Plans supporting this feature: Growth Scale
Overview
When configuring a plan via Configurations → Product catalogue → Plans, you can define a billing delay. The billing delay is configured in hours or days.
What is a billing delay?
You can defer invoice generation and payment deadlines by setting a billing delay. The delay starts at the beginning of the subscription's current billing period. During this window, the invoice remains in Unfinalized status and is not yet billable. This approach can help with better financial planning and improved customer satisfaction.
Define a billing delay if you want to:
Allow extra time to review or dispute charges before being billed
Align billing cycles with specific accounting or budget periods for easier reconciliation
Accommodate delays in project completion or service delivery that impact final billing amounts
Consolidate the usage of a usage-based billing product
The billing delay applies to recurring period invoices only. The first invoice of a subscription and invoices generated after reactivation are never delayed. They are created as billable immediately.
Note
With the billing delay, the generated unfinalized invoice can still be adjusted — no accounting invoice is created, no PDF can be downloaded, no email is sent, and no accounting number is generated while the invoice is in Unfinalized status.
The following changes are possible while an invoice is unfinalized:
Manual order lines can be added or removed
Plan and add-on order lines are locked and cannot be changed or deleted
Unfinalized invoices can still be canceled; however, the system first finalizes them to ensure traceability, applies any outstanding usage, and then processes the cancellation according to the configured rules. See Cancel an unfinalized invoice for details.
Mid-period upgrades or downgrades are reflected directly in the existing unfinalized invoice through pro-rations and adjustments. Subscriptions cannot expire while unfinalized invoices are still open.
The billing delay does not affect dunning periods or offline payment terms. Both remain anchored to the accounting invoice creation date.
Usage-based billing behavior
As long as the invoice is in Unfinalized status, usage can still be added within the timeframe defined in the billing delay. If usage is defined on this subscription, you will see a blue banner indicating that usage and the invoice amount may still change before finalization.
Finalize an invoice
On the day of subscription renewal, the invoice is created in the system with the status Unfinalized. The invoice is automatically finalized after the set billing delay and moves to Pending status.
You can finalize the invoice manually by following these steps:
In the navigation bar click on Payments → Invoices.
Search for and click on the invoice you want to finalize.
Click on Finalize.
The invoice moves into the
PENDINGstatus.An accounting invoice is generated.
An accounting number is assigned.
PDF can be downloaded.
Email is sent to the customer.
Note
When manually finalizing, you will have the option to bill outstanding usage now, which appends any metered usage recorded up to that point before the invoice is finalized.
Cancel an unfinalized invoice
⚠️ Important
Cancelling an unfinalized invoice triggers finalization first. This means an accounting invoice is generated, an accounting number is assigned, and an email is sent to the customer before the cancellation is processed.
To cancel an unfinalized invoice, follow these steps:
In the navigation bar click on Payments → Invoices.
Search for and click on the invoice you want to cancel.
Click on Cancel.
Note
If usage exists on the invoice (usage-based billing), the usage is applied at finalization before the cancellation is processed. If your settings disallow zero-amount invoices and the invoice nets to zero, the entire invoice is cancelled rather than a zero-amount invoice being issued.
