Threshold Billing

Overview

Threshold Billing allows you to invoice your customers when their unbilled orders reach a total greater than or equal to a specified threshold amount. Once the threshold is reached, an invoice is created, even on a date other than the anniversary date. You may decide to receive a notification from Aria whenever a customer is invoiced for unbilled orders. Then you can take your chosen action based on the notification. Threshold Billing applies to electronic payment methods and payment terms.

Example: You can create a threshold for $100 and assign it to your chosen accounts' billing groups. Then you may want to send those customers a statement or an invoice (with an optional but recommended statement for payment) when their unbilled orders reach $100. This will allow your customers to be aware of accumulated expenses that they will be charged for on their next anniversary date.

Please see Threshold Billing Use Cases for a few basic examples showing how to implement Threshold Billing.

Prerequisites

Before you can use Threshold Billing, you will need to:

• Ask Aria Customer Support to enable Threshold Billing.
• Provide access to Threshold Billing Rule creation in the Aria application. Your Aria application users will not be able to view, create, edit, or delete Threshold Billing Rules (TBRs, also referred to as "thresholds") unless you assign them a user role that has access to those features.
•  Provide access to accounts' threshold billing rules in the Aria application.

Process Summary

To use Threshold Billing, after completing the above prerequisites:

1. You create a Threshold Billing Rule that specifies the minimum amount of unbilled orders that should accumulate before an invoice is created for the orders.
2. Then you assign the threshold to an account's billing group(s) in the Aria application (at the account or billing group level) or using an API.
3. You may also choose to subscribe to threshold-related event notifications (examples: order-related notifications, Account Billing Group Modified, or financial transaction notifications).

Additional Threshold-related API Features

These additional API features apply to Threshold Billing:

Important Notes

• Some account and plan instance statuses do not allow order creation and/or invoicing. Please see the Account Statuses and Plan Instance Statuses documentation for more information.
• If a plan is in dunning, you might not be able to create an unbilled order to be invoiced with that plan. Example: if a plan is in the suspended status due to dunning, you cannot create an unbilled order to be invoiced with that plan. Please see the Plan Instance Statuses documentation for more information.
• Currently, you can assign only 1 threshold to each billing group. However, for each account, you can assign the same threshold to different billing groups or assign a different threshold to each billing group.
• Invoices may still be created for orders even if an assigned threshold is not reached. Example:
  1. You assign a $100 threshold to an account's billing group.
  2. You call the create_order_m API to place an order for a $45 item and pass 1 into the <bill_immediately> field (this means that the order will be invoiced, even though it's below the threshold).  
  3. A $45 invoice is created for the order. 
• If you cancel an order, that will reduce the unbilled order balance.
  
  Example: You have an account whose billing group's threshold is $200 and you create a $190 order, then you cancel the order. If you create a $10 order after that, no invoice will be generated because the canceled $190 order was removed from the unbilled order balance. The unbilled order balance is now $10, not $200 ($190 + $10). If you create a $190 order, an invoice will be generated because the $200 threshold was reached.
• Once an invoice is created based on reaching a threshold, the unbilled order balance is reset to $0. So if you void an invoice for an order before or after a payment is collected for that invoice, that will not reduce the unbilled order balance.
  
  Example: You have an account whose billing group's threshold is $100 and you create a $150 order. Then an invoice is created because the threshold was reached. After that you create a $90 order, then you void the $150 invoice. The unbilled order balance is now $90, not -$60 ($90 - $150). If you create a $10 order, an invoice will be generated because the $100 threshold was reached.
• Only orders in the Order Filled status are included in the unbilled order balance. An order is put in the Order Filled status only if you:
  • Call the create_order_m or create_order_with_plan_m API and set the <bill_immediately> field to 0; or
  • Create an order in the Aria application and under Invoice Immediately?, select No and Allow this order's line items to be reflected on the next regularly schedule periodic invoice for this account; or
  • Use the Aria application to change the Status of an order from Order Held to Order Filled. See Use Case 7 for more information.
• When you create an order using the create_order_m or create_order_with_plan_m API and pass a value into the  <bill_immediately> field, that may override your setting for the Auto Bill Orders parameter (under Configuration > Billing > Invoice Settings).
• The total order amount before discounts, service credits, cash credits, surcharges, or taxes is considered when a threshold-based invoice is created.
  
  Examples:
  • You assign a $100 threshold to an account's billing group. Then the customer places a $100 order. If a $20 coupon is applied to the invoice, an invoice for $80 will be created for the order.
  • You assign a $200 threshold to an account's billing group. Then the customer places a $185 order and a $30 inline or separate surcharge is added for a final total of $215. No invoice will be created for the order.
  • You assign a $200 threshold to an account's billing group. Then the customer places a $200 order and a $20 inline or separate surcharge is added. A $220 invoice will be created for the order.
  • You assign a $100 threshold to an account's billing group. Then the customer places a $95 order. If $10 in taxes are added to the order, no invoice will be created for that order.

• Be sure to set up a threshold for each required currency. You cannot assign a threshold to an account if the account currency and threshold's currency are different.
• You may want to set your thresholds based on how often you want to receive event notifications or communicate with your customers. This will allow you to avoid sending too many messages to the same customer who places many orders (example: multiple invoices will be created on the same day if a customer reaches the threshold several times in the same day). Set these parameters with the awareness that your customers may be invoiced and charged every time their unbilled orders reach your specified threshold:
  • If you set Auto-Collect On Order Invoicing (under Configuration > Payments > Payment Settings) to True, a payment will be collected whenever an invoice is created after a threshold is reached.
  • If you set Auto-Send Statement On Order Invoicing (under Configuration > Notifications > Notification Settings) to True, a statement will be sent to the customer whenever an invoice is created after a threshold is reached.
• Take note of the days until due (at the collection group or payment method level) that applies to the invoices created for orders. Threshold Billing honors the applicable number of days until due for payments to be collected after invoices are created. This means that a payment for an unbilled order that reached a threshold may be collected before the associated plan's anniversary date. Examples: