Manage credits and commits on contracts

Metronome supports the ability to adjust a customer's balance by issuing credits. Common scenarios for credits include:

• Prepayment, typically at a discounted rate
• Reimbursement for downtime
• Promotions

Credits are often used in conjunction with commits. Commits represent spending agreements made as part of a contract. Together, credits and commits aid in accurate reporting of a customer's spend, and your revenue.

Both credits and commits can be scoped to all contracts, a singular contract, a subset of contracts, all usage products, a subset of usage products, or a singular usage product. In addition, you can control when credits or commits go into effect by setting the access schedule.

You can manage credits and commits using the Metronome app or API.

Grant credits to a customer

There are two ways to grant credits:

• Directly to a customer (more common)

  In most cases, you add credits to the customer so the credits apply to any contract the customer has over time.

• To a contract

  Adding credits to a contract means that the credits only apply to usage invoices generated by that contract.

To a customer

To grant credits to a customer through the Metronome app, go to Customers > select the customer > Balances > click Add credit.

To a contract

To grant credits to a contract through the Metronome app, go to Customers > select the customer > Contract > select the contract > click the three dot menu at top right > click Add an amendment > click Add credit.

Issue a commit to a customer

A contract may require a customer to pay a certain amount at the start of a contract (a prepaid commit) or at the end (postpaid).

Regardless of type, there are two ways to issue a commit:

• To a contract (more common)

  In most cases, commitments are part of commercial terms with a customer and apply only to a specific contract. In that situation, add the commitment directly to the contract at creation time or via an amendment later. The commitment applies only to usage invoices generated by that contract.

• Directly to a customer

  Commits can be added to a customer in cases where the commitment applies across multiple contracts. Commits added at the customer level, if they have an invoice schedule, must always be invoiced on an existing contract. Be sure to create that contract before you try to create a customer-level commit.

To a contract

To issue commits to a contract through the Metronome app, go to Customers > select the customer > Contract > select the contract > click the three dot menu at top right > click Add an amendment > click Add commit.

To a customer

To issue commits to a customer through the Metronome app, go to Customers > select the customer > Balances > click Add commit.

Credits, commits, and invoices

Credits and commits apply to line items on usage invoices. Credits and commits apply to each line item up to the balance remaining on the credit or commitment. If there is a remainder for a given line item, Metronome creates a new invoice line item for the usage product and attempts to apply the next open balance. If there are no remaining balances to apply, Metronome creates what is referred to as an "overage" line item.

Metronome applies credits and commits by priority. Priorities are positive decimal numbers, where smaller numbers represent higher priorities (that is, priority 1 has higher priority than priority 2).

If a customer has multiple credit grants that could be applied to an invoice, Metronome always chooses the one with the higher priority. If two credit grants have the same priority, the one that expires sooner is consumed first. If two credit grants have the same priority and expiration date, the product-specific credit is burned down first. If two credit grants have the same priority, expiration date and are both product-specific the one with the earlier effective date is burned down first.

These rules apply just the same to commits.

Update schedules

When viewing a credit grant or commit in the Metronome app, you can update its end date by clicking the three dot menu and selecting Change end date. This allows you to update all access schedules to end as of the specified date. In the case of a commit, this operation also allows you to remove future invoices beyond the specified end date.

Reading balances

In Metronome, a balance reflects all granted credits and issued commits. Balances are calculated on both the customer- and contract-level.

You can see all customer balances across any credit or commit created on the customer or on a specific contract by going to Customers > select the customer > Balances. In addition, you can fetch all customer balances via the Metronome API.