Understanding Azure Plans

In the interworks.cloud platform, since the introduction of the "New Azure Experience", our customers will be able to order an Azure Plan instead of a legacy Azure product (however, our customers are still able to order legacy Azure products via our BSS and Storefront for a limited amount of time). 
In simple terms, the Azure Plan is an accommodation structure for multiple Azure subscriptions(entitlements) to exist under it, for order and billing simplification reasons. For that purpose, the Azure Plan is defined in our BSS platform as a pay-per-use product with consumption-based billing. Additionally, the Azure Plan billing cycle is now calculated from the beginning of a month until its end and the CSP billing date on the Azure Plan will be usually within the first until the eighth day of each following month.The Microsoft Azure Plan simplifies the purchase experience since customers can have multiple Azure subscriptions(entitlements) under one Azure Plan. The need to submit a separate order per Azure subscription is now eliminated from our BSS. In this new commerce experience for Azure, Microsoft has aligned to a single global pricing principle enabling CSP partners to offer Azure at the published prices.

Q: How will the Azure Plan Product Type be Created?
The Microsoft Azure Plan product type is created automatically when a BSS user initiates the "Get Services Definition" process from within the corresponding "Microsoft Cloud Services" service manager. As a result, you must not create a new Azure product or an Azure Plan manually via our BSS platform.

Q: Can I still Purchase a Legacy Azure subscription?
In our BSS you can purchase legacy Azure subscriptions for a limited amount of time. However, since Azure subscriptions are becoming obsolete because Microsoft has introduced the Azure Plans, you should rather purchase an Azure Plan. After the purchase, you can configure the Azure Plan with any subscriptions(entitlements) you wish to add to it via the Azure Portal. Thus, each Azure entitlement that you have purchased via the Azure Portal will belong under the "umbrella" of your unique Azure Plan.

Q: Which is the Sell Price of the Azure Plan?
There isn't a single sell price for an Azure Plan product because what we charge is the consumption of the resources of the combined Azure subscriptions(entitlements) contained within the Plan. Depending on what the customer has deployed in an Azure Plan, tens or hundreds of resources may be charged to the customer. The selling price for these resources is Microsoft's suggested retail price for the MS Tenants with plain user rights and Microsoft's suggested wholesale price for the MS Tenants with Admin user rights on their MS Account. You can find further information regarding the user rights under the Microsoft's (PEC) page.

Q: Billing cycle & billing day for your Azure Plan?
The Azure Plan subscription will always be billed on a monthly billing cycle basis as determined by Microsoft's single global pricing principle. That means that all Azure Plan renewals will begin from the 1st day of each month and end on the last day of each month. The billing day of the Azure Plans is also determined by Microsoft to be issued usually during the first eight days of each following month. This new billing procedure will not allow any pending or zeroed invoices to exist, since our goal is to offer you the exact same experience as that of Microsoft. 

Q: Which are the Exchange Rates Used?
Microsoft calculates all costs based on the US Dollar (USD). Therefore, when we invoice a customer with a different base currency, we calculate the difference by utilizing Microsoft's foreign exchange(FX) rates in order for us to offer the exact same prices as Microsoft. 

Q: What are the Billing Factors?
The only billing factor that we support is the definition (on the price-list) of markup or margin over the Microsoft's costs, since Microsoft will provide us with all resources' prices. Promotions, volume discounts, free periods, excel pricing, and user-defined discounts are not supported for the Azure Plan product type.