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Inogic acquires Dynamics 365 CRM apps for tax calculation, recurring billing and payment reminders from Rockton Software

April 22, 2020 CRM News and Info

We are glad to share this news with our community friends that we have recently acquired three value added apps from Rockton Software that will assist in the billing and tax calculation for Dynamics 365. As you know, accounting within Dynamics 365 CRM is something that organizations have been craving for since long and thus with the acquisition of these apps automating recurring billing and subscription in Dynamics 365 CRM will be made possible and thus enabling our Partners to improve productivity and offer end-to-end solutions for their clients.

The motto behind acquisition of these apps was to provide complete accounting and billing solutions to sales and service industries under the header of our organization. We were already offering accounting services to the industries with QuickBooks integration, however, these three apps can also perform standalone using custom entities to record transactions. The apps acquired by us are – Software Management, Tax Processing and Recurring Billing.
Let’s delve deep and understand how these apps function to improve Dynamics 365 productivity:

It was developed keeping specifically VARs in consideration. This apps manages software billing and license management and also works for any organization that tracks monthly billing. It also offers flexible billing schedules, payment reminders and penalty calculation. Apart from this, it also helps in automated invoice generation at the click of a button. Also, it helps in sending invoices to entire Accounts Payable team or a single contact.

As Dynamics 365 users always crave for a feature to calculate tax within CRM, Tax Processing has been developed to calculate taxes right within CRM. This automation of tax calculation enables calculating taxes whenever a new quote/order/invoice is created. Taxes with Tax Processing can either be manually or with AvaTax from Avalara. This eliminates the manual calculation of tax and ensures accuracy while calculating taxes.

With Recurring Billing Manager the process of billing can be automated with support for creating billing on daily, monthly and annual billing plans. Invoices are automatically calculated for billing plans and overdue for invoices are created along with penalty for unpaid invoices. With flexible and automatic billing schedules, the task of billing is streamlined and made easy for the users.
Thus you have seen how with the help of these apps we will be able to incorporate accounting and billing in our CRM. With these apps the users can act more freely without the stress of calculating taxes manually, scheduling bills at intervals or generating invoices/penalty.
So it’s now time to get going quickly. Download the apps for a free trial of 15 days from the links mentioned above or email us at crm@inogic.com for a quick demo.

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CRM Software Blog | Dynamics 365

SuiteBilling Simplifies Complex Billing for Managed WiFi Services Provider

January 24, 2020 NetSuite

Posted by Barney Beal, Content Director

For Datavalet, a Canadian WiFi managed services provider, billing a customer can be a complicated endeavor. Managing WiFi services for hotels, restaurant chains and the like means customers vary widely.

“McDonald’s has more than 1,500 restaurants in Canada, and every one has a subscription,” said Jean-Claude Homet, vice president of finance for Datavalet. “I need to make sure I have the proper number every month. On the other end [of the spectrum] I have a single hotel or a chain with two dozen sites.”

A combination of growth, demand for greater visibility into operations and the frustration of finance led Datavalet on a journey to solve not just its billing challenges but to replace an outdated accounting system.

Spun off from Nortel in 1998 as a company that provided wired internet services to the hotel business, Datavalet’s growth took off as WiFi emerged. It now serves managed WiFi solutions to large enterprises, restaurants, banks, insurances, hospitals, airports, hotels and school campuses. Its services span installation, network and infrastructure management, and it has become the leading managed WiFi provider in North America with 10,000 client locations.

For years, managing billing at Datavalet was done manually with spreadsheets, forcing finance staff to carefully check to make sure nothing was missed. But when new investors acquired the company in 2017, they wanted greater visibility into operations. Datavalet tried to reconfigure its existing Acomba accounting system to meet its requirements but when that failed to meet expectations leadership realized they would need new software.

The company looked at Sage Intacct, SAP Business One and Microsoft Dynamics before ultimately choosing NetSuite.

“Subscription billing, consolidation, ease of access, out of the box reporting—no one did all of those things as well as NetSuite,” Homet said.

