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TeamCollaboration Tutorial: Billing Operations

Zuora

TeamCollaboration Tutorial: Billing Operations

This portion of the TeamCollaboration tutorials walks you through scheduling a bill run to create invoices for a group of customers.

The exercises will take approximately 10 minutes to complete.

Scenario

TeamCollaboration's previous billing system was only able to run once per month, billing all customers on the 1st of the month. Because TeamCollaboration only offered a single product at a single price and only accepted payments by credit card, complexity was minimal.

TeamCollaboration now offers multiple products with different billing frequencies, including monthly, quarterly, and annually, and its customers have started to upgrade. Instead of running billing only once per month, TeamCollaboration wants to run billing every day so that it can immediately invoice customers with charges that are due, including prorated charges from upgrades. The schedule change will accelerate their cash flow.

TeamCollaboration also needs to bill its Enterprise customers differently. Some Enterprise customers have asked to pay by check. The billing department has requested sending invoices to these customers well in advance of the due date to expedite payment.

With Zuora, TeamCollaboration can easily accomplish these goals.

Exercise 1: Automate the daily billing process

In Zuora, you can automate billing and can handle all calculations, proration, and invoice creation. Invoices can then be emailed to customers if desired.

Objective: To create a bill run for daily invoice creation.

  1. Navigate to BillingBill Runs.
  2. Click New Scheduled Bill Run.
  3. Click multiple customer accounts.
  4. In the From Batch field, select Specific Batch and select Batch1.
    This will process all charges for all customers, as all TeamCollaboration customers are currently in Batch1.
  5. In the Filter Charges section, leave all options selected so that all charges are included for processing.
  6. In the Schedule Date section, enter the following:
    • Bill Run Date: Today's date
    • Choose Target Date: Today's date
      The Bill Run Date is the date that is displayed on the invoice, and the Target Date is the date used to calculate charges. By providing both of these settings, Zuora gives you the flexibility to create an invoice with today’s date that includes charges through the beginning of next month, for example.
    • Pick the time of day:  Select the time later than the current time. This is when you want the bill run to be processed.
    • Repeats: Daily
    • Range: Leave the date empty, so it will run indefinitely. 
    • Click Create Bill Run and click ok to save the scheduled bill run.

Zuora will now calculate charges that are due for TeamCollaboration's customers every day and generate invoices for the customers with charges. Pro-rated charges will be automatically calculated, based on pro-ration rules configurable in Zuora, for customers who have changed their subscriptions in between billing cycles.

You can create an ad hoc bill run (executes only once) by clicking New Bill Run on the Bill Runs page.

Exercise 2: Handle billing for enterprise customers differently

TeamCollaboration wants to bill Enterprise edition customers differently. These customers require a physical invoice to be mailed to them so that they can pay by check. For these customers, the billing department requires a special invoice layout, and the finance department wants the invoice sent out ten days early to encourage timely payment.

Objective: To create a customized invoice and set up a bill run with a separate schedule for Enterprise customers who pay by check.

First, customize an invoice template for ABC, Inc:

  1. Click your username at the top right and navigate to Billing > Manage Billing Document Configuration.
  2. On the Manage Invoice, Credit/Debit Memo Templates tab, click Add New Html Template.
  3. On the displayed Choose a Template from Library page, hover over a template in the Invoice tab and then click Use.
    1. If you want to start from scratch, choose the blank template.

    2. If you want to start from a sample template, choose a predefined sample template as needed.

  4. On the displayed online editor page, use the online editor to customize the chosen HTML template. For example, you can add a logo or the TeamCollaboration company address.
    Zuora provides a number of merge fields that pull over information from Billing and Payments onto the invoice template. TeamCollaboration can choose to display as many merge fields as needed on their invoice template. For example, TeamCollaboration can choose to display some or all of the transactions related to an invoice, such as adjustments or payments.

  5. Name the template Enterprise Customer Invoice Template and click Save.

Second, update the enterprise customer, ABC, Inc., to use this new template:

  1. Navigate to CustomersCustomer Accounts and open the account detail page for ABC, Inc.
  2. In the Billing and Payment Info section, click edit.
  3. Enter the following field values:
    • Invoice Template: Enterprise Customer Invoice Template
    • Billing Batch: Batch2
  4. Click save.

Third, place Enterprise customer ABC, Inc. into the appropriate batch for processing:

  1. Navigate to Billing > Bill Runs.
  2. Click New Scheduled Bill Run.
  3. Click multiple customer accounts.
  4. In the From Batch field, select Specific Batch and select Batch2 since you want to process all enterprise customers included in this batch, including ABC, Inc. in this bill run.
  5. In the Schedule Date section, enter the following:
    • Bill Run Date: Today's date
    • Choose Target Date: Ten days from today's date
      The Bill Run Date is the date that is displayed on the invoice, and the Target Date is the date used to calculate charges. By providing both of these settings, Zuora gives you the flexibility to create an invoice with today's date that includes charges through the beginning of next month, for example.
    • Pick the time of day:  Select the time later than the current time. This is when you want the bill run to be processed.
    • Repeats: Daily
    • Range: to: Leave the date empty, so it will run indefinitely. 
    • Click create bill run and click ok to save the scheduled bill run.

Zuora will now process customers in Batch2 (Enterprise customers who pay by check) separately from other customers. Batch2 customers will receive the customized invoice.

What's next

To summarize, the tutorials in this segment demonstrate how Zuora:

  • Automates billing: Zuora can automate your billing needs by calculating the charges and due dates for customers. The calculations include prorated charges for customers who make changes to their subscriptions between billing cycles.
  • Allows you to customize invoices and bill different tiers of customers differently: Zuora provides the flexibility to create custom invoice templates (no programming skills needed) and assign different templates to different types of customers. In addition, you can specify different dates for generating each type of invoice. Thus, different tiers of customers (for example, Enterprise versus SMB) can receive different invoices as well as receiving them at different times.

Learn: Zuora Payments