Billing by the contact or device

Overview

Many Autotask customers like the simplicity of billing their clients a monthly fixed amount per end-user (contact) or per device. It is transparent to the clients and generates a predictable revenue stream for service providers. The counting of units is automated and the effort to generate invoices is significantly reduced. At the same time, Autotask has built in a lot of flexibility to support a large number of use cases.

EXAMPLE  Your customer has seven contacts that fall under your contract. They are associated with the "Managed Services: User-Based" billing product, for which you charge $100/month. You are also billing by the device for four Datto Siris devices that are providing continuity services.

Shortly after midnight (of your default location's time zone) on a date you select, active contacts or devices are counted automatically, and the charges for the next billing period are created. Unlike services or block purchases, future billing events do not have to be pre-created. As with all charges, these can be edited before they are approved and posted. Refer to Contract charges generated from billing rules.

In addition to standard (flat) pricing, contact and device billing products support volume and tiered pricing, a feature not available with standard products. Refer to Setting up volume-based and tiered pricing. They appear on the Price List, with "(Per Contact)" or "(Per Device)" appended to the name. Refer to Managing your price list.

Comparing per-contact/device billing with subscriptions and recurring services

At first glance, it might seem that per-contact/device billing is a lot like subscription billing or recurring services contracts. All three generate recurring billing items. The comparison table will show, however, that per-contact/device billing has a number of advantages that the other options can't match.

How Autotask knows what to bill for

  1. Autotask has created special billing products for billing by the contact or device. Your first step is to define these offerings.

EXAMPLE  We will offer a product called "Managed Services: User-Based" for a contact for a monthly charge of $100.

EXAMPLE  We will offer "Continuity Services" for a device for $400/month.

  1. The next step is to associate each contact and device with the right billing product.

EXAMPLE  All contacts at Franklin Associates are associated with "Managed Services: User-Based"

EXAMPLE  4 Datto Siris devices are covered by a product called "Continuity Services".

  1. We set up a contract as the billing vehicle and configure the billing rules for both billing products.

EXAMPLE  We create a contract named "Franklin Associates RBB" and add two billing rules for the "Managed Services: User-Based" and "Continuity Services" billing products.

NOTE  The billing products are the element that connects the contacts and devices to the billing rules and the contract. Autotask knows that the billing rule for a billing product is the way to bill for contacts and devices associated with the same billing products. You do not have to manually create an explicit connection.

  1. On the "Determine Units/Create Charges on:" date, the billing rules count contacts and devices that share the same billing product. This count is the unit count for the billing product for the next billing period. The appropriate charges are created for the next billing period. The billing item date is the start date of the billing period.

EXAMPLE  The billing rules found 7 contacts and 4 devices that matched their billing product.

  1. The charges are approved and posted. Like any other charge, they can easily be edited before they are posted.
  2. The charges are invoiced. A billing rule setting determines if the covered contacts and devices will be listed individually.

Setup

Refer to Automating billing for devices.

Best Practices