NetSuite didn’t just address the company’s accounting issues, it was able to solve its billing problems as well. NetSuite’s unified billing framework supports transaction, subscription, usage-based and hybrid models, all while managing revenue accurately and in accordance with the latest revenue recognition standards. While importing and setting up the roughly 200 subscription accounts Datavalet was managing took some work, once it was in NetSuite the results were impressive.

“As soon as July hit we were amazed how fast we were done with our billing,” Homet said. “By July 10 we were done and everyone was wondering, ‘what do we do now?’”

Indeed, the entire implementation took just four months using the SuiteSuccess methodology and NetSuite Professional Services, and it now has a unified platform for managing financials, its US subsidiary thanks to multi-subsidiary management with NetSuite OneWorld, and its complex billing scenarios with SuiteBilling. Billing has been simplified significantly.

“SuiteSuccess made a huge difference,” Homet said. “It’s their team, their product, that’s what they do day in and day out. To have a team dedicated to SaaS, made a huge difference to us. We really dealt with people who know what they’re doing.”

Datavalet was so pleased with the initial implementation, it quickly decided to add NetSuite Professional Services Automation (PSA) software for managing professional services. Datavalet had tried using a highly customized version of SugarCRM to manage its deployment department, but eventually gave that up and tracked resources manually.

“PSA will allow us to better integrate the deployment department into accounting,” Homet said. “It’s going to help us calculate cost of goods sold, deployments and internal labor costs. It’s also going to be easier to manage when we deploy a new customer with hundreds of locations.”

Datavalet is looking to double its annual growth of around 15 to 20%, as it expands into the US with a new partnership with AT&T. NetSuite OneWorld will allow it to continue to add and easily consolidated subsidiaries.

Learn more about NetSuite SuiteBilling.

Posted on Tue, January 21, 2020
by NetSuite filed under

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The NetSuite Blog

Work 365 Payment and Invoice Integration for CSP Automated Billing

December 19, 2019 Microsoft Dynamics CRM

When it comes to billing, invoicing and payment collection, there’s more involved than just sending out an invoice.

One of the main challenges of a cloud solution provider within the Microsoft CSP Program is to either create or find solutions that will standardize the invoicing and payment collection process to help scale their business.

To scale the business service providers, must tackle several tasks seamlessly:

Provision and bundle services and offerings
Pro-rate based on usage and providing usage metrics
Invoices Creation
Delivery of Invoices
Payment Collection

For many IT services companies including Microsoft partners, billing reconciliation and payment collection is a manual task that can take upwards of 10 hours a month for just 15 recurring customer invoices. This effort grows significantly based on the volume and types of services provided.

There is coordination between the accounting, sales and operations teams to collect all the data necessary to just generate invoices accurately. Not only does it take a lot of time and is error-prone, but also requires using several different systems to complete tasks.

Streamlined Accounting Process

Work 365 tackles these issues by becoming the all-in-one service option for cloud providers and partners. For whoever looking to scale their business and automate the sales and billing systems to deliver better service, with accurate invoices on time every single time.

Work 365 can integrate with Accounting systems like QuickBooks, Xero and Business Central as well as payment gateways to directly accept payments from automatically generated invoices.

Deep Dive: Work 365 Integration with QuickBooks Online

Work 365 invoices are automatically generated. The invoices can then be Auto-Synced into your accounting system or synced using a one-click function with Work 365.

xinvoicing for csps 625x168.png.pagespeed.ic.N9 6iBNXWU Work 365 Payment and Invoice Integration for CSP Automated Billing

In case, if there are multiple companies or accounting systems synchronized with CRM, Work 365 system allows the configuration and setup for more than one accounting systems.

xquickbooks integration 625x625.png.pagespeed.ic.JQM082ussg Work 365 Payment and Invoice Integration for CSP Automated Billing

The invoice is synced to QuickBooks automatically or with a single click and all the details along with product information, pricing and descriptions are all passed over to the accounting system.

xinvoice sync with quickbooks 625x281.png.pagespeed.ic.yqoE3g1ver Work 365 Payment and Invoice Integration for CSP Automated Billing

The invoice line items reflect the Work 365 automatic license proration for previous mid-term license changes, as well as the full upcoming billing cycle.

xinvoicing for billing cycles 625x340.png.pagespeed.ic.qshsUQ692Z Work 365 Payment and Invoice Integration for CSP Automated Billing

The cash can be applied to the QuickBooks invoice and the status will update automatically in Work 365. These invoices can also be visible through the Work 365 Self-Service portal.

