Bill subscriptions based on usage

Path: Business functionality > Sales > Subscription billing > Bill subscriptions based on usage · tier official · system sales · narrative reviewed (checked by Opus)

Overview

Usage-based billing lets a company import usage data from external vendors, calculate prices, and create contract invoices for subscription services with usage-dependent fees. The overview page explains the flow, including CSV import, billing proposals, credit memos, and refunds.

Setup pages cover the building blocks: data exchange definitions (CSV field mappings), usage data suppliers, supplier references, and customers and subscriptions master data. Subscription lines in usage billing define the pricing method. The import page describes file or API import, subscription matching, and pricing. The Connect Supplier Subscription to Subscription page links imported data to the correct subscription line. Extend contract adds subscription lines when imported data reveals missing subscriptions or references. Rebilling covers corrections for periods already invoiced.

Start with the overview, then set up a data exchange definition and a supplier before importing data.

Key points

• Data exchange definitions set file encoding, column separation, table mappings, and transformation rules for CSV usage imports.
• Usage data can be imported through a file or through an API.
• Pricing options on subscription lines are Usage Quantity, Fixed Quantity, and Unit Cost Surcharge, set with the Usage Based Billing toggle and Usage Based Pricing field.
• Usage data suppliers have settings such as Create Customers, Create Subscriptions, Unit Price from Import, and Vendor Invoice per.
• Supplier references map supplier subscriptions and products to contracts and items, and support customer reference creation and automatic subscription creation.
• The Connect Supplier Subscription to Subscription page links imported data to the correct subscription line before processing.
• Extend contract adds subscription lines when imported data shows missing subscriptions or references.
• Rebilling treats new data for already invoiced periods as adjustments and invoices only the delta, with credit memos where needed.

Learn pages

• Data exchange definitions: You can use data exchange definitions in usage-based billing.
• Extend contract: You can extend contracts in usage-based billing.
• Import data in usage-based billing: You can import and process data in usage-based billing.
• Link supplier subscriptions with subscriptions: You can link supplier subscriptions with subscriptions in usage-based billing.
• Overview of usage-based billing: Get an overview of the features for usage-based billing.
• Rebilling usage data: Business Central automatically rebills usage data that arrives for an already-invoiced period.
• Subscription lines in usage billing: You can use subscription lines in usage-based billing.
• Usage data supplier references: You can use references in usage-based billing.
• Usage data suppliers: You can use suppliers in usage-based billing.
• Usage-based billing customers and subscriptions: You can use customer subscriptions in usage-based billing.

Business Central pages and reports

The pages, reports and queries this hub’s Learn pages name (ms.search.form, API reference), joined to the code by exact object id (data/index/docs-objects.json); a page shows the table it runs on.

• Page 8031 “Connect Subscription To SO” · captioned “Connect Supplier Subscription to Subscription” · on Table 8016 “Usage Data Supp. Subscription”
• Page 8035 “Usage Data Billings” · on Table 8006 “Usage Data Billing”
• Page 8036 “Usage Data Blobs” · on Table 8011 “Usage Data Blob”
• Page 8037 “Usage Data Customers” · captioned “Usage Data Supp. Customers” · on Table 8012 “Usage Data Supp. Customer”
• Page 8038 “Usage Data Generic Import” · on Table 8018 “Usage Data Generic Import”
• Page 8041 “Usage Data Imports” · on Table 8013 “Usage Data Import”
• Page 8042 “Usage Data Subscriptions” · on Table 8016 “Usage Data Supp. Subscription”
• Page 8043 “Usage Data Supp. References” · captioned “Usage Data Supplier References” · on Table 8015 “Usage Data Supplier Reference”
• Page 8044 “Usage Data Suppliers” · on Table 8014 “Usage Data Supplier”
• Page 8053 “Customer Contracts” · captioned “Customer Subscription Contracts” · on Table 8052 “Customer Subscription Contract”
• Page 8096 “Usage Data Billing Metadata” · on Table 8021 “Usage Data Billing Metadata”

Source: Microsoft Learn (CC BY 4.0). Descriptions are Learn’s own.