Align Billing Settings with Microsoft for Easier Reconciliation

The interworks.cloud platform offers a wide array of billing and invoicing options for you and your customers. However, as the volume of customer / service / billing combination increases overtime, you may need to adjust your billing settings in order to streamline your billing processes and avoid accounting-related hurdles during the reconciliation of your records with the ones from Microsoft. This is why we advise our customers to align their billing cycles with the ones from Microsoft for easier reconciliation of records. This page explains how to do exactly that, regardless of whether you are a Direct or Indirect CSP.

Billing & Invoicing settings for Direct CSPs

As a Direct CSP, you may want to process the payment the moment your customers purchase a subscription, rather than wait until a specific date to generate the invoice. To do that, you need to adjust the settings for both the accounts and the products.

I. Adjust Ordering Settings for Accounts

1. Log in the BSS module and click on Accounts from the left-hand side menu.

2. Locate the existing account for which you want to adjust ordering settings or add a new one.

3. Check the Enable Ordering box. By checking the box, the system activates the ordering parameters.

4. Go the Partial Charges Invoicing field and select On order day.

5. Uncheck the Enable Prorate Billing option to deactivate it.

6. When you have completed all the remaining information required for your new account,  click Save to save your changes.

II. Adjust Product Settings

1. Log in the BSS module, navigate to Billing from the left-hand side menu and click on Products.

2. If this is a new product, click on Add and then Add Product to add it to the system. Otherwise, for existing products, find the subscription product and click on Edit… to edit its settings.

3. At the Pricing section, select the Recurring charge - prepaid option.

4. At the Billing Date option, select Apply customer's options.

5. Click Save to save your changes.

That's it! From now on, the system will allow customers to purchase a subscription at any time and will generate an invoice for the remaining days until the subscription renewal. From that point on and at each renewal date, the system will generate one invoice for all the licenses of each specific product.

Let's check out the following example:

A customer purchases a subscription on December 6th and the following settings apply:

This means that the system will define the subscription period from December 6 to January 5 and will generate an invoice for this period on December 6.

Billing & Invoicing settings for Indirect CSPs

As an Indirect CSP, you are probably interested in maintaining your own invoicing cycle, independently of when your resellers purchase a service (something that may happen dozens of times in a day or week). In this case, you need to apply the following settings at the Accounts and Products modules: 

I. Adjust Ordering Settings for Accounts

1. Log in the BSS module and click on Accounts from the left-hand side menu.

2. Locate the existing account for which you want to adjust ordering settings or add a new one.

3. Check the Enable Prorate Billing option and choose your preferred billing date (first day of the month, last day of the month, first order day or any day of the month, as per your preference).

4. Go the Partial Charges Invoicing field and select On billing day.

5. When you have completed all the remaining information required for your new account,  click Save to save your changes.

II. Adjust Product Settings

1. Log in the BSS module, navigate to Billing from the left-hand side menu and click on Products.

2. If this is a new product, click on Add and then Add Product to add it to the system. Otherwise, for existing products, find the subscription product and click on Edit… to edit its settings.

3. At the Pricing section, select the Recurring charge - prepaid option.

4. At the Billing Date option, select Exclude from prorata. 

5. Click Save to save your changes.

That's it! You’re done!

To better understand this, let’s take a look at the following examples:

Example A: New subscription is purchased

A customer purchases a subscription on December 6th and the following settings apply:

In this case, the system will define the subscription period from December 6 to January 5 and will generate an invoice for this period on January 1st.

In other words:

• 1^st subscription period: December 6 - January 5

• 1^st invoice issue date: January 1

• 2^nd subscription period: January 6 - February 5

• 2^nd invoice issue date: February 1 etc.

Example B: New subscription is purchased and seats increase during the same subscription period

A customer purchases a subscription on December 6th and the following settings apply:

On December 12, the customer purchases two additional seats and on December 22 purchases two more. In this case, the system defines:

• the subscription period from December 6 to January 5 for the first seat

• the subscription period from December 12 to January 5 for the additional two seats

• the subscription period from December 22 to January 5 for the last two seats.

However, as the billing date of the products are excluded from prorata, the system will generate all the invoices on the defined billing day, i.e. on January 1st. From February 1st onwards, the system will generate one invoice for all 5 seats.

In other words:

• 1^st subscription period for the first seat: December 6 - January 5

• 1^st subscription period for the second two seats: December 12 - January 5

• 1^st subscription period for the last two seats: December 22 - January 5

• 1^st invoice issue date: January 1 - three different invoices (one for each purchase, all issued on Jan. 1)

• 2^nd subscription period: January 6 - February 5

• 2^nd invoice issue date: February 1 (one invoice for all 5 seats) etc.

As the example shows, this feature allows you to gather and group on one specific date all the invoices from purchases made on various dates for easier reconciliation of your records with the ones from your vendor.