With these integrations, Work 365 allows users to collect payments and sync any invoice, any product, service or subscription within the system.

Learn how to charge invoices and collect payments using the invoice and payment integrations. Click here.

Check out our customer case studies to learn more about the problems our CSP customers faced. Click here.

I am a Dynamics 365 enthusiast. I enjoy building systems and working with cross-functional teams to solve problems and build processes from lead generation to cash collection. Work 365 is a global developer of the Billing Automation and subscription application for Dynamics. Helping companies to streamline business processes and scale their recurring revenue.

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CRM Software Blog | Dynamics 365

Managing Business Credit Risk for CSP and Recurring Billing with Work 365

December 13, 2019 CRM News and Info

Payments at Risk

Not all customers are created equal. This is especially true when it comes to payment timeliness – businesses that offer pro-rated or ongoing services in advance of payment are taking on risk and can be affected by slow or missed customer payments.

Evaluating the extent of that risk and coordinating that risk can be difficult when invoices, payments, and services are all on different systems. With cloud services and recurring billing, we need to apply a different mindset to provisioning, invoicing and payment collection.

In a previous post, we shared best practices on Subscription Billing. Subscription billing cannot be treated the same way that we handle one-time items or paper-based licenses or even project-based invoices. It’s commonplace to apply protections like Billing in advance to ensure that the payment is received before incurring any costs.

Subscription Billing or Cloud services have these characteristics:

Generally long term in nature
Customers tend to purchase with options like Monthly or Annual billing
Purchases are not always large
Cloud Services tend to be essential services that are commonly used to run the business like Email

Credit Hold Functionality

Regardless when there is a new relationship – financial and accounting processes need to be in place in order to streamline and Sales and Billing operations. Credit management is one such item. Dynamics 365 Sales provides out of the box fields like Credit Limit and Credit Hold. These fields are exactly what they are meant to be which is to flag a customer for Credit Hold and specify a Credit limit for the customer.

Work 365 leverages these features to limit the exposure and synchronize the process between sales->service and finance. A new or existing customer may be on credit hold as the sales team closes their first sale and even set up subscriptions and billing contracts. While the Account is on credit hold the system doesn’t provision any services thereby allowing the finance team to complete any credit management processes like requesting a payment profile or collecting documentation. Once the Credit management process is completed and the Credit hold is lifted the system automatically provisions any items that are in the awaiting state.

Another use case is when a credit hold is placed for non-payment. The customer’s account can be put on credit hold preventing them from making further changes or adding subscriptions. Sales and service teams can indicate to the customer that the account is on credit hold and not something they are able to workaround. Giving your finance and sales teams further leverage to collect payments while also providing adequate system-based responses. This credit hold feature prevents revenue loss from unpaid balances. This is also another example of how Work 365 leverages the Dynamics 365 Sales application to synchronize the tasks between Sales, Service, and the finance teams.

Work 365 syncs account and system information from sales and accounting and streamline the credit check process to make sure all information is accurate and up-to-date. Holds can be immediately paused or un-paused based on the customer’s payment and credit history with your services. These features, coupled with invoice integration for automated billing, help Cloud Solution Providers to control their cloud business even more than before, saving time and money.

Check out our customer case studies to learn more about the problems our CSP customers faced.

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CRM Software Blog | Dynamics 365

Recurring Billing Platform & Self Service Portal – Work 365 Version 2.7 Fall 2019 Release

November 21, 2019 CRM News and Info

Work 365 helps companies grow and scale their recurring revenue with Subscription management and Billing Automation capabilities built on Dynamics 365.

Work 365 Version 2.7 addresses the core needs of business insights and self-service. Recurring Revenue and Subscription-based sales happen as a series of collective events that take place as customers stay engaged with a service provider.

