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Billing Operations

Zuora

Billing Operations

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In this section, you will learn how to use bill runs to automate invoice generation, upload and bill for usage, and adjust balances on invoices.

About Billing Operations

In Billing Operations, you create invoices prior to payment collection. You can generate a single invoice for a customer, or you can generate multiple invoices for a group of customers or for all customers at once. You can generate ad hoc invoices or invoices on demand, or you can create schedules to generate invoices automatically. Zuora handles all your billing needs, including calculating charges (with pro-ration), generating customized invoices, and emailing invoices to customers.

Key Concepts

Here are the key concepts to understand when managing billing operations in Zuora:

  • Billing Operations Dashboard: The Billing Operations Dashboard shows the total amount invoiced for the last three months as well as a list of recent bill runs created. The Total Amount Invoiced can be expanded to show the number of invoices processed, number of accounts invoiced, and bookings in MRR.
  • Using a Bill Run to Generate Invoices: Use a bill run to generate and email invoices to your customers. A bill run gathers information from one or more customer accounts and creates invoices for those accounts based on charges that have been incurred. The invoices sent to your customers can be customized to reflect your company's look and feel.
  • Ad Hoc Bill Run vs. Scheduled Bill Run: An ad hoc bill run executes only once immediately after you create it. A scheduled bill run executes one or more times based on a recurring schedule that you define.
  • Billing Batch: When creating a customer account, assign it to a Billing Batch. Then, when processing customers in a bill run (or payment run), you can select a specific batch of customers to process. Billing batches allow you to process different tiers of customers, for example, in different ways or at different times.
  • Posting a Bill Run: When you post a bill run, all invoices contained in the bill run will change from Draft status to Posted status. Once an invoice is changed to Posted status, the invoice is locked and cannot be modified. You can choose to manually post invoices, for example, if you want to review them before delivery, or you can automatically post (auto-post) invoices after a bill run completes. 
  • Usage: If applicable for your business, you can use usage-based charge model to bill customers based on actual consumption of your product or service. Zuora provides multiple ways to import customer usage data for billing.
  • Adjustments: Once you create a customer invoice, it can require an adjustment. For example, an adjustment is needed if the full amount is no longer required due to a customer discount. Use Invoice Item Adjustments to modify the amount due on an invoice.

Additional Resources and Activities

To learn more about Billing Operations:

  • Review the Knowledge Center documentation on Billing Operations.
  • Access your company's Z-Billing test account on the Zuora API Sandbox and try the following:
    1. Schedule a bill run that executes daily.
    2. Go to a customer account with a subscription, then generate and post an invoice for the next billing period for that customer.
    3. If your company charges for usage, create a subscription that includes a product with a usage-based charge. Then upload usage for the applicable account.
    4. Go to a posted invoice with a balance, and create an Invoice Item Adjustment to bring the invoice balance down to $0.