Reconciliation and Invoices Overview
What is reconciliation?
Reconciliation is a process that involves analysing each product charge and confirming that the data is accurate.
You configure price margins for your resellers, customers, subscriptions and expect that to be reflected in the costs of the reconciliation files. And can then use those files as the base to invoice your resellers and customers.
What are the types of reconciliation files?
CloudCockpit provides these types of reconciliation files:
One Time: Includes Software Subscriptions, Perpetual Software, Reserved Instances, Azure Plan, Azure Savings Plan, New Commerce Experience license charges (such as Office 365) and Marketplace.
License: Includes legacy licensing charges.
Usage: Includes Azure Legacy charges. Only available for the CSP and Resellers.
Daily rated usage: Includes Azure Plan charges discriminated by Azure Subscription. Only available for the CSP and Resellers.
When are reconciliation files made available?
The availability of the reconciliation files in CloudCockpit is subject to Microsoft’s delays in issuing the invoices.
License and Usage are usually available two days after your CSP billing anniversary.
Example: If your anniversary is on September 12, your invoice will be available after September 14.
The billing period for these files is a month and starts on your billing anniversary date.
One Time and Daily Rated Usage are usually available by the 8th of each month.
The billing period is a full calendar month.
What is the currency of each invoice?
In License and Usage invoices, you’re billed for products in the currency of the country in which you’re located. The pricing currency is the same.
In the One Time invoice, the product’s pricing currency may be different from the invoice billing currency:
How do I download the reconciliation files?
Navigate to Administration > Invoices page in the portal:
- Select the Microsoft Tenant and type of invoice
- Click on Generate file to queue the reconciliation file for creation.
- When the status is Processing the reconciliation file is being generated.
- Once the file status changes to 'Available,' you can proceed to download it.
- In case the file generation fails, you have the option to attempt regeneration.
Can I integrate the invoice information with external systems?
If you have API Access to CloudCockpit then you can retrieve the invoices and their product charges through these API endpoints:
- Obtain all invoices
- Obtain the charges of a license invoice
- Obtain the charges of a usage invoice
- Obtain the charges of a one time invoice
- Obtain the charges of a daily rated usage invoice
For more information, check the API documentation relevant for your context:
How do Legacy licenses charges work?
There are two fundamental billing scenarios, annual and monthly. For a detailed explanation, please see the links below:
What is a New Commerce charge cycle?
A New Commerce charge cycle is the number of days you’re charged for a subscription, but it’s not the same as a billing period or calendar month.
Your subscription charge cycle is determined by the number of days in the month when you first purchase, renew, or make changes to it.
For example, if you purchased an annual Microsoft Office subscription on February 21, 2022, with a monthly billing plan, your first charge cycle would be from February 21 to March 20, 2022. The charge cycle ends one day before the same date of the following month or year or billing term, depending on the billing plan.
Charge type | Description |
new | Applied when you initially purchase a subscription to a product or service. |
| renew | Applied when a subscription is extended for another term, typically for the same duration as the original subscription period. |
cycleCharge | Refers to the recurring fees charged at regular intervals (like monthly or annually) for the continued use of a subscription. |
addQuantity | When your customers require more licenses or units of the product or service, you can increase the quantity. This charge type adjusts the billing accordingly by refunding or charging the difference based on the new quantity. |
removeQuantity | If customers need to reduce the number of licenses or units, you can increase the quantity. This charge type adjusts the billing by issuing refunds or modifying charges to reflect the decreased quantity. |
moveQuantity | Applies when you transfer licenses from one subscription to another, typically for upgrading to an advanced subscription or consolidating multiple subscriptions. It involves adjusting the billing to reflect the changes. |
cancelImmediate | When you decide to cancel a subscription, this charge type is applied. It stops future billing and access to the product or service, closing out the subscription. |
convert | This charge type is versatile and applies in several scenarios: upgrading from a free trial to a paid subscription, migrating to an advanced subscription, or changing the billing plan (like monthly to annual). It reflects the adjustment in billing due to these changes. |
customerCredit | Microsoft might offer credits to customers for different reasons, like service level agreement (SLA) breaches, service disruptions, or promotions. This charge type keeps track of these credits. |
extendTerm | This charge type is used when we extend a product's trial period. It gives customers more time to try the product before buying it. It ensures the billing system shows the extra trial time correctly without charging the customer too soon. |
What information is on the reconciliation files?
In CloudCockpit's reconciliation file, you will find nearly all the properties included in Microsoft's reconciliation files. Furthermore, it will also include:
- Price margins for resellers, customers, and subscriptions
- Internal identifiers for the Reseller, Customer, and Subscription
- Purchase Order (PO) number for subscriptions
A detailed explanation of each property depending on the context of the reconciliation file is found here:
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