The customer may start with one service and then continue to grow their engagement both through their own organic needs and through the expanded service offerings. This release addresses some of these needs by delivering better customer engagement through the self-service portal capabilities and with the Analytics and reporting capabilities that surface customer insights.

Work 365 version 2.7 features

Brand New UI to match the UCI interface
Enhancements to the Self-Service portal solution
Non-Recurring Billing Contract Changes
Enhanced Agreement Templates and Billing Contracts
Customer Agreements to support the Microsoft CSP requirements
New Integrations: TechData; Quickbooks Desktop

New Version 2.7 Enables Partners to add non-recurring items to their recurring billing contracts.

Non-Recurring Billing Contracts are no longer required to invoice Non-Recurring Items. Non-Recurring items can now be added to Regular Billing Contracts. NRIs that are added to regular Recurring billing contracts are billed as part of the regular invoicing cycle of the Billing Contract that it is added to.

The main difference between recurring billing contracts and non-recurring billing contracts is, if you include an NRI in a regular billing contract, the NRI will be included in the next invoice that is generated; NRIs within non-recurring billing contracts, however, are invoiced the next day. Non-recurring billing contracts can still be used for NRIs; however, this change provides more flexibility for partners to decide how they would like to manage the billing for NRIs. For resources on these items refer to:

Some of the screenshots of recurring and non-recurring billing contracts and items.

xNon recurring items 625x383.png.pagespeed.ic.sBMZp1l9oj Recurring Billing Platform & Self Service Portal – Work 365 Version 2.7 Fall 2019 Release

Check out these resources to learn more about Work 365!

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CRM Software Blog | Dynamics 365

Microsoft Partners and CSPs Need Automated Billing Systems – Why Excel Isn’t Enough

November 15, 2019 Microsoft Dynamics CRM

If you’re in the business of generating recurring revenue like Microsoft CSP Partners and using Excel to handle your customer’s subscriptions and billing, you’re not alone. Dynamics 365 can easily be used to manage your sales and service, and with Work 365 you can manage recurring revenue and Billing automation for subscription sales. While Partner Center and Distributor portals are available, most Service providers still use spreadsheets to log and record the changes that are being made to subscriptions and services. These changes along with a combination of all the different invoices are used to invoice and bill a customer.

This process can take hours or even days for teams of sales and accounting members to manually go through customer accounts and match up customer data in Dynamics CRM with the appropriate subscription changes in order to manually create and send out invoices. Most importantly this process is not scalable.

automated billing 625x192 Microsoft Partners and CSPs Need Automated Billing Systems – Why Excel Isn’t Enough

Automating this process can save a service provider hundreds of employee hours that can be used to focus on value creation tasks around customer service and sales to grow the business. Billing automation solutions like Work 365, that are built on Dynamics 365 allow Microsoft Partners to grow their recurring revenue with these great features around billing automation:

Bundling products and services into custom packages
Automatically Creating invoices by calculating prorations, refunds, and renewals
Automatically Sending and Collecting payment for invoices through
Calculating monthly Sales commissions and incentives
Integrating with accounting systems
Enabling Self-Service scenarios for customers to directly provision and manage their services

Work 365 is built on Dynamics 365 and has bi-synchronization with Partner Center, all subscription changes, billing, and payment status, and invoicing can be done directly from Work 365 with a click of a button, saving Partners and CSPS time and using multiple systems to keep their records in check.

Watch our webinars to see how Work 365 can help Indirect and Direct CSPs automate and reconcile billing and invoicing.

By Ismail Nalwala

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CRM Software Blog | Dynamics 365

Recurring Payments: How to Qualify for Recurring Billing Interchange

May 31, 2019 Microsoft Dynamics CRM

By David Goodale of Merchant-Accounts.ca

In our final part of our three-part series on what membership organizations should know about recurring payments, we look at how to qualify for Recurring Billing Interchange.

You can read part 1 here and part 2 here.

Technical Requirements: How to Qualify for Recurring Billing Interchange

We should start by clarifying that recurring payments don’t automatically get lower interchange rates. If you just send a credit card transaction each month to your payment processor for the same amount it won’t qualify for the special pricing, because they’ll have no way to know that it was a recurring payment. To them, it would appear to them as a bunch of 1-off transactions.

