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Create single-year invoice schedules for charges with different start dates and end dates within one term

Zuora

Create single-year invoice schedules for charges with different start dates and end dates within one term

The Billing Schedule feature is generally available. You can enable this feature in Sandbox environments with the self-serve interface. For more information, see Enable billing features by yourself. If you want to enable this feature in your Production environments, contact your Zuora Customer Success Manager for assistance.

With the Billing Schedule feature, you can create invoice schedules with one single year on new subscriptions with different start dates and end dates, and how invoices are generated for the subscriptions.

In this use case, four subscriptions are created with different terms, and a single-year invoice schedule is created on this subscription. Invoices are generated on self-defined dates through the processing of three invoice schedule items contained in the invoice schedule.

As shown in the following table, four subscriptions are created by creating an order, with the total amount of $69,150.00 and different terms. You expect to create a custom invoice schedule to generate three invoices on different dates in the first year for the four subscriptions. The first invoice is expected to be generated on 4 February 2021 with the amount of $50,000.00, the second invoice on 1 May 2021 with the amount of $10,000.00, and the third invoice on 16 September 2021 with the amount of $9,150.00.

Subscription number Charge start date Term (Month) Charge number Charge end date Selling price List price base Billing period

S1

01/01/2021

12

C1

12/31/2021

$36,900.00

Per Year

Annual

S2

01/01/2021

12

C2

12/31/2021

$21,500.00

Per Year

Annual

S3

02/01/2021

11

C3

12/31/2021

$11,000.00

Per Year

Annual

S4

03/01/2021

10

C4

12/31/2021

$800.00

Per Year

Annual

To create such a custom invoice schedule and generate invoices as expected, perform the following steps:

  1. Activate the Annual List Price settings.
  2. Create four recurring product rate plan charges with the Flat Fee Pricing charge model.
  3. Create and activate an order with four subscriptions to the four charges, with the total amount of $70,200.00 and the same term of 12 months.
    Subscription number Charge number Amount List price base Billing period
    S1 C1 $36,900.00 Per Year Annual
    S2 C2 $21,500.00 Per Year Annual
    S3 C3 $11,000.00 Per Year Annual
    S4 C4 $800.00 Per Year Annual
  4. On the order details page, create an invoice schedule with three invoice schedule items,
    1. Invoice schedule item 1: Set the invoice date to 02/04/2021 in the On field and billing amount to 50000 in the Bill field.
    2. Invoice schedule item 2: Set the invoice date to 05/01/2021 in the On field and billing amount to 10000 in the Bill field.
    3. Invoice schedule item 3: Set the invoice date to 09/16/2021 in the On field and billing amount to 9150 in the Bill field.

After the invoice schedule is created, three invoices in Draft status are automatically generated on the scheduled dates with the specified billed amount.

The first invoice with invoice number INV001 is automatically generated on 4 February 2021 with the total amount of $50,000.00. The following table lists the amount that is proportionally distributed to each subscription, and the service period of each invoice item.

Invoice item Subscription number Charge number Service start date Service end date Amount Total Amount

Invoice item 1

S1

C1

01/01/2021

11/09/2021

$31,592.47

$50,000.00

Invoice item 2

S2

C2

01/01/2021

11/09/2021

$18,407.53

The amount displayed in the Amount column for each invoice item is calculated based on the following formula:

(Billed invoice amount ÷ Total price) × Selling price

For example, the amount for the first charge line item in the first generated invoice is $26,282.05, which is calculated based on the formula of (50000÷(36900+21500))×36900 and rounded based on the default rounding rule specified for the corresponding account.

The service period of each invoice item is determined by the charge amount that is billed in the invoice, calculated based on the following formula:

(Invoice item amount ÷ Selling price) × 12 months 

For example, the proportion of months for the first charge line item in the first generated invoice is calculated based on the formula of (31,592.47÷36900)×12 months. The calculation result is 10.274 months, indicating that the service period of 10 months plus 8.22 days. A portion of the day 9 November 2021 is consumed by the first invoice. Therefore, the service end date is 9 November 2021 for the first charge line item and other items in the same invoice.

On 1 May 2021, the second invoice with invoice number INV002 is generated with the total amount of $10,000.00. The following table lists the amount that is proportionally distributed to each subscription, and the service period of each invoice item.

Invoice item Subscription number Charge number Service start date Service end date Amount Total Amount

Invoice item 1

S1

C1

11/09/2021

12/31/2021

$5,307.53

$10,000.00

Invoice item 2

S2

C2

11/09/2021

12/31/2021

$3,092.47

Invoice item 3

S3

C3

02/01/2021

03/04/2021

$1600.00

On 16 September 2021, the third invoice with invoice number INV003 is generated with the total amount of $9,150.00. The following table lists the amount that is proportionally distributed to each subscription, and the service period of each invoice item.

Invoice item Subscription number Charge number Service start date Service end date Amount Total Amount

Invoice item 1

S3

C3

03/04/2021

12/31/2021

$8,483.33

$9,150.00

Invoice item 2

S4

C4

03/01/2021

12/31/2021

$666.67