluge Scripts

      Hi all,  I would like to know how do I add a new entry and also subform records from a deluge scripts.  I can use the insert into to add a new entry to a form, but how do i insert a collection into the subform of the entry? I am using a deluge script

    • Finding draft ticket replies

      Is there a way to see all tickets which have draft replies?

    • How to apply a tag to a ticket based on the to email address?

      I need to assign a tag to a ticket if the ticket was sent to a specific email address. For example, we have the email accounting[at]company.com forwarding into Zoho Desk. We would like all emails that were sent to this address to be tagged with an Accounting

    • Engineering Change Order Process using Tickets?

      Hi Zoho Community, I'm working with my company to create an Engineering Change Order/Request (ECO/ECR) process where engineers can internally create tickets for changes in a product that must be reviewed, approved and implemented by people or teams in

    • How can I move a ticket from Department A to Department B?

      Hi there, how do I move ticket from Department A to Department B? I went in the ticket and tried to scroll down the menu under the "department" but it won't let me, I am a support admin. Did I do anything wrong? or am I doing it in the wrong place?

    • Validation Rules Trigger on Untouched Fields

      In Zoho Desk, validation rules trigger for ALL fields during an update—even fields that weren't modified in the current edit. This behavior is fundamentally different from Zoho CRM and other Zoho products, where validation rules only apply to fields actually

    • How to work with getFieldNames formdata functions ,Any Examples

      I don't find any example showing usage of getFieldNames. Where do i find .is there any Help documents available

    • Zoho Notifications - Received two notifications for one message and none for the other

      We had a client reply to a ticket twice in one minute. The ticket owner received two emails for the second message but none for the first (which was crucial content and unfortunately was therefore missed). I'm assuming this created a race condition -

    • Next Page