If you are building your own custom integration to a payment processor, you must find out if there is a recurring billing flag or identifier so that you can pass it with the transaction. You must speak to your payment processor to find out how to do this. In fact, if you do recurring payments and do not yet have a payment processor, you should start by making sure your processor agrees to:

Give you interchange plus pricing
Confirm they have the capability to receive a recurring billing flag
Allow you to pass the recurring billing flag so that your transactions qualify for the lower interchange rates.

Without meaning to make this discussion overly complicated, it should also be pointed out that we are referring to your “payment processor” in this discussion, but more specifically your merchant account provider and payment gateway must both support this. If this is confusing to you, there is a video explaining the components of an e-commerce transaction here.

If the prospect of building your own integration into a payment processor is too complex, you can use a pre-existing platform, such as Dynamics Association Blueprint, to handle your recurring payments. Dynamics Association Blueprint is one of the few recurring payment platforms that ensures each recurring transaction is properly flagged to get the lower recurring interchange rate. It’s important to talk to them about this because it must be configured both technically (at a systems level) and also on the payment processors side – so a close working relationship with your processing partners is vital.

The good news is that it’s certainly achievable if you are aware of the issues, take the time to ask the questions, and select partners that will support your business through the process to make sure it’s done correctly.

Dealing with expired credit cards, technical hiccups, and other issues

It is much easier to make a sale to an existing customer than it is to convert a cold prospect to a customer. Recurring billing is a frictionless way to generate additional revenue from your existing customer base. It’s unfortunate when problems occur to upset a finely tuned customer list.

In many cases, it’s not your fault or even your customers fault. For example, a customer may have had their card compromised and it will have been re-issued by the bank. If this happens, the replacement card will have a different card number and expiry date. This would cause your recurring payment to fail.

Or, it could be as simple as your customers hard having expired, and a new card sent out with a new expiry date.

Fortunately, the card brands have addressed this issue through the Card Updater service which is supported by both Visa and Mastercard. Integrating it directly to Visa or Mastercard can be challenging, so it is an optional service that some payment processors provide an easier integration. This makes it fairly easy to easily submit a previously processed card, to request new billing credentials. It’s a tremendously valuable service to any organization whose revenue is billed on a recurring basis. The account updater service is not available from all credit card processors, so you should ask your payment processor if this can be supported.

CRM Dynamics Offers a Recurring Billing Management Platform

CRM Dynamics offers a fully integrated payment gateway that allows Tokenized Credit card transactions from with CRM and within Portal applications. Your solution is PCI Compliant (meaning you do not store sensitive credit card information) while still retaining the expiry date, last 4 digits of the card, and a token to allow re-charging the same card. CRM can then automatically apply reoccurring payments such as monthly subscriptions, bi-weekly charges, on-demand charges or client self-serve with automated checkout.

Why not download a trial and learn more about our payment gateway. We work with most existing credit card authorization organizations.

About the Author

David Goodale is CEO of Merchant-Accounts.ca, and is one of Canada’s leading experts in the field of e-commerce payment processing. Over the past 20 years, David has worked with thousands of merchants across Canada, the USA and throughout Europe. David consults for large and complex e-commerce businesses on issues such as cross border payments, interchange optimization, and particularly on approval for hard-to-approve businesses such as airlines, travel businesses, crypto payments, and also for unique and interesting startups.

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CRM Software Blog | Dynamics 365

Global Company looks to Rockton for Automating their Recurring Billing

May 24, 2019 CRM News and Info

Technology and automation go hand and hand. It’s all about increasing productivity by reducing the time it takes to do a particular task. With CMC Group, Inc. they knew they needed a way to automate their recurring billing, manual was not an option.

CMC Group, Inc., established in 1980 as a small label distributor. Over its 40-year history, CMC Group has expanded to include multiple companies of excellence, with world-class printing capabilities as the foundation. CMC Group has facilities in the USA, Canada, and the UK and sells throughout North America and Europe.

Manual vs. Automation

They had a business goal of adding subscriptions to their product line. After doing some research, they found Rockton Software as an option to help them with their business requirements.

