Charges 

Overview 

You can define plans and addons that map to your products and services in your product catalog. Often you may need to bill your customers for products or services that are non-recurring.

Charges represent products or services that are non-recurring, either purchased once immediately or scheduled for purchase when certain events happen such as subscription activation, trial start, and so on. A charge can also be applied for a customer record when it is not associated with any particular subscription.

Apart from the predefined charges that form a part of the product catalog, you can also add quick charges on an adhoc basis. These can be applied via the Chargebee user interface or via API.

Creating a Charge 

To create a new charge in your Chargebee site, follow these steps:

1. Click Product Catalog > Charges > + Create Charge.
2. In the Create a New Charge page, click the Product Family drop-down and select the Product family to associate this charge to a product family.
3. Enter an Internal Name for the charge that helps you identify the charge internally on your Chargebee site.
4. You can add a Description to include additional details about the charge.
5. The Charge ID is generated based on the Internal Name that you have specified. You can modify this id as required. The charge Id is the unique identifier of the charge and when a subscription is created or updated via the API from your app/website.
6. Under Customer-Facing Info, you can enable the Display in Self-Serve Portal checkbox to make this charge available in the Self-serve Portal. The Self-serve Portal can be used by your customers to make changes to their subscriptions.
7. Click Create.
   

Defining Price Points for a Charge 

Once you create charges, you can start adding multiple price points for each currency. To define a price point for a charge, follow these steps:

1. Click Product Catalog > Charges. Select the charge for which you are creating price points.

2. On the details page, the Pricing section displays all the currencies that you have configured. Go to the currency that you want to add for this charge, and click Set Price.

   

3. In the Create a Price Point page, you can modify the basic attributes of the charge's price point such as:

   
   • External Name: This will be used on all customer-facing resources such as Invoices, Quotes, Checkout, and Self-serve Portal.
   • Internal Name: This helps you identify the price point internally on your Chargebee site.
   • Plan Price Point ID: The Charge Price Point ID is generated based on the Internal Name that you specify. You can modify this id as required. This Id is the unique identifier of the price point and when a subscription is created or updated via the API from your app/website.

4. In the Pricing section, you can configure the pricing attributes of the price point such as:

   
   • Pricing Model: Choose your preferred pricing model in which you want to charge your customers.
   • Price: Based on the pricing model that you choose, you can specify the price for the charge's price point.

5. Under Customer facing info, you can do the following:

   
   • Add a description to the price point which gets displayed on all customer-facing resources such as Invoice, Quotes, Checkout and Self-serve Portal.
   • Additionally, specify Invoice notes that will appear in all the invoice pdfs that are generated for this charge's price point.

6. Taxes: If Taxes have been configured, you can choose to exempt a charge price point from taxes by unchecking This charge price point is subject to taxes. If you are choosing to keep the plan taxable, choose a tax profile for it. This would determine — during invoicing — what taxes are applied to the price of the charge.

   

7. Accounting Information: The Accounting Information section helps Chargebee sync up with any accounting applications that you integrate with, like Xero and QuickBooks. Each of the accounting fields captures information that helps track product-specific sales/revenue from an accounting perspective.

   • SKU: Store Keeping Unit or SKU is a name used to identify a product/service in inventory management or accounting systems. You can use this as an alternative name for your charge and it will be used as the Product Name in the accounting system.
   • Accounting code: This field captures your Accounting systems' General Ledger Account code/name. When product information is synced to the Accounting system, the product-specific information will be synced with this account as captured here. This is a mandatory field. You cannot proceed with accounting integration if this field is left blank.
   • Accounting category: The Accounting Category captures product-specific additional metadata or categorization for reporting purposes in the accounting systems (such as regions you are selling to or branches you are selling from). It should be entered in the specific format. E.g. "Region: Northern"

8. Click Create.

You can define multiple price points for each charge, based on the currencies in which you want to offer your charges.

Once you have created your charges and defined price points as required, you can start adding charges to customers or subscriptions in several ways.

Adding a Charge 

The +Add Charge action can be found on the details page of both a Subscription or a Customer.

Adding a Charge to a Customer 

Go to the respective customer details page and do the following:

1. Click +Add Charge.

   

2. Select the Charge that you want to apply to the Customer.

3. If needed, change the price of the Charge in the Unit Price field.

4. Select a coupon to apply. (Only one-time coupons that are applicable to the Charges are available here).

5. Specify the Service period:

   • Choose the time period that the charge is to be accounted for, by specifying the from and to dates/times of the period.
   • The default period is the current date/time and can be set to a period from any date/time in the past and into the future.
   • Chargebee accounts for this service period while running the revenue recognition and deferred revenue reports.

6. Click Add.

Adding a Charge to a Subscription 

Go to the respective subscription details page and do the following:

1. Click +Add Charge.
2. Select the Charge that you want to apply to the Subscription. Any Charge, including those that may have been restricted for the plan chosen, can be applied using this action.
3. If needed, change the price of the Charge.
4. Specify the Service period:
   • Choose the time period that the Charge is to be accounted for. Specify the from and to dates/times of the period.
   • The period must start after the subscription start date/time.
   • Chargebee accounts for this service period while running the revenue recognition and deferred revenue reports.
5. Choose whether to invoice the charge immediately or to add it to unbilled charges of the subscription.
6. Click Add.

