New Features and Enhancements

The following features are new to Conga Billing in this release.

Marking a Payment Term as Default

You can now mark a payment term of your choice as a default payment term to be applied across all the transactions. To make a payment term, default, the values of certain fields must be set to True.

Payment Terms on Billing Schedule Records

Conga Billing fetches the payment term information from the order line item (OLI) and populates it on the billing schedule records (BSRs). Populating the payment term on the BSRs ensures that invoices have correct due dates.

Billing for the Swapped Products and Services

The swap functionality (of Conga CPQ) enables you to replace one product or service with another product or service. When you swap a product or service with another product or service:

• The status of the old product or service is updated to Cancelled and its billing header is marked as Pending Inactivation
• The status of the new product or service is updated to Upgraded and a new billing header, similar to new sales, is created.

Renewals Without a Custom Plan

Renewing a product or service without a custom plan is now possible. This enables you to switch the billing of a recurring subscription from custom billing to regular billing.

Renewals With a Custom Plan

Renewing a product or service with a custom plan is now possible. This enables you to switch the billing of a recurring subscription from regular billing to custom billing.

Ability to Switch Custom Plans During Renewal

During the renewal of a product or service, you may want to switch the billing of a recurring subscription from Custom Plan A to Custom Plan B. The switching from custom plan A to custom plan B happens in the upstream system during the renewal of the product or service and is passed to a Conga order. When the billing is initiated for this Conga order, the application creates the renewal billing schedule records (BSRs) per the new custom plan (Custom Plan B) updated on the billing header.

Querying and Retrieval of Custom Plans and Line Items Underneath

The API is enhanced to make it generic. You can now use a single API to retrieve a custom plan and its line items for order line items (OLIs) or CPQ line items.

The Implementation team can use the following API to query and retrieve the custom plan along with its line items:

https://<URL_of_the_Instance>/api/billing/v1/custom-plans/search

Supporting Advancement of Term for Products With Calendar Cycle Start

When you select the calendar cycle start month, it may interfere with the regular term of the billing schedule records. When the quarters align with the calendar cycle start month, few schedules are created for partial terms while several schedules overlap with the previous periods. Conga Billing enables you to change the terms of the products which has calendar cycle start date/month populated.

Supporting Advancement of Term for Products Without Overlapping Periods

You can advance the term of a recurring product where the periods do not overlap. Since the new periods do not align with the original schedule, the application cancels or refunds all the billing schedule records BSRs and billing schedule details (BSDs) (depending on their invoice status) for the original period and creates new BSRs and BSDs for the new periods.

Change Operation for Asset-Based Ordering

Conga Billing enables you to advance or delay the dates on the contract line without affecting the overall term. Advancing the dates leads to the advancement of the start and end dates of the contract. The change adds new periods to the contract's start and truncates a few periods from the end part of the contract. Postponing the dates causes a delay in both the start and end dates of the contract. It truncates a few periods from the contract's start and adds new periods to the end part of the contract.

Support for Amending the Start Date of the Contract of One-time Products to Delay It or Apply a Change Mid-term

One-time products can be subjected to amendment operations. If you amend them to push the start and end dates, the contract term may or may not change depending on the source of origin of the order line item, but the contract dates are changed. This change in the contract date disrupts the original BSR and a new BSR is created for the amended period.

Support for Amending the Start Date of the Contract of Recurring Products to Delay It or Apply a Change Mid-term

Pushing out the contract dates delays the contract's start and end dates. The following two possibilities arise with moving out of the start date:

• The contract term and TCV (Sales) remain unchanged after the amendment. For example, the contract start and end dates are moved out by one month. The amendment adds one month to the contract's end and truncates one month from the beginning of the contract. As a result, the contract term and TCV (Sales) remain unchanged after the amendment. However, the billing periods after the amendment do not align with the existing periods, disrupting the billing schedule records (BSRs).
• Either the contract term, TCV (Sales), or both are changed after the amendment. For example, the contract start and end dates are moved out by one month. The amendment adds one month to the contract's end but doesn't truncate one month from the beginning of the contract. As a result, the contract term, TCV (Sales), or both are changed after the amendment. The billing periods after the amendment do not align with the existing periods, disrupting the BSRs.