Teamwork Gets the Job Done

The development team at CMC Group, Inc. were able to work with Rockton Software to fully realize the product capabilities and our requirement needs. “Rockton was not only exceptional working with us through problems and testing, but they also made sure we were satisfied with the solution.” CMC Group, Inc.

Life with Rockton’s Recurring Billing

CMC Group, Inc. can manage their customers’ expectations with proper billing and notification cycles within their Dynamics AX and CRM environment. The sales team loves the ease of use, with their buy-in, our subscription services have been an exceptional addition to help service our customers.

Expand and Grow

In the beginning, they started with only two subscription offerings for their customers. Now they offer 7-9 different subscriptions, with more on the horizon. This was all possible, thanks to their developers and the Rockton team. Together they made our ®.

What it means to Work Simpler & Easier®

CMC Group, Inc. goals were to meet the needs and manage their customer’s expectations. With this new subscription model, their relationship with their customers is stronger and allows them to communicate with the customer and automate the subscription process. They were able to take their Recurring Billing to a whole new level. They can manage the billing without team members having to do another step, and it is set up to automatically bill at the current rate on their AX trade agreement.

These are just some of the highlights. Please check out the full Case Study here.

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CRM Software Blog | Dynamics 365

Top 10 Billing Best Practices for Dynamics 365

April 27, 2019 Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Sending invoices to your customers should be a simple process within Microsoft Dynamics 365. Just send it and it’s paid. Unfortunately, the billing process can be a bit strenuous at times. It’s important to hold on to those valued customers by providing excellent customer service and making sure invoices and payments are on time.

Follow these best practices to help navigate and eliminate the challenges that come with each billing cycle.

1. Reach the Right Person

We all know employees do not stay at the same company or in the same role. This can be problematic when it’s time to send out an invoice, only to find out months later that individual is no longer with the company. It’s important to take the time to review the Customer Account and make sure you have the right contact or more than one contact.

2. Timing is everything

Define your billing cycle requirements. Are these invoices monthly? Make sure to generate invoices early, giving the customer plenty of time to review and pay them. If possible, you may want to consider automating the processing by utilizing nightly jobs to create the invoices for you!

3. Value in Accuracy

Check for accuracy. Make sure the quantity and the products or services you are billing for are correct. Nobody wants to call the customer informing them of an error.

4. Show the Detail

It’s great to know what you’re paying for. Ever get an invoice with just the amount due, like a medical bill, that makes you ponder what you are paying for? Showing detail on the invoice so the customer knows what product or service they are paying for is so helpful.

5. Highlight Important Information

Call attention to due dates and amount due. Make it easy for your customers to know the amount to pay and when it’s due. Highlight or bold those fields to draw attention to them.

6. Promote Early Payment

You may want to consider offering discounts if paid early. Think about it, the quicker you have the money in your account, the better. Of course, on the flip side, if customers are behind on paying those invoices, you may want to consider assessing penalties as well. Whatever you decide, make sure it is clearly explained on the invoice.

7. Leverage the Invoice for Marketing

Add promotions, discounts for early payments, or services you provide that the customer might not know about. Make every touch point count!

8. Provide Payment Options

Who doesn’t like options? Make sure you provide value to your customers by accepting multiple forms of payments such as credit cards, wire transfers, or PayPal.

9. Track It

Ever get a call from a customer wanting to know their account balance? Wonder how many invoices were paid this month vs. last month or even last year? Tracking information so you can quickly find it is crucial and can save some much time in the long run. Make sure you are utilizing reports, dashboards, or some quick visual cues to identify the health of an account.

10. Don’t Forget the Follow Up

Don’t forget to send that email letting your customer know you value their business. For larger invoices, a phone call is even better! Or to put that cherry on top, send a small gift at the end of the year to your most valued customers. A little bit goes a long way!