Adding a Charge while Editing a Subscription 

You can also add charges while editing a subscription.

1. On the subscription details page, click Edit Subscription.
2. Click +Add Charge and choose the charge that you want to add to the subscription. Any charge that has been restricted for the plan selected, will not be available.
3. Select the event at which to apply the charge. For some events, you can also choose whether the addon is charged just once or every time the event happens.
4. Service period:
   • Choose the number of days that the charge is to be accounted for. The period is considered to start on the day/time the addon is charged.
   • Chargebee accounts for this service period while running the revenue recognition and deferred revenue reports.
5. Click Add.
6. If needed, change the price of the charge, and click Update to save your changes to the subscription.

Adding Quick Charges 

You can collect an ad-hoc payment from a customer or a subscription using the 'Create Quick Charge' option. This option can be quite useful, especially when you come across scenarios where you have to collect payments from customers for goods or services that are not normally included as a part of their subscription model. It can also be used when you want to collect payment for a product or service that is not modeled into your system like a non-recurring addon.

A quick charge can be applied to a customer or a subscription via the Chargebee UI or via API.

Adding Quick Charge via UI 

On your Chargebee site, the Create Quick Charge action on the details page of either a Subscription or a Customer can be used to add a quick charge.

• Applying to a Customer

  1. Select the currency in which you are adding the charge.
  2. Specify the amount for the charge.
  3. Service period:
     • Choose the time period that the charged service is to be accounted for. Specify the from and to dates/times of the period.
     • The default period is the current date/time and can be set to a period from any date/time in the past and into the future.
     • Chargebee accounts for this service period while running the revenue recognition and deferred revenue reports.

       Note
       The time component can only be chosen when your site runs on millisecond-based billing mode.

  4. Select a coupon to apply. (Only one-time coupons that are applicable to the invoice amount are available here).
  5. Provide a description for the charge.
  6. Click Add.

• Applying to a Subscription

  1. Select the currency in which you are adding the charge.
  2. Specify the amount for the charge.
  3. Service period:
     • Choose the time period that the charged service is to be accounted for. Specify the from and to dates/times of the period.
     • The period must start after the subscription start date/time.
     • Chargebee accounts for this service period while running the revenue recognition and deferred revenue reports.

       Note
       The time component can only be chosen when your site runs on millisecond-based billing mode.

  4. Provide a description for the charge.
  5. Choose to invoice the charge immediately or add it to unbilled charges. An email notification can also be sent when the invoice is generated.
     • Coupons cannot be applied to the charge if invoiced immediately.
     • However, when the charge is added to unbilled charges, any invoice-amount coupon on the subscription will also apply to this charge.
     • Click Add.

If there have been multiple one-time charges against the subscription, the total of all the charges will be shown on the subscription details page.

Note: You cannot view the total one-time charges for a Customer on the UI.

Adding One-time Charges and Quick Charges 

In addition to adding charges or creating quick charges for a customer or subscription, you can also add one-time charges and quick charges together. When you want to add multiple ad-hoc charges or quick charges to a customer or a subscription, you can make use of the Add One-time Charges and Quick Charges action.

To raise an Invoice for multiple ad-hoc charges and addons, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the details page of the customer or subscription.

2. Click Add One-Time Charges and Quick Charges on the Action panel.

   

3. In the Add One-time Charges and Quick Charges page, click Add Quick Charge to add any ad-hoc charges.

4. In the Add Charge pop-up, enter the following details:

   
   • Currency: Specify the currency for the charge.
   • Amount: Specify the amount for the charge.
   • Service Period: Select the time period that the charged service is to be accounted for. Specify the from and to dates/times of the period. Chargebee considers this service period for the revenue recognition and deferred revenue reports. Note : The time component can only be chosen when your site runs on millisecond-based billing mode.
   • Provide a description for the charge.
   • Select Taxable if this charge is taxable (if left unselected, tax is not applied on this charge).
   • Click Add. You can use Add Quick Charge to add more charges as required.

5. Click Add Charge to add non-recurring addons.

   • Select a charge and click Add.
   • Select a currency for the charge and specify the period that the charge is added for.
     • Chargebee considers this service period for the revenue recognition and deferred revenue reports.
     • Note: The time component can only be chosen when your site runs on millisecond-based billing mode.
   • Tax related fields as defined for the charges are displayed.
   • Click Add. You can click Add Charge to add more non-recurring addons as required.

6. You can click Add Coupon/Coupon Code to apply a coupon. (Multiple coupons of the same type can also be added. Contact support to avail this feature.)

7. If the charge is for a physical good to be shipped, you can add the shipping address details. You can choose to ship to the customer's billing address, or you can even add the shipping address details. Any existing shipping addresses available for the customer are also available for selection.

8. Select the preferred Payment method from the dropdown.

9. Specify the PO number if required.

10. Under Invoice Notes, you can add additional information to be displayed to your customers on the invoice contextually. Invoice notes configured for Invoices in general, and those added for customer or subscription, non-recurring addon, if any, gets displayed here as well. You can remove some of these notes and add a new note as required. This note is displayed first in the invoice under Invoice Notes.

11. Click Preview and Send to preview the invoice, and click Create Invoice.