Rounding the Decimal Values for Renewed Schedules

When an existing product or service is renewed, the application shifts the rounded decimal values to the first or last renewed billing period governed by setting the Fee Amount Rounding Schedule to First or  Last.

Supporting Change in Term for Evergreen Products

Evergreen products are recurring products with a never-ending subscription until canceled. Advancing the term may lead to a scenario where the new periods may or may not overlap with the original periods. In both cases, if the last billing period is partial, the application extends the contract end date so that the partial period becomes a full period with a fee equal to that of a full period. Due to the extension in the contract term, certain fields on the billing header are auto-updated.

Supporting Change in Term for One-time Products

You can advance the contract dates of a one-time product keeping the term unchanged. Initiating the billing for a one-time product creates a single billing schedule record (BSR) and billing schedule detail (BSD). The new billing period never aligns with the original schedule when the contract date is advanced by a fixed period.

Changing the Status of Adjustment Billing Schedule Details

You can manually change the status of the adjustment BSDs from existing status to certain permissible destination values.

Use the following API to change the status of adjustment BSDs:

Post: /api/billing/v1/schedules/adjustment

Previewing the Billing Metrics for Cancellation

Conga Billing now enables you to preview the billing effect of asset-based operations without actually performing the actions. It allows you to see the financial impact of canceling a particular asset.

Use the following API to preview the billing metrics:

Post: /api/billing/v1/schedules/metrics.

Deleting Adjustment Billing Schedule Details

You can delete the unwanted adjustment BSDs within a billing schedule record (BSR), those across multiple BSRs of a single billing header (BH), or different billing headers. 

The Implementation team can use the following API to delete the adjustment BSDs:

https://<URL_of_the_Instance>/api/billing/v1/schedules/delete-adjustments.

Supporting Auto-update of Approval Stage

During an ABO operation, if an adjustment BSD’s derived invoice status is changed to Superseded or Cancelled, the Billing application now auto-updates the Approval Stage field to Cancelled.

Rounding the Decimals for Change Operation

Price changes may occur due to a discount or markup on the fee amount. When there is a rounding-off of the balances due to price change, the application shifts the rounded decimal values to the first or last billing period.

The rounding of decimal values does not apply to cancellation operations.

Supporting Forecast Billing on the Platform

You can forecast the billing for new sales of products with one-time and recurring billing, merge the schedule information into the quote document, and send it to the customer. You can forecast the same line item multiple times with or without changing the dates, price, or billing frequency details.

The Implementation team can use the following API for forecast billing:

https://<URL_of_the_Instance>/api/billing/v1/schedules/forecast

Querying and Retrieval of Custom Plans and Line Items Underneath

You can query and retrieve the custom plans along with the line items that were previously created. The search criteria can be the exact name, plan ID, order ID, proposal ID, order line item ID, or line item ID.

The Implementation team can use the following API to query and retrieve the custom plan along with its line items:

https://<URL_of_the_Instance>/api/billing/v1/line-items/custom-plans/custom-plans

Support for Advancing the Term of Evergreen Products

Conga Billing now supports advancing the term of evergreen products. The amendment creates new billing schedule records and requires updating the billing header with the contract dates and the TCV (Sales) fields.

Support for Editing Custom Plans

The billing application provides you with the ability to edit custom plans directly. Editing is allowed at the plan header and line item level, however, there is a restriction on the number of fields that can be edited on these levels of the custom plan. You have the option to edit the custom plan at the proposal or order levels, however, editing is restricted if the proposal is accepted or an order line item under an order is activated.