Scenario

The following scenario will be used as an example through the FAQs:

This KB article can assist with the list of configuration and data preparation items to get ready for an invoicing run- https://portal.iotap.com/knowledgebase/article/KA-01303/en-us

FAQ’s

Q: How are Billing Cycles and Invoice Dates determined?
A:Billing Cycles are a function of Start Date and Billing Frequency of Billing Contract and continue until the End Date of Billing Contract.

For the scenario above, the Billing Cycles will be: –

The Invoice Date is always the next day of Cycle Start Date. This allows Partners to bill early while allowing them time to set-up the Billing Contract and the associated Subscriptions (until EOD of Billing Contract Start Date).

Q: How is Invoice record associated with Account, Billing Contract, and Subscription invoicing process?
A:An Account/Customer can have multiple Billing Contracts, each Billing Contract can have multiple - Subscriptions, Non-Recurring Items (NRIs) and Services(T&M)

When an Invoices is generated for a Billing Contract, each billable item is presented as a line-item on the invoice.

Which billing frequencies are supported by Work 365?

• Annual
• Quarterly
• Monthly

📘

Other billing frequencies like weekly, or semi-annual frequencies are currently not supported.

Q: While generating an invoice, the process says it completed successfully but no invoice was generated.

A:Work 365 Invoice Engine will create an invoice when it finds at least one Active, Billable item on the Invoice Date for a billing cycle. Work 365 invoices for Subscriptions are based on the data in the License Change Logs If the effective date is outside of the date range of the Billing Contract there will be resulting Invoice.

Referring to the scenario above, the subscription came into effect on 15th Jan 2018. Hence, an invoice will be not be generated for the first Billing Cycle (1st Jan 2018 – 31st March 2018) since no subscription was in existence on the Invoice date (2nd Jan 2018) of that Billing Cycle.

The engine derives the state of the system on the invoice date which helps to make the whole Invoicing process deterministic. It’s pretty intelligent that way!

📘

Pro-Tip to troubleshoot invoicing data review the License Changes Logs related to a Subscriptions. All invoicing for Subscriptions is based on License Change Logs!

Q: So how do I invoice subscriptions effective in the middle of a Billing Cycle?

A:There are two ways to invoice them:

1. They will automatically get billed as change logs in the invoice for next Billing Cycle. The price will be pro-rated on the remaining period of the current Billing Cycle.
   Option #1 will most likely not be preferable especially for Quarterly and Annual Billing Contracts where the wait for the next billing cycle might be too long.
2. The second option is to invoice them as a Change Log Invoice. A Change Log Invoices will scan for un-invoiced change logs and generate an Invoice for them immediately.

Q:What is the unit of pro-rate for Change Log subscriptions?
A:Work 365 Supports two Pro-rate units: Months and Days. Pro-rate units can be configured globally and overridden for each Billing Contract.

Q:How is the Pro-rate price calculated for ChangeLogs?
A:When the Pro-rate unit is Months: The price is calculated for the number of months (rounded up) from the date on which change was made to the end date of the current Billing Cycle.

Price Per Unit = Number of months * Monthly Unit Selling Price

Changelogs will only be included in the immediate next billing period. It is absolutely important to ensure that change logs are included in the following month and for every missing Billing period a Manual invoice should be generated.

When the Pro-rate unit is Days: The price is calculated for the “number of complete months and number of leftover days” from the end date of current Billing Cycle to the date on which change was made.

Price Per Unit = (Number of complete months Monthly Unit Selling Price) + (Number of leftover days (Monthly Unit Selling Price/Number of days in a month in which the change was made))

Q:How to rectify the Price List Error (At least one price list should be available in the system for the subscription currency)?

A:As inferred from the error message, create a new price List with the subscription currency in Dynamics 365, ensure its active and try again.

Q: The on-demand Invoice Generation through Dynamics 365 UI is great. Can this process be automated further?
A:Yes. There are two kinds of jobs that run against tenants and generate invoices automatically.

Regular Invoice job: – This process runs early morning every day. It scans Billing Contracts for which Invoice Date falls on that date and generates invoices against them.

This process is set-up automatically during Work 365 registration.

Change Log Invoice job: – This process runs weekly towards the end of the week. It scans for un-invoiced change logs and generates change log invoices against them.

This process is set-up automatically for Annual and Quarterly Billing Contracts. Please send an email to [email protected] if you would also like to run it for Monthly Billing Contracts.

Q: How is the reduction in quantities/suspension of subscriptions treated?
A:Like increase, the decrease in the quantity of a subscription also results in changelogs. Negative changelogs in the middle of the billing cycle will be refunded only if refunds are enabled, otherwise, they will be ignored from the invoice.

If billing in advance the reduced quantities will be considered for invoicing during the subsequent billing cycles. If billing in arrears the refunds will be included in the current billing cycle.

Deactivation of subscriptions works the same way as reductions in quantities

If the decrease in subscription quantity is accompanied with an increase in quantity within the same day, then the following applies: –

If the net change is positive – Work 365 Invoice will charge for “net” increase in subscription quantity, not the individual increase in subscription quantity.
If the net change is negative or zero – No charges will be applied for the increase in subscription quantity and refund will be processed for the “net” decrease in subscription quantity only if refunds are enabled.

Refunds can be enabled/disabled at the global level or at Billing Contract level through the “Process Refunds” field. The setting at Billing Contract level will override the global setting.

Q: Work 365 Invoice shows different line items (with different unit price) for the same subscription even though it’s price has remained constant. How is that possible?
This would be the case with change log items added at different points of the Billing Cycle.

Price Per Unit = Monthly Unit Selling Price (Subscription) * Remaining period in the Billing cycle

If the remaining period in the billing cycle varies across license changelogs, they will show up as separate line items on the invoice.

Extending the scenario stated earlier, let’s say that another 5 units of Office 365 Business Premium were added on 15th February 2018. Assuming monthly pro-rate, this would reflect in invoice line items as: –

Q: Why do my Invoices show Write-In Products?Write-In Products appear on an invoice when

• Subscriptions do not have a Product associated with it
• If the Product does not have a Price List Item associated with the Price List on the Invoice/Billing Contract. - https://portal.iotap.com/knowledgebase/article/KA-01223/en-us