New commerce experience in CSP - Azure billing

Appropriate roles: Admin agent | Billing admin | Global admin

This article explains how to access and understand the invoice and reconciliation file structure related to billing for the Azure plan. Billing under the Azure plan is a simplified billing experience using an aligned single billing date and calendar month-based billing period.

Summary of billing essentials

• Invoice date: Invoice and reconciliation file will be available in the Partner Center dashboard/API by the eighth (midnight UTC).

• Invoice billing period: The invoice billing period is aligned to the calendar month, for example, 10/1-10/31, 11/1-11/30.

• Charge service periods: Consumption charges align with the calendar month. Assume a billed partner adds Azure services via an Azure plan on 10/15, and the customer begins using Azure services on 10/15. In that case, the billed partner will receive an invoice/recon on 11/8 for customer consumption for the service period 10/15-10/31. The next month's invoice should be generated on 12/8 and include all charges for the service period 11/1-11/31.

On the other hand, license-based charges usually align with the purchase date. Assume the billed partner purchases a monthly office subscription on 10/15. In that case, the billed partner will receive an invoice/recon for the customer for the service period 10/15–11/14 on 11/8. The following month's invoice, generated on 12/8, includes all charges for the 11/15–12/14 service period. However, partners can align license-based billing to the calendar month. For more information, please read Align new commerce experience subscription end dates.

• Invoice payment term: Net 60 days.

• Invoice currency: Effective August 2021, all partners will be billed in the partner location currency regardless of the location of the customer to whom you sold the products.

• Partner incentives: Paid 45 days from the end of the invoice month.

Access your invoices and reconciliation files

The global admin or billing admin for your company will receive an email when an invoice is ready to view.

To access the invoice and reconciliation file:

1. Sign in to the Partner Center dashboard and select the Billing tile.

2. Select the tab for the Recurring and One-time and the currency you're interested in.

   

3. Select Invoice or Reconciliation file.

   To view historical invoices and reconciliation files, expand the Billing history row below.

About usage data

• Azure plan is the root or top-level container for usage. All usage is tied back to a single Azure plan.

• Within a plan, there will be one or more Azure subscriptions. These subscriptions are containers used for resource management and deployment.

• Within a subscription, resource groups add to group resources. Every resource is deployed to one resource group.

• Examples of resources include virtual machines and storage accounts.

• Resource emit meters: Meters are measurements of consumption of a resource, and one resource may emit usage for multiple meters. Meters are identified by a ProductId, SKUId, and AvailabilityId.

Hierarchy of subscription resource groups and metering

Azure account (tenant):

• Subscription A

  • ResourceGroup 1

    • Virtual machine (resource)
      • Compute meter
    • Virtual network (resource)
      • No billing meter

  • ResourceGroup 2

    • Virtual machine (resource)
      • Computer meter
    • Premium SSD-managed disk (resource)
      • Storage capacity meter
      • Storage operations meter

• Subscription B

  • ResourceGroup 1

    • Azure SQL (resource)
      • DTU meter
    • VPN Gateway (resource)
      • VPN gateway meter

  • ResourceGroup 2

    • Virtual Network Interface (resource)
      • No billing meter

About your invoice

• Invoice will be available no later than the eighth of each month.

• Partners have 60 days to remit payment.

• The billing period will cover a given calendar month, for example, 10/1-10/31.

• Charges are net of adjustments (amount is net of “Partner earned credit for services managed").

• Review the invoice recon file and daily rated usage file for more billing details.

  

About your invoice reconciliation file

• Each Azure plan and meter combination may have up to two billing lines on the reconciliation (recon) file.

• If the meter qualified for any type of discount or credit (such as tiered discounts or the Partner earned credit for services managed) throughout the entire calendar month, then the recon file will only contain one billing line. The column PriceAdjusmentDescription will reference the discount or earned credit.

• If no resources for a particular meter qualify for discount or partner earned credit, the recon file has only one billing line, and the effective unit price is the retail price (which is the unit price).

• If the meter, or any resources emitting that meter, qualified for Partner earned credit for services managed for a part of the month, the recon file will contain two billing lines. One line will represent the days the meter qualified and the second line will represent the days the meter didn't qualify.

Note

You can reconcile your Azure consumption in your one-time purchase recon file. To do this, go to your daily-rated usage recon file and search for your SubscriptionID. This will display all costs associated with your Azure plan ID. Your Azure SubscriptionID is shown as the EntitlementID.

Read the daily usage file

• Subscription meters under an Azure plan are rated, and are cumulated, on a daily basis.

• Partner earned credit for services managed is determined and applied on a daily basis.

• Every subscription meter will have a row for every day of the month where there was consumption.

• In the example below:

  • Meter qualified for Partner earned credit for services managed from 7/1 - 7/3 (note the effective unit price is retail price less partner earned credit.

  • Meter didn't qualify for Partner earned credit for services managed from 7/4 - 7/7 (note the effective unit price is retail price).

  • Meter qualified for Partner earned credit for services managed from 7/8 - 7/31 (note the effective unit price is retail price less partner earned credit).

  

Invoice in partner location currency

Azure services through an Azure plan will be priced in USD and billed in the partner country's assigned currency. If the billing currency is non-USD, then the Foreign exchange (FX) rate used will be shown on the last page of the invoice. FX rates are determined monthly and applied to the following invoice. For a full list of country currencies, view the new commerce offers country availability and partner currency matrix.

Microsoft applies a predetermined exchange rate to base USD prices to arrive at total charges incurred for Azure services purchased or consumed each calendar month. The monthly exchange rate is the mid-rate published by Thomson Reuters (typically) two business days prior to the preceding month-end at 4:00 pm GMT.

For example, Microsoft’s December exchange rate would be the Thomson Reuters mid-rate on or around November 29 for a given currency. That rate will be applied to all purchases in that currency from December 1 to December 31.

Azure reservations

If purchasing Azure reservations through an Azure plan, you can choose either one-time or monthly billing.

Azure spending

Azure spending enables partners to:

• View, manage, and receive alerts for budget set at a customer level

• View total estimated spending on an Azure plan (broken down by resource and meter level)

The billing model for Azure services through an Azure plan is post-pay consumption. To avoid a bigger bill than anticipated, partners can apply a monthly budget and track the percentage of usage. A budget can be applied to one customer or multiple customers at one time.

Next steps

• See how the partner earned credit (PEC) is calculated. Sign in to the Partner Center dashboard and select the Pricing workspace to find pricing lists available.

• Learn about purchasing the Azure plan

• See the price list for the new commerce experience in CSP