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Calendar month usages, billing and plans

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Ron Pereira

12 Jul, 2012 11:20 PM

Here's how we currently handle billing when our clients sign up.
If they sign up on any day other than the first of the month, the first month gets charged on a pure actual usage basis.
The first full month, they are charged for a full months allotment on the first of the month.
At the end of the month, if they exceed their allotment, they are charged for overages.

Is it possible to continue to do billing this way?

Would I have to set up all plans to begin billing immediately and set up the new accounts all on the first?

1. Support Staff 1 Posted by Marc Guyer on 13 Jul, 2012 01:53 PM

   

   Hi Ron -- That sounds like a model dictated by a once monthly manual billing process. CheddarGetter aims to eliminate that complexity. While it is possible to do what you're suggesting, it's not officially supported. If every CheddarGetter customer billed their customers on the 1st, our systems would experience significantly disproportionate load at that time and why it's not officially supported. That said, there's nothing technologically stopping you.

   In a typical setup, each customer has their own billing period based on when they signed up (by default). Then, the next bill is one month later. Tracked items are utilized to track usage (and overage) within individual customers' billing period. Then CG bills for the overage automatically.

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2. 2 Posted by Ron Pereira on 13 Jul, 2012 07:05 PM

   

   Ok, it sounds like for my existing clients, I'll migrate over in this legacy pattern.

   But, for future customers, I'll have them bill according to their billing date.

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3. Support Staff 3 Posted by Marc Guyer on 16 Jul, 2012 01:30 PM

   

   Ok, it sounds like for my existing clients, I'll migrate over in this legacy pattern.

   Perfect. Have you seen the migration article? You can set the next bill date for each customer when you import them.

   But, for future customers, I'll have them bill according to their billing date.

   Awesome. Let us know if we can help further.

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4. Marc Guyer closed this discussion on 16 Jul, 2012 01:30 PM.

5. Ron Pereira re-opened this discussion on 18 Jul, 2012 12:04 AM

6. 4 Posted by Ron Pereira on 18 Jul, 2012 12:06 AM

   

   Ok, how does this work?
   Billing date is the 1st for a particular customer.
   The customer has a plan that has tracked usages.
   How do you guarantee that the bill that is run on the 1st includes all usages through the last day of the month (or at least the previous day)?

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7. Support Staff 5 Posted by Marc Guyer on 18 Jul, 2012 01:53 PM

   

   Using the add-item-quantity or set-item-quantity (or via the GUI), you set the subscriber's usage as it occurs. A customer's billing cycle ends on the billingDatetime of the current invoice. Any item quantity settings issued prior to the billingDatetime will be reflected on that invoice and charged accordingly.

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8. 6 Posted by Ron Pereira on 18 Jul, 2012 05:43 PM

   

   I guess what I don't understand is if the billing date is the 1st
   (billingDatetime is 8/1/2012), by when does the usage need to be added to
   make it in that billing cycle?

   Ron

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9. Support Staff 7 Posted by Marc Guyer on 18 Jul, 2012 08:29 PM

   

   The billingDatetime includes a time component. So, if the billingDatetime is 2012-08-01 04:32:46 then item quantity updates occurring prior to that second will be on that bill.

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10. Ron Pereira closed this discussion on 19 Sep, 2012 04:31 AM.