Ordering Consumption Schedules with Standard Subscriptions

When you order a standard subscription product related to a consumption schedule, Salesforce Billing generates usage summaries based on the schedule's billing term and billing term unit. The term and term unit represent the length of one usage summary, repeated through the order product's start and end date. (Salesforce Billing Managed Package)

For example, you could have a standard subscription order product that bills monthly in arrears from 12/07/2018 through 12/06/19. Its order product consumption schedule has a 1-quarter term. You get one 3-month usage summary per quarter during your order product’s term, totaling 4 usage summaries.

Usage summaries have their own next billing dates and inherits its next billing date from its summary end date. During an invoice run or when you invoice an order, Salesforce Billing looks at the next billing dates on order products and usage summaries. If an invoice run with a target date of 01/06/19 evaluates our order, it picks up the order product but it won’t pick up any of our usage summaries as the earliest summary has a next billing date of 03/06/19.

Usage Summary	Summary Start Date	Summary End Date	Next Billing Date	Status
1	12/07/18	03/06/19	03/06/19	New
2	03/07/19	06/06/19	06/06/19	New
3	06/07/19	09/06/19	09/06/19	New
4	09/07/19	12/06/19	12/06/19	New

If you want your order product and its usage summaries to appear on the same invoice, configure the consumption schedule so that its term matches your order product’s term. In this case, we could create a consumption schedule with a billing term of 1 and a billing term unit of Month. When a sales rep orders the product, Salesforce Billing creates a one-month usage summary each month during your order product's term, totaling 12 usage summaries.

Usage Summary	Summary Start Date	Summary End Date	Next Billing Date	Status
1	12/07/18	01/06/19	01/06/19	New
2	01/07/19	02/06/19	02/06/19	New
...	...	...	...	...
12	11/07/19	12/06/19	12/06/19	New

Since our order product’s initial next billing date falls on 01/06/19, an invoice run with a target date of 01/07/19 will pick up both the order product and the first usage summary. Further invoice runs will continue picking up both the order product and the monthly usage summary records at the same time unless a user overrides one of the next billing dates.

When an invoice run picks up a usage summary for invoicing, Salesforce Billing updates the summary’s invoice run processing status to show its position in the invoicing process. The usage summary’s invoice run processing status updates independently from the parent order product’s invoice run processing status.