Written By Sheila Ochoa, Technical Sales, Rockton Software

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CRM Software Blog | Dynamics 365

Google Maps Platform arrives with pay-as-you-go billing, free support, and Cloud requirement starting June 11

May 2, 2018 Big Data

Google today announced a massive revamp of its Google Maps business: The new Google Maps Platform promises streamlined API products, a simplified customer experience, a single pricing plan with pay-as-you-go billing, free support, a single console, and new industry solutions. The catch? Starting on June 11, you’ll need a valid API key and a Google Cloud Platform billing account to access the core Google Maps APIs.

Google opened Google Maps to developers way back in June 2005. The Maps APIs business has largely stayed the same since, despite the mapping problems solved using the APIs having become more and more complex.

Google Maps Platform is supposed to address this for developers by scaling as their business grows (or their usage spikes). And of course, what Google charges will scale with you.

APIs

The core Google Maps APIs help developers create location-based apps and experiences. This release is meant to make the APIs simpler, easier to use, and scalable as your project grows. The changes are designed to work with your existing code — no changes are required on the developer’s end.

Google has streamlined 18 individual Google Maps APIs into three core products, based on what it believes are the most common developer use cases: Maps, Routes, and Places. Here is the breakdown of the three:

Maps: Helps developers build customized, agile experiences that bring the real world to users through static and dynamic maps, Street View imagery, and 360-degree views.
Routes: Gives your users the best way to get from A to Z with high quality directions and real-time traffic updates.
Places: Helps users discover the world with rich location data for over 100 million places, enabling them to find specific places using phone numbers, addresses, and real-time signals.

Google hopes this grouping will make it easier to find, explore, and add new maps features to apps and sites.

Pricing and billing

The previous Google Maps business standard and premium plans have been consolidated into one pay-as-you-go plan. Developers pay only for what they use, with Google promising no annual payments, up-front commitments, termination fees, or usage limits. There is a “free tier” in the form of a $ 200 monthly credit for all developers, which Google expects will cover the usage of 98 percent of its current customers.

Below you can see the pricing breakdown for the three products. All prices are based on your monthly usage, determined at the end of each month.

The Google Maps Platform has also been integrated with the Google Cloud Platform Console, billing, and website. The goal is to make it easier for developers to track usage, manage projects, and of course “discover” other Cloud products.

All developers will now have access to online support 24 hours a day during the week, with Google committing to 1-hour response times for critical issues. Support will not be offered on weekends.

Industry offerings

Google already announced the first new such offering in March — a gaming product which lets developers build massive real-world games with Google Maps data. Two more products are being announced today, one for ridesharing and one for asset tracking.

The former allows ridesharing companies to embed Google Maps navigation into their apps — Lyft started using this experience for its driver app in October. The latter is an asset tracking product to help companies locate vehicles and assets in real time, visualize where assets have traveled, and route vehicles with complex trips. Google promises more such solutions are in the pipeline and that the company will naturally be focusing on areas “where we’re positioned to offer insights and expertise.”

Google notes its programs that help nonprofits, startups, crisis response, and news media organizations will not be affected by the Google Maps Platform changes. “We’ve put new processes in place to help us scale these programs to hundreds of thousands of organizations and more countries around the world,” the company explained.

If your business depends on Google Maps APIs, you’ll want to check out Google’s Guide for Existing Users. If you’re just getting started, make sure you can fit into that $ 200 free monthly credit before launching anything.

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Tag Archives: Billing

Inogic acquires Dynamics 365 CRM apps for tax calculation, recurring billing and payment reminders from Rockton Software

SuiteBilling Simplifies Complex Billing for Managed WiFi Services Provider

Work 365 Payment and Invoice Integration for CSP Automated Billing

Streamlined Accounting Process

Deep Dive: Work 365 Integration with QuickBooks Online

Managing Business Credit Risk for CSP and Recurring Billing with Work 365

Payments at Risk

Credit Hold Functionality

Recurring Billing Platform & Self Service Portal – Work 365 Version 2.7 Fall 2019 Release

Work 365 version 2.7 features

Microsoft Partners and CSPs Need Automated Billing Systems – Why Excel Isn’t Enough

Recurring Payments: How to Qualify for Recurring Billing Interchange

Global Company looks to Rockton for Automating their Recurring Billing

Top 10 Billing Best Practices for Dynamics 365

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